Columnist Susan Snyder: Austin’s time has not passed

Friday, Jan. 2, 2004 | 9:19 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

With three hours left in 2003, Jan Morrison stood before nearly 90 people gathered in Austin's Main Street Shops and hoped.

Donned in hoopskirts, chaps and beaver skin top hats, these celebrants of the central Nevada town's opulent Victorian past held the key to its 21st century survival.

"This is the launch of an annual fund-raiser," she said. "We want to boost tourism. And we need to because we're suffering, as are most towns in central Nevada."

Morrison, formerly of Las Vegas, owns a historic house, storefronts and the 138-year-old St. Augustine's Catholic Church in Austin, a once-thriving 19th century silver mining town 330 miles north of Las Vegas on U.S. 50. Morrison has joined a cadre of newcomers who hope to use history to secure a future in tourism.

On New Year's Eve she hosted the first of what she plans to be an annual event to raise money and awareness for Austin. Attendees of the invitation- only event included historic preservation buffs from across Nevada.

Nine hours before the party started, Angela Haag hoped she would survive until midnight. Haag, who owns the historic bank in Goldfield, was in charge of choosing 19th century recipes and making sure they were cooked correctly.

The 25-item, four-course meal included salmon bisque, roasted lamb, game hens with juniper and sage and bread pudding with brandied walnut sauce.

For 84.

"Can you imagine that many people would come to Austin and commit to dressing up in Victorian clothing?" she asked as she poured burgundy over a heap of pearl onions sauteing in a skillet.

That night as we ate, we marveled at each other's clothing and met people we most certainly wouldn't have encountered any other way. We couldn't imagine that revelers anywhere on the planet were having a better time.

We wondered how they assembled such feasts before Costco. We hoped the re-enacting brothel inspector's black powder pistol was loaded with blanks. (Keep yer pantaloons on. It was.)

Just before midnight we walked into the still, frigid night to ring St. Augustine's bell. Snow made the planned walk up the steep hill to the church impractical.

A group of boys had run a 300-foot rope from the bell tower to the sidewalk. At midnight we all grabbed hold of it and pulled.

Silence.

We pulled again.

Nothing.

Three boys ran up the slippery slope and snatched the rope dangling from the tower. Anticipation couldn't have run higher on Times Square.

The year 2004 was a couple of minutes old when the bell finally clanged clear and true, amid cheering and applause. It was a scene eerily similar to one that likely occurred on that very spot some 140 years ago.

Up the street, a more modern tradition played out as celebrants from the International Bar's annual chili cook-off hauled a Christmas tree into the center of U.S. 50. It remained there until just before dawn.

Pretty exhilarating night in a town most Nevadans can't find right away on a map.

"Central Nevada is fun," Morrison said.

And on New Year's it glitters without a single firework -- unless the brothel inspector's pistol pops count.