Washoe Valley causeway

Looking east. In the late 1800s a causeway crossed the north end of Washoe Lake, Nevada, heading directly east from Franktown. (At present Franktown is a high-end suburb of Reno and Carson City; then it contained ranches and truck farms that supplied Virginia City.) The causeway formed part of a wagon road that went directly east-west across the valley, connecting over the Virginia Range (on the skyline) to the mines of Virginia City. When the lake is at a very low level, as here, the stumps of posts that supported the causeway are exposed.