A version of this article first appeared in the Reno Gazette Journal on April 11, 2004.
The folklore is that the hillside letters found in the American West were created to help early 20th-century airplane pilots navigate and identify communities, presumably when the aviators could see the letters during daylight, with good weather, and no snow cover.
The truth is the hillside letters are first and foremost symbols of school and community pride dating back to 1905. Early-day pilots found the hillside letters useful at times; however, any aeronautical value associated with the school and community letters came after the fact.
Folklorist Andrea Graham in the September-October 1987 issue of Nevada Magazine wrote an excellent article on the subject of hillside letters in Nevada titled "If It's 'T' It Must Be Tonopah." Shortly thereafter, a comprehensive article, "Hillside Letters in the Western Landscape" by University of California, Berkeley geographer James J. Parsons, appeared in the 1988 edition of Landscape, Vol. 30, No. 1 (abstracted in the January 1989 issue of Harper's).
Trend started at Cal
The University of California's 70-foot high "Big C" in the Berkeley Hills started the college craze that spread throughout the trans-Rocky Mountain West. Built by the freshman and sophomore classes during the first spring days of 1905, just in time for official recognition at the annual Charter Day celebration, the hillside letter became the model for scores of letters to follow. Students at Brigham Young University built a 320 foot-high Y above its Provo, Utah, campus in 1906. The University of Utah constructed a block U in 1907 just above Salt Lake City.
Other schools soon followed, including Colorado State University, the Colorado School of Mines and the University of Oregon in 1908; the University of Montana in 1909; and the Montana School of Mines (Montana Tech) and the New Mexico School of Mines in 1910. There are many more college hillside letters in the West, and some of them are fairly recent in vintage. University of Nevada students constructed a 150-foot high and 140-foot wide block N on April 13, 1913, near the base of Peavine Peak overlooking the Truckee Meadows. It was composed of rocks covered with whitewash. The block N covers 13,000 square feet. Graham noted in her story that it was the largest hillside letter in the country until 1925.
1916: Elko starts trend in Nevada
The first documented Nevada high school letter was the Elko E reportedly built in late 1916. According to Howard Hickson, former director of the Northeastern Nevada Museum, the E was constructed in honor of Raymond Thomas, a popular high school teacher who died on October 1, 1916, in an unexpected snowstorm while hiking in the nearby Ruby Mountains.
Apparently, the next Nevada hillside letter was the T built in 1917 to honor Tonopah High School's state championship girls' basketball team. By the early 1920s, Carson City High School students had erected a C on a hill west of the city that came to be known as C Hill. The fad's boom years witnessed the creation of the Sparks S and Battle Mountain BM in 1925, the Virginia City V in 1926, the Lincoln County L at Panaca in 1927 and the Virgin Valley High School V in Mesquite in 1929.
Dozens of letters now mark hillsides throughout Nevada since the first one was completed north of Reno more than 90 years ago. In turn, tens of thousands of Nevadans have memories of their role in keeping the letters readable. Despite the ravages of the harsh desert weather, vandalism and school-related pranks and rivalries, the ritual of whitewashing or painting these distinctive vernacular landmarks in the western states endures as a tradition of school and community pride long after the flight of the last barnstorming pilot.
Hillside letters throughout Nevada
Hillside letters, also known as mountain monograms, appear in at least 55 locations throughout the state of Nevada. They honor cities, counties, high schools -- and at least one brothel. Below is a non-definitive list of where to find nearly every letter in the alphabet (sorry, no U's, X's or Z's).
* A: Angel's Ladies
* A: Austin
* B: Basic High School
* B: Beatty
* B: Burkholder Middle School
* BC: Boulder City
* BM: Battle Mountain
* C: Carlin
* C: Carson City
* D: Damonte Ranch High School
* D: Dayton
* D: Douglas High School
* E: Eldorado High School
* E: Elko
* E: Eureka
* F: Fallon
* F: Fernley
* FV: Fernley High School Vaqueros
* G: Gabbs
* G: Galena High School
* G: Goldfield
* H: Hawthorne
* H: Hazen
* H: Holbrook Junction
* I: Ione
* IS: Indian Springs
* J: Jackpot
* L: Lincoln County
* L: Lovelock
* L: Lund
* M: Moapa Valley High School
* M: Mountain City
* N: University of Nevada, Reno
* O: Owyhee
* P: Pahranagat Valley High School
* Q: Quinton Robbins (1 October shooting victim)
* R: Reed High School
* R: Reno
* R: Ruth
* S: Sparks
* S: Stewart Indian School
* SAR: Fallon NAS Search and Rescue
* SC: Spring Creek
* SS: Spanish Springs High School
* SV: Smith Valley
* T: Gabbs High School Tarantulas
* T: Tonopah
* THE NARROWS: The Narrows at Lahontan Reservoir
* TONOPAH MINING PARK: Tonopah Mining Park
* V: Virgin Valley High School
* V: Virginia City
* W: Wells
* W: Winnemucca
* WP: White Pine County
* Y: Yerington
Guy Rocha served as Nevada state archivist.