JW Stewart House

JW Stewart House

This home originally belonged to James W. Stewart. The Stewart brothers moved to Mono County in the 1860’s. They ranched and did many other things. J.W. Stewart also had a lot of timber land in the area (over 1320 acres) and 2 saw mills which he sold to N.B. Hunewill and William Irwin in 1880, 3 years before he died.

Until the current owner, this home had been occupied by a descendant of some sort or another. The Stewart family, there were lots of Stewarts, used to have an extensive ranching operation that is now completely under water, the reservoir covers all of that land.

At some point it became the Denton family home. Doctor “Bob” William Lemmon Denton moved here for a quieter practice in 1942, but his patients followed. He was born in the Dakota Territory in 1887. He went to dental school first to earn enough money to pay his way though medical school and got his medical degree in 1914 from Northwestern. After an internship at a large hospital he was assigned to “hospitals” in mining towns and camps. He married Vivian Webster who was a school teacher in Randsburg in 1918. They had 3 boys, the oldest died at the age of 2. (One of their sons (Robert) became a doctor and their other son, Eddie Denton, became a local judge for many years. One of his granddaughters also became a doctor.) He became known as the “Lucky Dr.” but it was mostly patience and skill. He once pieced a battered head back together so well that when it was x-rayed later there was no evidence of the skull ever fracturing. (The patient wasn’t too excited about this however because he wanted to claim disability and there was no remaining evidence of his injury.)