Mazuma Nevada started its short life in 1907 when the Seven Troughs gold strike started attracting an influx of miners from other areas. The town was named from the Mazuma Hills claims and the camp grew quickly in the mouth of Seven Troughs Canyon.
The summer of 1908 say the camp as the largest in the area with the founding of a post office, bank, three story hotel, fire department and the Seven Troughs District News.
The Darby Mill was built and started production in 1909. The future was relatively bright for this upstart little town.
Yesterday afternoon, at about five o’clock, the town of Mazuma (northeast of Reno) was devastated, eight people were drowned and nine more injured, many fatally, and a property loss estimated at nearly $200,000 by a cloud burst that swept down, unheralded, upon the mountain town. The known dead are:
Edna Russell, Postmistress at Mazuma;
Three children of Wm. Kehoe, all aged under seven;
M.C. Whalen, a miner, aged 35;
Mrs. Floyd Foncannon, drowned in Burnt Canyon six miles north of Seven Troughs canyon.
Those injured so far as can be learned at time of going to press are:
John Trenchard, merchant, probably fatally;
Mrs. Trenchard, badly cut and bruised, may recover.
Mrs. Kehoe, cut about head and face, bruised about body, may die;
Mrs. O’Hanlan, badly injured, may recover.
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Today the first witnesses of the flood conductions and who talked to the survivors returned to town. Among them was Drs. Russell and West, H.J. Murriah, J.T. Goodlin, H.S. Riddle, Jack and Will Borland and W.H. Copper.
Lovelock Review-Miner July 12, 1912
The town of Mazuma was build in the flood channel of Seven Troughs Canyon. A nearby cloud burst caused a wall of water estimated between eight and ten feet tall scouring the canyon floor as it raced by.
The Darby Mill survived the flood only to be lost to fire two weeks later. After the flood and fire, the mill was rebuilt operations continued until 1918.