Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Brisbane Was Once Thriving Community In Nevada County

The mystery of Brisbane has been solved, thanks to a couple of Nevada Countians who came forward immediately.

Sheriff Steve Otwell called Tuesday night to inform the Picayune the former town  or community  was near Bodcaw.

Wednesday Ervin Poss' Fairchild came by to give a little history behind the town and to point out the vicinity it was located.

Fairchild said the town was on a stage route that his great grandfather had after the Civil War. He said after his great grandmother passed away James Richard Bennett married a woman (whom Fairchild only heard of as "Mrs. Bennett") who owned a stagecoach line.

During that period there were three "military roads" leading out of Camden to Washington in Hempstead County. The northern route came through Moscow, just out of Prescott. The middle route came through the county near Carolina and westward through Harmony, north of Hope and then to Washington. It may have also continued northward through Ozan. The southern route came through the area near Waterloo, Willisville and Corinth Church, where it turned north and went close to Union Church. Northeast of Union was Brisbane. Fairchild said the road continued northward, crossing the middle route at Harmony and then proceeding to Moscow, where it connected with the northern route.

Fairchild said the town died out around 1905.

Otwell said he searched a computer program and came up with the location. The map picked up Thursday at the sheriff's office shows the exact location Fairchild had said it was when he looked at a current county map.

Fairchild said Mrs. Bennett outlived his great grandfather and moved to Bingen, where she married a Mr. Woolfe. They built a three-story house at Bingen and continued to run the stagecoach lines.

When she married Fairchild's great grandfather the woman owned 18,000 acres of land in Nevada and Hempstead Counties, Fairchild said. He said some of the land came from grants given to soldiers after the Civil War.

So Brisbane was located on what is now the junction of County Roads 29 and 131, just over a mile east of Highway 53.

County Road 29 intersects Highway 53 about a half a mile north of Union Church.