Mazuma Cemetery

Pershing County

Flash Flood of July 1912: Mazuma sat below the town of Seven Troughs at the mouth of the canyon. A storm started building in the mountains above Seven Troughs. The rain began to pour. The flood water built up pressure as it came down the canyon and passed through the lower end of Seven Troughs. By the time the flash flood hit Mazuma, it was reported that the wall of water was twenty feet high. With the exception of a couple businesses, residences and the Darby Mill, the entire town was destroyed. Many were killed, to include three children from the Kehoe family. The post office closed a couple months later and Mazuma was never rebuilt. If you read some of the outstanding books on Nevada history, you will see that two of my favorite authors got the date of the flash flood wrong. One author lists it as July 29th. Another author lists it as July 9th. Findagrave lists it as July 18th. The memorial marker that sits below Mazuma lists it as July 29th. The newspapers of the day that reported on it, make it very clear. The date was July 18th. I will post some Newspaper articles that I found from that time period. That is in no way meant to bash those authors. In my opinion, their books are the best around. It just means that they are human. Also, they wrote those books before the internet existed. None of this information was available to them, via a few clicks of a button. They had to do research the hard way. Another item of dispute was the number of deaths. I've read articles and stories claiming anywhere from seven to twenty. For example, I've seen reports that the Trenchards died immediately, but they did not. Whether or not they die later based on the injuries sustained from the flood is not known to me at this time. I'll keep working on it. I'm going to refer to the July/ August 2012 article from Nevada Magazine titled "Mazuma Wiped Out". They list the victim count at EIGHT. The three Kehoe children, Julie Foncannon (drowned in Burnt Canyon to the north), Perry Gillespie (child who was playing with the Kehoe boys), Postmistress Maude Ruddell (Other articles refer to her as Edna. Her obituary from the Reno Gazette in 1912 refers to her as Maude Edna Ruddell), store clerk Margaret O'Hanlon, and miner Mike Whalen who was in his Mazuma cabin at the time. I'm going to leave it up to you to decide if this is correct. I hope that I've given you a decent starting place.

Note: If you look into the distance in a few of these photos, you will see the ghost town of Tunnel Camp.

Last Trip/ Road Conditions: May 2021. The cemetery sits below the town and the road here is good. There is another historical marker located somewhere else. I can't describe how to find it. We did by accident. Just keep your eyes open.