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Collection: Directories and Documents > Directories
Brown & Dallison's Nevada, Grass Valley and Rough and Ready Directory (650.025 BRO)(January 1856) (177 pages)
Brown & Dallison's Nevada, Grass Valley and Rough and Ready Directory, in addition to being a valuable record of who lived or worked where on Nevada's numbered streets as of late 1855, features "History of Nevada County", by A. A. [Aaron Augustus] Sargent (1827-1887) (pages 7-45), the most widely read and cited early county history. However, the directory failed to live up to its promise of being "a full and complete street directory for these places".
Subtitled "a general directory of citizens", it gives 31 pages to the businesses and residents of Nevada -- 1,109 listings, 375 (33.8 percent) of them numbered. But it gives only 3 pages (71 listings) to Grass Valley and 2 pages (38 listings) to Rough and Ready. And their listings include only businesses, not residents.
Six Nevada streets had numbered residential and business houses -- Broad, Cayote, Commercial, Main, Pine, and Plaza. Broad and Main were numbered from their heads off the bridges that crossed Deer Creek from the plaza -- odd on the left, even on the right. Cayote and Commercial were similarly numbered from their starts off Main.
Biased as it is toward Nevada, the directory marks the start of numbered buildings in Nevada from the fall of 1855, when its compilers, both Nevadans, announced their plans to publish the directory in 1856. Brown was a newspaper man, and Dallison was an agent with a knack for making money by peddling building numbers in Nevada to give the town the progressive look of a big city. Brown (1834-1921) stayed around to become one of Nevada City's most important newspaper publishers, while Dallison ran off with the proceeds. This would set a pattern for later directories, the number agents of which were likely to skip town.
Five years later, Hugh B. Thompson (1818-1865), also a Nevadan, criticized Brown & Dallison's directory, and particularly Dallison, in the preface to his 1861 Directory of the City of Nevada and Grass Valley, which see for details. See Building numbers (external link) for an overview of the history of street addresses in Grass Valley and Nevada City.
Subtitled "a general directory of citizens", it gives 31 pages to the businesses and residents of Nevada -- 1,109 listings, 375 (33.8 percent) of them numbered. But it gives only 3 pages (71 listings) to Grass Valley and 2 pages (38 listings) to Rough and Ready. And their listings include only businesses, not residents.
Six Nevada streets had numbered residential and business houses -- Broad, Cayote, Commercial, Main, Pine, and Plaza. Broad and Main were numbered from their heads off the bridges that crossed Deer Creek from the plaza -- odd on the left, even on the right. Cayote and Commercial were similarly numbered from their starts off Main.
Biased as it is toward Nevada, the directory marks the start of numbered buildings in Nevada from the fall of 1855, when its compilers, both Nevadans, announced their plans to publish the directory in 1856. Brown was a newspaper man, and Dallison was an agent with a knack for making money by peddling building numbers in Nevada to give the town the progressive look of a big city. Brown (1834-1921) stayed around to become one of Nevada City's most important newspaper publishers, while Dallison ran off with the proceeds. This would set a pattern for later directories, the number agents of which were likely to skip town.
Five years later, Hugh B. Thompson (1818-1865), also a Nevadan, criticized Brown & Dallison's directory, and particularly Dallison, in the preface to his 1861 Directory of the City of Nevada and Grass Valley, which see for details. See Building numbers (external link) for an overview of the history of street addresses in Grass Valley and Nevada City.
Catalog #: 650.025 BRO
Author: Nat. P. Brown and John K. Dallison, compilers and publishers
Publisher: San Francisco (CA): Town Talk Office (printer)
Published: January 1856
Subjects: Nevada County, Nevada, Nevada City, Grass Valley, Rough And Ready, Directory, 1856, Building Numbers
Related Items: Original Held At:
Author: Nat. P. Brown and John K. Dallison, compilers and publishers
Publisher: San Francisco (CA): Town Talk Office (printer)
Published: January 1856
Subjects: Nevada County, Nevada, Nevada City, Grass Valley, Rough And Ready, Directory, 1856, Building Numbers
Related Items: Original Held At:
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