Nevada - Tidbits of History

Header image from Trip Advisor.com, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada.

Nevada became a state on October 31, 1864, the 36th.

Mountain Bluebird

The different species of bluebirds are not very friendly with each other and even try to exclude the other species from their territories. This is especially true between Mountain Bluebirds and Western Bluebirds since they compete for the same nesting sites. Only the female bluebird builds the nest. The male sometimes acts as if he is helping, but he either brings no nest material or he drops it on the way. Many native americans in the southwest see the mountain bluebird as a sacred symbol because of its azure-colored feathers. The navajo regard it as the herald of the rising sun, the image of a god.
State bird of Idaho and Nevada.

Flower: Sagebrush

Sagebrush has a strong pungent fragrance, especially when wet. Native Americans used the leaves of sagebrush for medicine and sagebrush bark for weaving mats.

When a sagebrush plant is attacked by predators like insects, the plant emits volatile organic compounds that neighboring sagebrush plants can sense and react to by producing defensive chemicals that make them unattractive, or even poisonous, to the attackers. And other plants, like wild tobacco, can eavesdrop on this and ramp up their own defenses, significantly lowering damage from feeding animals.

Tree: Pinyon or Bristlecone Pine

Nevada – Single-leaf Pinyon or Great Basin Bristlecone pine – From Nevada Legislature: “The bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) is the oldest living thing on Earth, with some specimens in Nevada more than 4,000 years old. The tree can be found at high elevations.

Single-leaf pinyon is one of the State Tree of Nevada. Pinus monophylla is the scientific name of white pine and it is commonly known as Single Leaf Piñon, Single Leaf Pinyon Pine, Stone Pine, Pine Pinyon, also called pinyon, nut pine, one-leaf pine, and piñon in Spanish language. Pinus are the genus of the white pine and P. monophylla is its species. The Nevada’s State tree Single-leaf pinyon is belongs from the family of Pinaceae, which is native to the United States and northwest Mexico. The pinyon or piñon pine group grows in the southwestern United States, especially in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. The trees yield edible nuts, (pine nuts) which are a staple of the Native Americans, and still widely eaten as a snack and as an ingredient in New Mexican cuisine. It takes three years for the piñon to form cones with nuts inside…but the cycle is moisture dependent.

Nevada State Quarter
From The U.S. 50.com

The first commemorative quarter-dollar coin released in 2006 honors Nevada, and is the 36th coin in the United States Mint’s 50 State Quarters® Program.
Nevada’s quarter depicts a trio of wild mustangs, the sun rising behind snow-capped mountains, bordered by sagebrush and a banner that reads “The Silver State.” The coin also bears the inscriptions “Nevada” and “1864”.

Nevada became a territory in 1861, several years after a Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War discovered gold and silver in the area of Virginia City. This discovery would later be referred to as one of the greatest mineral discoveries, famously known as the Comstock Lode.

Nevada is home to more than 50 percent of the Nation’s wild horses. The wild horses dominate the Great Basin in the vast deserts and the more than 150 mountain ranges. The first mention of wild horses was discovered in several journals dating to the 1820s.

Capital: Carson City, Nevada, named for Kit Carson. The town began as a stopover for California-bound emigrants, but developed into a city with the Comstock Lode, a silver strike in the mountains to the northeast.

Nickname: The Sagebrush State, The Silver State, and The Battle Born State

Motto: All for our country.

Nevada Facts and Trivia

Nevada is the seventh largest state with a total area of 110,561 sq mi., 85% of them federally owned including the secret Area 51 near the little town of Rachel. Dimensions of the state are 492 mi North-South; 322 miles East-West.

Nevada is the most mountainous state in the contiguous United States. Only Alaska has more mountains.

Nevada takes its name from a Spanish word meaning snow-clad. The only acceptable pronunciation of the state is “Nev-AD-a,” not “Nev-AH-da.” Pronouncing the state’s name incorrectly can draw ire among residents.

The first European to arrive in the area was Spanish friar Francisco Garcés in the 1700s. Few more Europeans ventured into the region until the 1800s.

In 1827, fur trapper and explorer Jedediah Smith passed through the Las Vegas Valley on his way to California. He mapped out much of the area for future travelers.

1842 – American explorer John Fremont found Lake Tahoe, one of the most scenic lakes in the West.

1846 – The Donner party wagon train was trapped by snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Nevada was considered part of Spain and then Mexico up until the Mexican-American War. At the end of the war, in 1848, Nevada became part of the United States as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

In 1850, Nevada was organized into the Utah Territory and then became its own territory in 1861.

Some of the first permanent settlers in the region were Mormons from Utah in 1851. Also, people began to travel through Nevada on their way to California, especially after the California Gold Rush began in 1848. The small town of Las Vegas became a stopping point for many travelers on their way to California. In 1864 the army constructed Fort Baker, boosting the population growth. However, it wouldn’t be until the 15th May 1905 when, with the arrival of the railroad, Las Vegas was officially founded as a city.

In 1859 a large deposit of silver was discovered in Nevada called the Comstock Lode. This started a rush of miners to the area hoping to strike it rich. Boom towns sprang up in the area including Virginia City. It is estimated that around $400 million in silver was mined from the Comstock Load before it ran out in 1898.

Virginia City could be considered the birthplace of the pen name of Mark Twain, as it was here in February 1863 that writer Samuel Clemens, then a reporter on the local Territorial Enterprise newspaper, first used the nom de plume. Clemens lived in Virginia City and wrote for the Enterprise from late fall 1862 until May 1864, when he escaped from a potential duel instigated by a local newspaper editor upset at Clemens’ reporting. Clemens returned to the Comstock region twice on western lecture tours, once in 1866 where he was mugged on the Divide. The muggers relieved Clemens of his watch and his money. The robbery turns out to have been a practical joke played on Clemens by his friends. He did not appreciate the joke, but he did retrieve his belongings—particularly his gold watch (worth $300), which had great sentimental value. Clemens mentions the incident in his book Roughing It (1872), apparently still sore about it. Clemens’ second lecture tour in 1868 occurred at the time of the hanging of John Millian, who was convicted of murdering the well-liked madam Julia Bulette.

On October 31, 1864 Nevada was admitted as the 36th state.

Camels were used as pack animals in Nevada as late as 1870.

In 1899 Charles Fey invented a slot machine named the Liberty Bell. The device became the model for all slots to follow.

In 1931, the state of Nevada legalized gambling in hopes that it would help the economy during the Great Depression. The original intent was that gambling would only need to be legal for a short time. However, gambling quickly became a major part of the Nevada economy. Today, around 34% of the taxes collected by the state come from gambling. Large casinos in Las Vegas are a huge tourism draw and a major industry in the state.

In 1931 the Pair-O-Dice Club was the first casino to open on Highway 91, the future Las Vegas Strip.

There were 16,067 slots in Nevada in 1960. In 1999 Nevada had 205,726 slot machines, one for every 10 residents.

Construction worker Hard Hat’s were first invented specifically for workers on the Hoover Dam in 1933.

1935 – The Hoover Dam was completed creating Lake Mead. Hoover Dam was originally called Boulder Dam. In 1947, it was renamed after Herbert Hoover, who negotiated the Colorado River Compact as the U.S. Secretary of Commerce before becoming the 31st U.S. president. Twelve years earlier, Hoover hadn’t even been invited to the dam’s dedication ceremony.

Nearly three-quarters of Nevada’s people live in Clark County, home of Las Vegas. Other major cities include Reno, Carson City, Elko, (Elko was named from a Shoshoni word meaning “Rocks Piled on One Another”), Laughlin, and Winnemucca.

Because Nevada was sparsely populated in the 1950s, Nevada became a test site for nuclear weapons. Over the next several years, over 1000 nuclear bombs were set off in the Nevada desert. After 1962, all of the tests were performed underground and all testing was stopped in 1992.

With fewer than 10 inches of rain per year, Nevada’s the driest state in the U.S.

Nevada is the largest gold-producing state in the nation. It is second in the world behind South Africa.

Las Vegas is home to over 150,000 hotel rooms – more than anywhere else on the planet.

To drive from Los Angeles, California to Reno, Nevada the direction traveled is to the west.

Nevada’s the only U.S. state to legalize prostitution, but only in the form of regulated brothels in counties with populations under 400,000. So all that prostitution that occurs in bigger cities like Reno and Las Vegas is illegal.

Historically, northern Nevada has been very Republican. The more rural counties of the north are among the most conservative regions of the country. Carson City, the state’s capital, is a Republican-leaning swing city/county. Washoe County, home to Reno, has historically been strongly Republican, but now has become more of a Democratic-leaning swing county. Clark County, home to Las Vegas, has been a stronghold for the Democratic Party since it was founded in 1909, having voted Republican only six times.

Nevada voted for the winner in every presidential election from 1912 to 2012, except in 1976 when it voted for Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter. This gives the state status as a political bellwether. In 2016, Nevada lost its bellwether status when it narrowly cast its votes for Hillary Clinton. (47.9% for Clinton; 45.5% for President Trump)

Reader’s Digest List of most difficult town names to pronounce
Nevada: Winnemucca

Before we even get into how to pronounce “Winnemucca, Nevada,” we need to talk about how to pronounce “Nevada.” It’s Neh-VAD-uh. Pronouncing it Na-VAH-duh will raise the hackles of the locals. As for Winnemucca, it’s pronounced Win-eh-MUCK-uh. All together now: Win-eh-MUCK-uh, Neh-VAD-uh. With an average of 201 sunny days per year, Winnemucca is one of the sunniest towns in Nevada.

Strange Laws:

It is illegal to pawn your dentures.
You may not throw items from a chairlift.
You may not shoot animals from an airplane.
It is illegal to drive a camel on the highway.
It is illegal to have a “house of ill fame” within 400 yards of a church or school.
It’s still “legal” to hang someone for shooting your dog on your property.

People: