Twelve Mile House

I get a lot of people looking for “Twelve Mile” places on this site. Naturally we should expect that for a site named Twelve Mile Circle. Sometimes it leads to amazing discovers like the Twelve Mile 500, the preeminent professional lawnmower race anywhere on the planet. Other times it leads to dead ends.

So it seemed promising when I noticed a search for something called Twelve Mile House. I wondered what untold stories might hide behind the scenes just waiting to be exposed to the larger Internet. Then I hit the motherload. There isn’t just one Twelve Mile House. No, I stumbled across bunches of them.


California

Twelve Mile House; Coyote, California. Public domain image via San Jose Public Library

This version of Twelve Mile House perched along a stagecoach line between San Jose and Monterey in the Nineteenth Century. The name may have derived from the distance between Coyote (where it stood) to the town of San Jose. A stagecoach stop provided wonderful opportunities for commerce and gatherings so 12 Mile House served many needs over the years including hotel, saloon, store and post office. Some of these functions appear in this circa 1890 photograph.


Ohio

This might be one of them. I’m not sure. A Twelve Mile House definitely exists on the National Register of Historic Places in Sharonville, Ohio at 11006 Reading Road. The Street View image isn’t clear enough to read the signs on the building, though. It’s the only one seemingly “old” enough to fit the proper period of historical significance, 1825-1849.

Ohio’s Twelve Mile House served as a hotel and a restaurant and it continues to operate as a commercial property today. The Register doesn’t record the significance of the 12 miles but a quick eyeballing shows that it’s about that far to downtown Cincinnati. That would be my guess.

[UPDATE: new Street View imagery does identify it as Twelve Mile House]


Nevada

Nevada shapes its historical markers like Nevada! What a great point of geo-trivia.

Twelve Mile House, Nevada Historical Marker No. 125, Near Gardnerville, Nevada. Photo by Ken Lund; (CC BY-SA 2.0)

This roadside sign in the Carson River Basin of Douglas County is Nevada Historical Marker 125. It is located on U.S. Highway 395 about six miles south of Gardnerville (map). Twelve Mile House exists solely as a historic location today with the original structure long gone. It sat at the convergence of two primary roads through the area in 1860, the Boyd Toll Road which led to Genoa and the Cradlebaugh Toll Road which led to Carson City.

Naturally this would be an attractive place to build a hotel and that was the exact historical need met by this incarnation of Twelve Mile House. The distance applied in two different ways in this instance, referring both to the town of Genoa and to the Cradlebaugh Bridge leading across the Carson River.


Alaska

The final instance is contemporary, the 12 Mile Road House Bar & Liquor Store in North Pole, Alaska. Even Santa needs a drink I suppose, and when he does it’s likely at a roadhouse near the North Pole. I hope he’s a fan of Bud Light because an entire tractor-trailer load seems to be unloading. The question remains, twelve miles from what? Fairbanks is one possibility but I’ll likely have to wait until one of the bartenders or patrons stumbles across this page someday and submits a comment. Until then the mystery remains.

Comments

2 responses to “Twelve Mile House”

  1. Scott Schrantz Avatar

    I live near the Twelve Mile House in Nevada. A Washoe smoke shop is on the site now, but there are some old run-down buildings behind it. I’ve always wondered if those were remnants of the original station, but I’ve never stopped to look at them up close.

    The Nevada State Historical Marker program has been going on for about 40 years, with over 250 markers scattered around the state. Not all are in the shape of Nevada, but I’d say over 95% are. One guy has made it his mission to track down and visit every one of the markers. You can follow his progress, and his collection of photos, at http://www.nevada-landmarks.com

    1. Twelve Mile Circle Avatar

      Thanks for the tip, Scott. I went to the site and noticed that Nevada Landmarks has visited and recorded Twelve Mile House, and includes some nice photographs. The site also mentions that, "if you look carefully, one will spot some of the original remnants of the station, just behind the cottonwoods that now grow here."

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