Nevada Genealogy Trails Pershing County Stephen R. Young Biography

STEPHEN R. YOUNG has been one of the foremost men in the upbuilding and improvement of the fertile valley in which the town of Lovelocks is situated. He is the owner of the only large brick Mock in the town. which he built in 1891. It covers seventy by one hundred feet of ground space, and the west half is occupied by the Lovelocks Commercial Company in the conduct of a large department store, and the east half is the Young's Hotel ; the ground floor of the hotel is occupied by the office, restaurant and dining room, while the upper part is divided into a front parlor and large, well-furnished sleeping rooms. Mr. Young also has a livery stable, a good residence and several dwellings in the town. He owns twelve hundred acres of land in the vicinity, and to make this productive has expended sixty thousand dollars on a water and irrigation system, which is perhaps his most important enterprise both from his own standpoint and because of its immense value to this section of the county. He has a water power which now furnishes one hundred horsepower, and the plant is so constructed that nine other wheels can be put in of one hundred horsepower each, making a total of one thousand horse power. It is the intention soon to install an electric light plant and also to pipe the water to the town, which innovations will place Lovelocks at the front in the matter of civic improvements. One half mile of the water canal is thirty feet deep, seventy feet wide at the top and twenty-five at the bottom, and it conveys water to ten thousand acres of land, and ultimately the whole upper end of the valley will be covered by its water. The Big Meadows, in which the town of Lovelocks is located, is about ten miles wide and thirty miles long, and its rich dark loam soil needs only irrigation to make it produce abundantly, as its many fine farms already indicate. Irrigation to any important extent is a great undertaking and requires capital, and where it is not carried through by government management some man of enterprise, executive ability and public spirit must step forward and assume the risks and labors attendant upon such endeavors, and such a man has Lovelock valley found in Mr. Young.

Stephen R. Young was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, January 24, 1855, and is of German and Irish ancestry, and the son of S. R. and Julia (Madigan) Young, the former a native of Canada and the latter of Ireland. These parents died at the respective ages of forty and sixty-five years, and of their six sons Stephen is the only survivor. He was educated and reared to manhood in the state of Maine, and came to Unionville, Humboldt county. Nevada, in 1873. He has the credit of discovering the first pay dirt in Spring valley, and from eight to eleven miles of the valley has been placer- mined. He came to Lovelocks 'in 1876 and conducted a general merchandise store for ten years, after which he sold out to the Lovelocks Commercial Company. All his time is now taken up with the care of his extensive irrigation and other property interests.

In September, 1885, Mr. Young was married to Miss M. E. Wilson, a native of the state of New York. Four children have been born to them. all in Humboldt county, namely : Clarence, Leland, Blanche and Mary. Mr. Young is a Republican in politics, but has never had time to consider politics in any other way than to cast his vote for the man and principles that seem to him to represent the best interests of town, county and state.

Source:
A History of the State of Nevada: Its Resources and People
By Thomas Wren, Lewis Publishing Company
Published by The Lewis publishing company, 1904
Contributed by Barbara Z.