Williams Station, a one-room saloon, general store, and stagecoach stop on the Big Bend of the Carson River, was named for brothers James O., Oscar, and David Williams and became remembered in Nevada history as the incident that ignited the Pyramid Lake War of 1860. Located about ten miles northeast of where Fort Churchill was later built, at a site now submerged by Lake Lahontan, the station was raided by the Paiutes on May 7, 1860. Accounts differ on the exact events leading to the Williams Station Massacre, but most say two young Paiute girls were abducted by traders, held at the station, and molested. About nine Paiute warriors then went to the station and forced five white men believed responsible for the kidnapping inside the building: Oscar Williams, David Williams, Samuel Sullivan, John Fleming, and Dutch Phil. The station was burned with all five men inside. J.O. Williams, the station operator and owner, was camping a couple of miles farther up the river and escaped. He rushed to Virginia City with the news, and a militia of about 105 men was quickly formed to apprehend those responsible, under the overall command of Major William Ormsby. After the war, the station was rebuilt as Honey Lake Smith's and was visited by Mark Twain in 1861, who said it was "a two-story log house situated on a small knoll in the midst of the vast basin or desert through which the sickly Carson winds its melancholy way."