The Honorable George Ernst

Photograph of George Ernst, presumably taken during his time in the Nevada State Senate; The Honorable George Ernst was born in Kirchheim, Hessen Cassel, Germany in December 18, 1837; His father, Daniel Ernst, was a stone mason; At the early age of two the family emigrated to New York, and then to Pittsburg; In 1845 the elder Ernst still felt the call of the wild and settled his family in Dubuque, Iowa; George Ernst received his education in the public schools there while also learning his father's trade; He subsequently entered Kenyon College in Ohio from where he graduated with high honors in 1862; He then returned to Iowa and became a schoolteacher; In 1863 he worked as a schoolteacher in Dayton, Lyon County and also engaged in civil engineering;;In 1864 Ernst was the first to suggest to Adolph Sutro, the feasibility of the enterprise resulting in the construction of the famous Sutro Tunnel, and to him is accorded the honor of making the first survey, locating the tunnel and shafts; He and Ellen Mary Hinton (from Birmingham, England) were married in Dayton on October 1, 1865 and honeymooned at Lake Tahoe; They had 9 children, 7 of whom lived past childhood; In the spring of 1866, Mr. Ernst accompanied Governor H. G. Blaisdel on an expedition to survey a route to the southeastern part of the state; After some hardship, the expedition reached the Pahranagat Valley; In 1867 he was the first elected assessor for Lincoln County after its organization; In 1868 George Ernst's father retired to Nevada to live with his son's family; In 1870 the Ernsts took up farming in Hot Creek in Nye County; In 1870 he received the appointment of deputy county surveyor for Nye County under John Jack who was elected county surveyor on November 8, 1870; When the office was declared vacant on January 4, 1872, Ernst was appointed as county surveyor; In 1873 he moved to Belmont in Nevada to engage in mining engineering and where he lived for 24 years; He was subsequently elected county surveyor in 1874 and 1876; In 1877 he was put in charge of the office of County Recorder and Auditor, and was elected to perform the duties pertaining to that office on November 5, 1878; He was then elected as a Democrat to the Assembly of the Nevada Legislature; In 1896 he was elected to the Nevada State Senate; He was also the Deputy United States Mineral Surveyor for eight years; He amassed considerable holdings, both in land and urban real estate, and in 1993 went into the sheep industry in Elko County; In 1904 he sold that property and settled again on a large ranch in the Old River District of Fallon where he engaged in general farming, along with raising cattle; His son, George D. also was a prosperous stockman in Churchil County; In 1906 the Ernsts retired to Oakland, California where his son, Clarence was a real estate broker; He died on October 31, 1908 at age 71 in Brawley, California and is buried in the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California; Ellen Mary Hinton Ernst died on July 8, 1944 at age 99 having outlived all but 2 of her children;