Sparks’s history is
mostly unwritten
The public archives hold only 4 old photos of Sparks. The rest are in attics, shoeboxes and the historical society. Help start the collection.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Euro-American settlement began in the early 1850s, and the population density remained very low until 1904 when the Southern Pacific Railroad built a switch yard and maintenance sheds there, after moving the division point from Wadsworth. In 1902, the Southern Pacific purchased a large tract of swamp-like land near its newly built railyard, and gave employees clear deed to a 50 ft × 140 ft (15 m × 43 m) lot for the sum of $1. It also offered to pick up and move every house in Wadsworth and reassemble it in this new town free of charge. As the population increased, a city was established, first called Harriman, after E. H. Harriman, president of the Southern Pacific, and then renamed Sparks, after John Sparks, then governor of Nevada.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowStart Sparks’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Sparks’s history is told.
2 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old view08091-Sparks, Nev.-1906-River Sce…, 1906: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from Sparks
See all 21 →
Sparks, decade by decade
1950s
1990s
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as 08091-Sparks, Nev.-1906-River Scene-Brück & Sohn Kunstverlag (1906) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (12). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.