Hart Corbett

Biography

Remembering Hart

By Rand Hees

We recently lost one of our legitimate old timers, Hart Corbett…

Hart was a descendant of a pioneering family in Carson City, Nevada. Their contributions include: The Corbet House.

500 block of north Carson Street, on the west side between Spear and Robinson… Later site of the Arlington Hotel. In late 1860 the Corbett brothers, Daniel and William, arrived in Carson City from Downieville, CA. They had immigrated there from Nova Scotia in the early 1850's as part of the mass rush to the California gold fields. They were carpenters, and were able to find plenty of work in this growing town. In 1865, they built a building of their own, a hotel on Carson Street at Robinson. They named it the Corbett House, and it became one of Carson's prominent hotels.

In August 1876 the Corbett House burned down. The brothers got to work rebuilding, and when they were done they had the brick building you see here, named the Arlington Hotel.

The Arlington Hotel remained one of the premier hostelries in town. As the years went on it went through several owners. In 1902 it was bought by Wilson Brougher, a mining tycoon who had just arrived from the gold fields of Tonopah. He also built the Brougher-Bath Mansion one block away. In 1907 the proprietors were listed as Charles Stout & Wm McMillen.

The Arlington Hotel took up almost the entire block between Spear and Robinson, but not quite. It did have one neighbor at the corner of Carson and Spear, the Gray Reid Wright Building.

Rode the Virginia & Truckee Railroad as a child with his father.

Member of the Wilcox family, which owned the Grove Plantation on Kauai, which owned a significant 30” plantation railway, with 4 preserved locomotives. His cousins were the Patterson Family, who owned Ardenwood Farm. Hart was a great source for memories of the Patterson Family.

He was a long time banker, working for Wells Fargo, in their commercial loan division. As such he spent much of his time working with problem loans.

Member of the Northwestern Pacific Historical Society, one time president.

Long time friend of Ted Wurm. When we were writing the article on the Mt. Diablo and San Jose, Hart was our source for the personal stories

Long time right of way explorer. Andrew and I spent a day exploring the Sardine Valley with him. He gave me a number of Carson & Colorado and Virginia & Truckee building fragments, gathered for their paint information.