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George Wingfield and the American Dream

American Families: GEORGE WINGFIELD: The King of Nevada

Thank you to Melinda Price, Granddaughter of George Wingfield and Carolyn Wingfield Price Reed, the Great-Granddaughter of George Wingfield, for submitting, writing and editing this story idea!

George Wingfield (1876-1959) was a Nevada rancher, banker, mine operator, horse enthusiast, and family man who became one of the state’s most powerful economic and political figures from 1909-1935.

George Wingfield got his start in the silver mining boomtown of Tonopah after 1901, and with Senator George A. Nixon as his mentor, Wingfield went from a $30 a month cowhand to a millionaire by age 27.

Moving onto to the gold mining camp of Goldfield, by his 30th birthday in 1906, Wingfield had made a fortune based on gold mining. After taking the Goldfield Consolidated Mining Company public in 1906, he was worth about $30 million (about $1 billion in today’s dollars).

Although he lost the bulk of his fortune in 1935 in the Wall Street great depression, according to Carolyn: “Still he provided for his family for many generations.”

He married Maude Murdoch in 1908, and they had two children, Jeanne (1912) and George Jr. (1914). For many years the wicker baby bassinet those children slept in has been passed down in the family for 5 generations and is currently all ready for the 13th baby due in September 29th, 2023. I think 16 babies will have been in the bassinet to date. George & Maude's baby, Jeanne Wingfield is in the bassinet in the photo, 1929.

Wingfield Park, alongside the Truckee River in downtown Reno, was built on land donated to the city by George Wingfield.

Starting in 1995, a new 1,660-acre, 400-home neighborhood was constructed on the site of George Wingfield’s former “Spanish Springs Ranch” out of Sparks, Nevada. “Red Hawk at Wingfield Springs” was completed in 2005 and named after Wingfield by its developer, Harvey Whittemore. While it was still Spanish Springs Ranch, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren played and rode horses there in the summers.

Wingfield also owned and operated the Golden Hotel and the popular Riverside Hotel in downtown Reno. Over the years the Riverside transformed into what it is today, a live-in/atelier building for artists.

Wingfield also maintained a lovely country home on a 320 acre ranch north of Reno in the town of Susanville, California. He stocked the land with many exotic animals including bison, elk & peacocks. After a few sales, in the 1950’s it became the site for a summer camp called ‘Mountain Meadow Ranch’ (formerly Meadowbrook), on Wingfield Road. To this day it is still extremely popular, and in fact the co-author of this piece, Carolyn, attended two summer camp sessions in the 1980s.

Wingfield was inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame in Leadville, Colorado in 1992.

A biography, George Wingfield: Owner and Operator of Nevada, by C. Elizabeth Raymond was written in 1992 and is available on Amazon.com. Photos courtesy of the Wingfield family.


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