Nevada

Article Outline

Introduction; Physical Geography; Economic Activities; The People of Nevada; Education and Cultural Institutions; Recreation and Places of Interest; Government; History

Emigrant Trails

The hope of a bright future in California lured settlers west in the 1840s. The Bidwell-Bartleson group was followed in 1844 by the Stevens-Murphy party, which blazed a trail over Truckee River pass. In 1846 the Donner party tried to use this route but became stranded by heavy snows. Forty of its 87 members died of starvation and cold, and the survivors were reduced to eating the dead bodies to remain alive. Emigrant travel across the northern Great Basin slowed after the tragedy.

However, the end of the Mexican War and the discovery of gold in California, both in 1848, spurred further emigration, and by 1849 the Humboldt River had become an important link in the trail west to California. Temporary way stations grew up along the emigrant trails to sell supplies to the travelers. Mormon Station (present-day Genoa), a trading post built in 1850 by Mormon traders from Salt Lake City, became Nevada’s first permanent settlement. Although they abandoned the unfinished outpost in 1850, John Reese purchased the site in 1851 and built a store that became the center of Mormon Station. Other Mormons came to the region to farm and a few settlers on their way to California decided to stay, increasing the size of the settlement. By the end of 1851, about 100 settlers were living in Nevada’s western river valleys.

Territory of Nevada

The United States acquired Nevada, as well as California, Arizona, Utah, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming, from Mexico under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. Two years later, the Congress of the United States created the Territory of Utah, which included much of Nevada, or Western Utah, as it was then called. The southern region of modern Nevada was included in the New Mexico Territory. Mormon leader Brigham Young was named governor of the territory, but his government was located in Salt Lake City and could not assert authority in Western Utah. Settlers there wanted to establish law and order and escape Mormon rule by joining California. To prevent this, Young created Carson County in 1854, which included most of Western Utah, and sent Orson Hyde to organize the county government. Hyde arrived at Mormon Station in June 1856 and made it the county seat. The establishment of Franktown in Washoe Valley and a Mormon mission in Las Vegas far to the south extended Mormon control in the area. Two years later, however, Young summoned all Mormons back to Salt Lake City to help repel a federal army sent to punish the Mormons there for allegedly ignoring the orders of federal judges. Mormon influence in Western Utah ended.

The settlers who remained petitioned Congress unsuccessfully for their own territorial government in 1857 and again in 1859. Representatives were sent to each session of Congress to plead the cause. On March 2, 1861, outgoing President James Buchanan signed a bill creating the Territory of Nevada. An important reason for congressional approval was the newly discovered Comstock Lode, a rich source of gold and silver that was first tapped in 1859.

Struggle for Statehood

James W. Nye, appointed territorial governor by Buchanan’s successor, Abraham Lincoln, arrived in Nevada early in July 1861. He organized the new territory and called an election in which members of the territorial legislature and a delegate to Congress were chosen. A referendum showed overwhelming support for statehood, and a constitutional convention met in 1863 in Carson City, although without congressional approval, and drafted a constitution.

The contest over ratification of the new state constitution was bitter. To vote “yes” meant the automatic approval of a slate of candidates for state offices, as well as a property tax on mines. Opponents denounced the proconstitution candidates as being too friendly to large mining interests. They also argued that powerful San Francisco mining corporations, which owned many Nevada mines, wanted an elected judiciary instead of the appointed territory judiciary because they believed elected judges would be easier to manipulate. A territorial judge had recently ruled against a large mining corporation in an important claims case. A prominent mining lawyer, William M. Stewart, who was associated with San Francisco mining interests, led the fight for the constitution, but small mine owners and workers were largely against it. In January 1864 voters rejected the constitution, and consequently statehood, because they believed it would largely benefit San Francisco mine owners. A severe depression then gripped the Comstock when the San Francisco corporations withdrew their investments.

Congress and the Lincoln administration, however, saw Nevada statehood as additional support for the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution (which outlawed slavery) and for Lincoln’s upcoming reelection. The U.S. Congress quickly passed the Nevada Enabling Act in March 1864 and by summer a new constitutional convention was convened.

The second constitutional convention met in the summer of 1864 with J. Neely Johnson as its president. The 1864 constitution was largely the same as the earlier one, with one major exception: Mine proceeds, not property, were to be taxed. A large majority ratified this constitution and the document was telegraphed to President Lincoln, who signed it. Nevada became the 36th state on October 31, 1864.

Republicans dominated the first state election, installing Henry G. Blasdel as governor. The legislature, meeting at Carson City in December 1864, selected two other Republicans as U.S. senators, the mining lawyer Stewart and the former territorial governor, Nye.

When Nevada joined the Union, it was smaller than it is today. The state’s eastern boundary had been extended east in 1862. It was extended again in 1866; in 1867 Nevada obtained its southern tip from the Arizona Territory.

Mining Boom

The Comstock Lode

The history of Nevada from 1860 to 1910 is largely a story of two mining booms separated by a 20-year depression from 1880 to 1900. The Comstock Lode began the first boom. Peter O’Riley and Patrick McLaughlin in 1859 discovered silver and gold on Sun Mountain (later named Mount Davidson), starting a rush to the so-called Washoe Diggings. Within a short time thousands of people arrived in the area. Immigrants composed a large portion of those who came to Nevada: Chinese immigrants helped build the Central Pacific Railroad across Nevada in the late 1860s; Italians and Swiss worked in smelters; and Irishmen worked deep in the mines. French-Canadians also lumbered the areas around Lake Tahoe, Germans farmed the Carson Valley, and later Basques and Scots tended sheep. Most of those working in the mining business were living in three new towns: Virginia City, Gold Hill, and Silver City. People lived in all types of buildings, and their diggings littered the landscape for miles around. Virginia City, especially, was a combination of industrial city and frontier town, with mine and mill buildings, foundries, and railroad yards alongside gambling houses, saloons, and dance halls.

The mineral wealth from the Comstock Lode financed hotels, foundries, banks, the Central Pacific Railroad, the mansions of San Francisco, and the trans-Atlantic cable; it was also responsible for some of the great American family fortunes. By 1877 production was decreasing, and by 1880 most of the Comstock ore had been mined. Until the next mining boom began in 1900, Nevada’s economy rested primarily on the other industries that had appeared. Raising livestock and maintaining the railroad were especially important in this period.

Nevada Politics and Silver

The economic depression that followed the Comstock’s decline was blamed on the Coinage Act of 1873, which ended the minting of silver dollars. Due partly to this act the price of silver dropped dramatically. Proponents of silver money called the act the “Crime of ‘73,” and campaigned to restore bimetallism, the coining of gold and silver dollars. Some sought the unlimited coining of silver, called free silver. Between 1892 and 1894 free silver was the dominant issue in Nevada politics. Although the government slowly began coining silver dollars again in 1878, the gold dollar remained the monetary standard of value in the United States.

The decline in Nevada’s mining industry caused the state’s population to decrease. This in turn undermined Nevada’s cattle-raising industry in the 1880s because it reduced Nevada’s market for beef. Many of the ranchers who had survived were ruined by the hard winters in the late 1880s.