Bar in Carver's Station, Nevada: photographic print

From the Nye County, Nevada Photograph Collection (PH-00221) -- Series V. Smoky Valley, Nevada and Round Mountain, Nevada -- Subseries V.A. Carver, Carver-Duhme, and Carver-Book Families (Smoky Valley). Originally the bar room in Carver’s Station was rather narrow; it was widened by bolting a number of 2-by-12s together and using that as a roof beam. Ground motion from the first atmospheric atomic test at the Nevada Test Site, located to the south, produced so much shaking that it broke the beam and caused the roof to sag. Ground motion from the nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site is a common experience in Smoky Valley, and residents state that they sometimes feel motion from underground tests. Jean Carver Duhme still instinctively notes the time of any earth motion to determine if it is caused by an announced atomic test or by an earthquake. When tests were conducted in the atmosphere, Jean Carver Duhme does not recall seeing any visible clouds containing radioactive material moving up the Valley from the Test Site, but believes that the uranium "boom" during the 1950s at the Northumberland in the Toquima Mountains can be attributed more to fallout from nuclear testing than to naturally occurring uranium. During the atmospheric testing period, residents in Smoky Valley wore dosimeter badges, devices for measuring individual exposure to radiation. Dick Carver remembers his first experience of an atomic device being set off in the atmosphere at the Test Site. He arose very early one morning to go fishing in Jett Canyon in the Toiyabe Mountains. Prior to daylight he remembers seeing a "big flash of light.. brighter than daylight. And then it [got] dark again. It's amazing how bright it was," he recalls.