The Fight for Ranching’s Future in Carson Valley

In what has now become a year-and-a-half long fight between ranchers and homeowners in Carson Valley, an appeal will be heard in late August for a proposed slaughterhouse in Centerville, a ranching community south of Gardnerville, which had been unanimously denied by Douglas County Commissioners in Nov. 2019. The line was drawn in the sand between ranchers, who were in favor of a harvesting and processing plant for their livestock, and homeowners, who were worried about their housing prices being affected by a new facility. Karin Sinclair and Mike Holcomb of the newly created Carson Valley Meats have been struggling to win approval for their proposed slaughterhouse and meat processing facility ever since, and the appeal next month will be the final decision on their endeavor. The proposed site for the processing facility is the old Storke Dairy in Centerville, which used to house 250 cows and operated for over 50 years at the corner of Centerville Ln. and Highway 88. The old dairy, which spans nearly 60 acres and is zoned for agricultural and meat processing use, has been used as little more than storage since it shut down nearly two decades ago. Pastures that used to contain dairy cows now house two lone horses, who are probably happy for the space. If Sinclair and Holcomb win their appeal, the facility, which will use approximately 2 acres of the 59.6 acre site, will be a state of the art, USDA-certified meat processing facility, breathing new life into the old building. This is not the first time there has been a slaughterhouse and meat processing facility in the valley. In fact, up until 1997, Carson Valley Meat Co. had been in constant operation since the early 1900s until it was sold, and the historic building the town grew up around was demolished in 2001 to make way for houses. In a parallel to the current fight between ranchers and the county, the land around Carson Valley Meat Co. was rezoned from agricultural to residential, and soon after the Chichester Estates subdivision was built on the surrounding property. Then Carson Valley Meat Co. owner Bill Mendes, who had bought the company from Fred Dangberg in 1965 and kept it going until 2001, told the Record Courier in a Dec. 19, 2001 article he knew as soon as the land was rezoned that it wouldn’t be long until the new residents would complain and get his facility shut down. After the loss of Carson Valley Meat Company, ranchers then had to take their cattle and livestock to Fallon or out of state to be processed, which was a significant cost increase due to transportation. Now, history is repeating itself yet again...MORE