In the spring of 1861 word of a silver strike in Buena Vista Canyon Nevada spread through the mining camps of the west. The first people on the scene were southern sympathizers and named the boomtown that sprang up Dixie. As miners poured in from the north to work the mines, vs. prospectors from the south who found the silver to begin with, the balance of political feeling tilted to support of the Union and in a hard fought campaign the newcomers changed the name of the town to Unionville.

It may come as a complete surprise to you, but, the renaming of the town did nothing to calm local feelings, or to heal the rift that had formed between the original settlers and the newcomers. Consequently, Unionville was divided down the middle of Main Street with its own Masson-Dixon Line and daily shuttles were arranged to move people around and across the line without threat of violence.

One of the newcomers was a young southern newspaper reporter and would be novelist named Samuel Clemons. Samuel moved in to Unionville to make his fortune with a big strike. He didn�t do so well as a miner and after a failed attempt at mine fraud, Samuel left Unionville grumbling; but, he did have better luck later in life writing under the pen name Mark Twain.

(2009) Enlarge I cannot stress enough how beautiful Unionville really is. My pictures don�t do it justice. Besides the Civil War connection there is the mining history and the ghost town itself. Unionville is up the big canyon on the left
 
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(2009) Enlarge Main Street

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(2009) Enlarge Mark Twain lived here in this house for three weeks. It is located in the Mohea Whitaker Youth Park

(2009) Enlarge Mark really let the place run down