Walter Scott HOBART, III

Walter married Hannah Neal WILLIAMS 1896, California. Hannah was born 22 Jan 1877, Washington, District of Columbia; died 5 Sep 1957, Monterey, Monterey, California. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

In order to secure a reliable source for lumber for his mining operations in the Comstock, Walter Scott Hobart organized the Sierra Nevada Wood and Lumber Company. By the early 1880s, the company controlled tens of thousands of wooded acres in the Tahoe Basin, and a lumber mill in Incline. Logs cut from Tahoe's east shore were towed to Sand Harbor behind the company's steamship Niagara. The logs then made their way to the Incline mill on railway cars that ran out over the harbor on piers, then north along today's State Route 28. The lumber from the mill continued on its way to Virginia City on the steam powered Great Incline Tramway, which ran straight up the mountain with a vertical rise of 1,400 feet, then along a water flume to the Washoe Valley, where it was loaded onto railroad cars and hauled to the Comstock on the Viginia and Truckee Railroad. Towards the end of the 19th century, timber along the east lake shore became scarce. The railway and sawmill were dismantled and moved to a new location north of Truckee, where a town and sawmill called Hobart Mills was established in 1896 after Hobart's death. The town grew to over 1,500 people. It had wide streets, plentiful housing, social clubs, a schoolhouse, and even a hospital, a resource even Truckee lacked. Hobart Mills continued to operate until 1936 after which it was wound down, drawing to a close over 60 years of the Hobart lumber empire. The Hobart Mills forests, thriving with second growth trees, were sold off to the U.S. Forest Service.



Walter Scott and Mary Rounds Hobart are buried at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park, Colma, California. With most of Colma's land dedicated to cemeteries, the population of the dead - about 1.5 million, as of 2006 - outnumbers that of the living by nearly a thousand to one. This has led to Colma's being called "the City of the Silent" and has given rise to a humorous motto, now recorded on the city's website: "It's great to be alive in Colma."

Our Frank Grant Hobart was the third cousin once removed of Walter Scott Hobart.

Walter married Mary Baker ROUNDS 1868, Passaic, New Jersey. Mary was born 14 Dec 1846, Bangor, Maine; died 8 Apr 1892, San Francisco, California; was buried Cypress Lawn Memorial Park, Colma, San Mateo, California. [Group Sheet]

Elijah married Judith BRODERICK 28 Oct 1829, Waterbury, Washington, Vermont. Judith was born 20 Feb 1810, Waterbury, Washington, Vermont; died 23 Jun 1879. [Group Sheet]