Neil E. Taylor was born in Battle Mountain, Lander County, Nevada, January 30th, 1897. When he was one year old his parents moved to Golconda, Nevada, residing there until the spring of 1901. From there they moved to Carson City. In the summer of 1902, after the passage of the “Reclamation Law,” his father, having been placed in charge of all work thereunder in Nevada and adjacent parts of California east of the Sierras, moved to Reno, where he resided for the next two years and where Neil entered the public school. In 1904, in order to be closer in touch with the work on “Truckee-Carson” (now “Newlands”) irrigation project, then well under way under his direction, his father moved his headquarters to Hazen, taking the family with him. Here they remained until the latter part of 1906, when, on account of an injury sustained by his sister, necessitating the constant attention of a physician during the next few years, the family moved to Los Angeles, California, where they resided until the summer of 1913, except during the intervals spent in Mexico after the winter of 1908 and 1909. The father had left the U. S. Reclamation Service and taken charge, as chief engineer, of a large irrigation project in the State of Sonora in that country. At this time Neil had not been very strong and his parents decided to take him out of school for a time. Accordingly he was taken to Mexico in the spring of 1909 where he spent the next year in the open with his father’s engineering parties, riding, hunting and fishing, growing strong and rugged. After this time he returned to school at Los Angeles where he graduated from the grades and entered the high school. In 1913, owing to revolutionary conditions in Mexico rendering it impossible to continue work on the irrigation project there, Mr. Taylor decided to return to Nevada, where he had land interests. He spent the next year in Carson City where Neil attended high school, and then removed to Reno, where he graduated and afterward entered the State University.

When the United States entered the World War in April, 1917, Neil, then twenty years of age and in his sophomore year in the University, was anxious to join in fighting the “Hun.” Accordingly he enlisted in the army on April 20th, only two weeks after the declaration of war. On the 22d he left for Angel Island, California, to report. Shortly afterward he was assigned to Company “B”, 21st U. S. Infantry, and sent to the Mexican border east of San Diego, California. There, in July of the same year he was stricken with scarlet fever, removed to Fort Rosecrans, San Diego, and after five days illness, died on July 20th, 1917.

Neil’s many friends in Carson City and Reno deeply felt his loss, for he had won popularity wherever he lived. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. L. H. Taylor of 1035 N. Virginia Street, Reno, Nevada. Besides his parents, he leaves two sisters, Mrs. A. Brockway and Louise Helen, both of 1035 North Virginia Street, Reno, to mourn his loss but honor his memory.