By Guy Rocha

Despite claims to the contrary, former President Ulysses Grant didn’t get into hot water at Walley’s Hot Springs or Steam-boat Springs.

Grant, accompanied by his wife and son on a world tour, visited Nevada in October 1879.

Grant had long since left the military as a Union Civil War hero and recently completed two terms as president of the United States (1869-77). His itinerary in Nevada was tightly scripted. Virtually every step he took was covered by the area’s newspapers.

On Sunday afternoon, Oct. 26, 1879, the Grant family detrained at Truckee. A carriage conveyed the party to Tahoe City where they were met at 2:30 p.m. by a delegation of prominent Nevadans, including lumber tycoon Duane L. Bliss. They boarded Bliss’ steamship the Meteor and crossed Lake Tahoe to Glenbrook. There, according to the Carson City Morning Appeal, passage was taken on Bliss’ narrow gauge Lake Tahoe Railroad to Spooner Summit. Renowned stagecoach driver Hank Monk held the reins of Grant’s carriage as it traveled down Clear Creek Canyon to Carson City, where a throng of people jubilantly greeted the former president at 7pm.

Guy Rocha is the former state archivist with the Nevada State Library and Archives, a Division of the Department of Cultural Affairs. For more information, go to http://nsla.nevadaculture.org/.

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