History of Nevada
Thompson & West - 1881

Ragtown was at one time one of the most noted localities in the Churchill County region, being a landmark of the past. In the earliest times it was a station on the overland road, when the emigrants moved across the Forty-mile Desert from Humboldt, and pushed on to the gold fields of California. When the Simpson route was discovered and adopted in 1860, and emigrants came by way of Schell Creek, Egan Canon, and Jacobsville, on Reese River. Ragtown still remained an overland station. Asa L. Kenyon settled at Ragtown in 1854, and has been the only permanent settler there since, stock-raising being his avocation. On his arrival there he found 200 people, but they all left in the fall. Two reasons are assigned for the origin of the novel name of the town. One is that it was originally composed of cloth houses built by traders from California, who, leavinii in the fall, left their ragged shelters to flutter in the wind. According to another authority the emigrants, on reaching it, hastened to divest themselves of their ragged garments, and plunge into the cooling waters of the Carson. Long, scattered piles of rags daily adorned the banks of that stream.  There was once an emigrant burying-ground at Ragtown containing 200 graves, results of cholera, fever and exhaustion in early years, which were variously marked with log-chains, wagon-tires, etc.  During the flood of 1861-62 it was completely cov-ered over and obliterated, and a public road now passes over the spot.

Shortly after reaching Ragtown, Kenyon located fifteen miles distant, on the Forty-mile Desert, where he sunk a well and did a very good business in the sale of water to emigrants, his charge for watering stock was twelve and a half cents per head.  He also bought a store of his cousin, and in connection with his water enterprise, retailed merchandise until 1860. At a time when the road was not kept open regularly, in the winter, a large party of Indians visited him and desired to purchase gun caps, upon which Mr. Kenyon raised the price to $300 per box. They expressed surprise at such an enormous price, and asked the reason of it.  The cap man is dead, replied Mr. Kenyon. For powder they were asked $300 per pound. " Is the powder man dead, too ? " they asked. " No," replied Mr. Kenyon, "but he is very sick." In 1867 an emigrant named Fleming perished from thirst on the desert between the Humboldt and Ragtown. He was out three days.  Learning of the circumstance Mr. Kenyon went out to search for him, and finally found him in a hole in the ground which he had clawed out with his fingers, being insane from suffering. He was brought back to Ragtown but died the next morning, and was buried in the emigrant graveyard.

In May, 1868, E. Clark paid a man twenty dollars to haul two wheels and a log of wood from the Cottonwood, on the Carson, to the crossroads of Ragtown and Wadsworth, preparatory to building a road between those two points. In June the first travel commenced. At about the same time the present road by way of Savage was completed. E. Clark purchased it in September, and has since owned it. St. Clair located the ranch on Old River, in 1862, which Theelan now owns, and established a ferry there. During the following winter he put up a bridge, and toll for crossing it has been charged ever since. Mr. Hill purchased the ranch in 1866, including St. Clair's store. In 1873, the ranch was purchased by Mr.  Henry Theelen.

In early times Centerville, one and a half miles above Ragtown, was a well-known point. Varney & Waters built a hotel there in 1860. Benjamin Curler purchased it in 1864 and subsequently sold it to Joseph Scott. Curler is now practising law at Belmont, Nye County.

T. Varney was killed in 1862 by Al Millstead, who was hanged at Carson City in 1863. Waters was killed on what is now known as the Little Adobe ranch, by a man named Wilson, who was subsequently tried and acquitted. In 1866, James Ferguson owned a ranch near Centerville, and was visited one day by a bad Pah-Ute known as "Buffalo Jim" who was accompanied by thirteen other Indians. They demanded two sacks of flour, a cow, and some money. Ferguson offered to give them the flour, but refused to retrive anything else, and a quarrel ensued, upon which they strung him up to a hay press, but cut him down before life was extinct. They also cut open all the baled hay on the premises. For these outrages Ferguson swore that he would kill "Buffalo Jim;" and meeting him out alone, about a year afterwards, he did kill him. He then fled from the country, and at last accounts was living in Missouri.  At the time he left Nevada he was the partner of Sheriff Scott.