Walker River rises in Mono and Alpine Counties, California, and flows
through Douglas and Lyon Counties, Nevada. Walker Lake, Esmeralda
County, forms its terminal sink. The river is about 150 miles in length.
Its waters are bright and sweet, and are filled with trout and good food
fishes of other varieties. The river has two large branches, known as
the East and the West Walker, which unite below Mason’s Valley. The
waters of Walker River serve to irrigate immense tracts of as fine land
as is to be found on the Pacific Coast, lying in Antelope, Smith’s, and
Mason’s Valleys. For the first half of its course the river flows
northward, then it suddenly turns south and forms Walker Lake. This lake
is a very bright, beautiful, and picturesque sheet of water. It is very
irregular in form, being frequently widened and contracted between its
rocky shores. It is about thirty miles long and has a width of from five
to eight miles.