More than 20 quakes in the Wells area alone were plotted on the same USGS map late Thursday, with more recorded throughout Nevada Thursday and over the past week — nothing, however, compared to a USGS map of California, with dozens of colored splotches indicating seismic activity in recent days.

Throughout what was for some a sleepless night Thursday and into Friday, the Wells area continued to rattle, racking up a mass of 26 overlapping blue squares, or earthquakes, on a USGS map by 3:45 a.m., with the largest square being the 6.0 Thursday.

A magazine put out by the Wells Chamber of Commerce contains a description on page 4 of Old Town Wells with its buildings that date back to the 1800s "and still stand virtually unchanged." Not any more.

Most of the touted walking tour of historic Wells takes the curious along Front Street, consisting of numerous old buildings, several that are or were saloons or places to stay. They were nearly all damaged, some severely.

At the Motel 6 just before 7 a.m. a layer of snow blanketed cars in the parking lot. A man behind the counter the previous evening told people checking in at the motel that before Thursday no one knew about Wells.

They do now.

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E-mail: sspeckmani@desnews.com