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Make no mistake about it . . . this is the most complete Nevada Timeline on the Internet.  It was my goal to have something for each and every year from 1821 to the present.  And each item is strictly about Nevada, not what was going on around the country while Nevada history was being made.  If you have something you would like to contribute, please contact me. 
Thank you.
Look for all the "first" items in Nevada's history, by finding the green first.
There are over 120 "first" listings.

FOR A DETAILED TIMELINE OF NATIVE AMERICAN ACTIVITIES, GO TO THE NATIVE AMERICAN PAGE

1775  - Francisco Garces traveled the southwest several times. In 1776, he went through the Mojave Desert, and believed that he had reached a spot that would have put him in the area of Searchlight. However, most scholars believe that he was actually near Needles, California.
      At the end of 1829, Rafael Rivera, a scout for Antonio Armijo's trading party, entered the Las Vegas valley, camping southeast of town, near present-day Henderson. Within a couple of weeks, Armijo's party arrived. Rivera became the first non-Native American known to have set foot in the valley. Jedediah Smith had been the first non-Native American known to have entered Clark County.
1821  - Old Spanish Trail in use for purposes of trade.
1822 -1824  - Little if any written record was kept at this time, therefore it's difficult to report what happened then.   More research will de done, but if you have something to contribute, please do.
1825  - As part of his Snake River expedition, Fur trapper Peter Skene Ogden of the Hudson's Bay Company became the first white man in Nevada discovering the Humboldt River.
1826  - August - In a letter written by Jedediah Strong Smith, he reported briefly on his expedition (where he represented the fur trapping company of Smith, Jackson & Sublette), that he had departed from Salt Lake City with 14 men, heading south along the Sevier River, then west along the [now] Virgin, Colorado and Mojave rivers.
      He traveled through the Virgin Valley, a route that would serve as the right-of-way for the Old Spanish Trail (1829-1848) and for the Mormon road or southern route of travel to southern California.
      The area was settled by pioneers of the Latter-Day Saints Church, who colonized Bunkerville in 1877 and Mesquite in 1880.
      Smith reported being attacked by Indians along the Colorado and then suffering from thirst; they survived by using the "Cabbage Pear" hedgehog cactus. Jedediah Smith, leading an expedition down the Meadow Valley Wash to the Muddy River in search of new trapping grounds, reportedly became the first white American to enter into Clark County Nevada.
1827  - Jedediah Smith and his party crossed central Nevada on his return trip from California, crossing the center of  what became Nevada.  After spending the winter of 1826-27 in California, Jedediah Smith's expedition crossed Sierra Nevada mountains over Ebbett's Pass and traveled eastward across Nevada. His trip was the first crossing of the Great Basin by white men.   Smith's journal and map have never been found, his exact route is unknown.
1828  - November 9th - Humboldt River first discovered by Peter Skene Ogden on his fifth Snake Country expedition 1828-1829.  This was Ogden's last expedition to the Snake Country.

1829  - Antonio Armijo lead a party of 60 on the Old Spanish Trail to Los Angeles. While the caravan camped about 100 miles northeast of the present site of Las Vegas, a scouting party set out to look for water. The abundance of artesian spring water found here shortened the Spanish trail to Los Angeles by allowing travelers to cut directly through, rather than around, the vast desert. Spanish traders who used this route were thankful for the shortened trip and they named this convenient desert oasis Las Vegas, Spanish for "The Meadows."
      Ewing Young and Kit Carson, leading a fur-trapping party from Taos, also discovered portions of the trail at about the same time.

1830  - January 8th - The first pack train to pass from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Los Angeles crossed Las Vegas Valley.  Antonio Armijo, a Santa Fe merchant, commanded the train and its 30 drovers. The successful completion of the journey opened a trade route between the two Mexican provinces of New Mexico and California. It was on this trip that a portion of the Old Spanish Trail was discovered, (Located on Interstate Highway 15 at Arden, two miles east of Mountain Springs Summit.) 
1830-31 - William Wolfskill led a trading expedition and pack train over the Spanish Trail between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Los Angeles - arrived February 1831. This expedition opened the Spanish Trail to commercial traffic.  Wolfskill profitably exchanged New Mexican blankets for California mules.

1832  - Milton Green Sublette led a fur-trapping expedition with Nathaniel Wyeth for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company to the Humboldt River and Oregon.
      Captain Joseph Reddeford Walker was hired as a guide for Captain Benjamin Bonneville's fur-hunting expedition, what some believed to be a secret reconnaissance of California.1
August - Bonneville's expedition split up in Utah and Walker headed west.  Zenas Leonard hired on as Joseph Walker's Clerk.  Walker's party traveled for a month over the desert west of the Great Salt Lake before reaching a northern tributary of the Humboldt River, then known as the Ogden or Mary's River.  They followed it downstream to just west of present day Wells, Nevada.  They followed the river to the Humboldt Sinks, a series of marshy lakes in the desert where the Humboldt River disappears.
      Walker and his group of 60 men were approached by a band of curious Digger tribesmen. The trappers became nervous and Walker believed an attack was inevitable so he took the offensive and had his men surround the Indians and then the Americans opened fire and killed "several dozen" of them within a few minutes.
1833  - Kit Carson along with Thomas McKay of the Hudson's Bay Company and five others went to the head-waters of the Humboldt River and followed it to the sink.  Afterwards Carson went to Fort Hall and McKay went to Walla Walla.
      When Walker and his party traversed the area west of Salt Lake City and down to the Humboldt, and arrived at an area where — "All branches of the stream is collected from the mountain into the channel which forms quite a larger stream, and to which we gave the name Barren River — a name we thought would be quite appropriate as the country, natives and everything belonging to it, justly deserves the name."33
      September 4th - Walker and his party arrive at Humboldt Lake (Humboldt Sink).
      Late September - First battle between whites and Indians in Nevada at Humboldt Sink, many Indians killed.
      October -  Walker's party arrives at Carson Lake.
1834  - June - Second battle fought at Toulon Lake (Pershing) on Joseph Walker's return trip, trappers armed with rifles again defeated the Indians, probably Northern Paiutes.
1834-1836   - Known as the "Passage of The Emigrants" in Bancroft's Works Volume XXV Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming 1540-1888 published 1890 states: "Nothing was known of this region except what the trappers had reported; none were known to have passed across the country from and to California save the parties under Smith and Walker, respectively."
1837  - Publication of Bonneville's account of 1833 trip with map, proving the San Buenaventure River did not exist in the state.
1838  - Vacant
1839  - Vacant
1840  - In the "Great Horse Raid", organized in part by trapper Old Bill Williams and Ute Chief Walkara, about 1,000 horses were stolen from California ranches. Many of these horses came through the Las Vegas Valley.
      Western Emigration Society formed.
      Death of fur trade.  Beaver hats replaced by silk.
1841  - The earliest organized emigrants to pass through Nevada comprised the Bartleson-Bidwell party from Independence, MO.  John Bidwell and John Bartleson led a party of overland emigrants from Missouri, including the first white woman and child to enter Nevada to Humboldt, Carson, and Walker Rivers, over the Sierra Nevada mountains at Sonora Pass, and into California.   These were the first wagons to enter Nevada (these had to be abandoned before the Sierra Nevada crossing), along with them were the first cattle to enter Nevada.   This year also saw the first sheep in Nevada, 150 head driven along Spanish Trail, through Las Vegas.
      Congress passed Pre-emption Act, which recognized rights of 'squatters' who settled on surveyed portions of public domain land; repealed 1891. A man who had possession of such land and was using it had the right to buy it from the government at $2/acre prior to sale at public auction. This policy encouraged settlers to move onto the public lands west of the Mississippi River. Congress continued it with the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Desert Land Act of 1877. Congress discontinued this policy with passage of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 and the Multiple Land Use Act of 1964.
                
                John C. Frémont                                John C. Frémont, 1850 - 37 years old
UNLV Special Collections
1842- 44  - December/January - John C. Frémont and his party of about 25 men arrived at; Pyramid Lake, while this region was still part of Mexico, located some 30 miles northeast of the present-day city of Reno, at which time Frémont named the lake Pyramid because it reminded him of the Great Pyramid of Cleops.
      The Frémont Party then headed southward through what is now called the Truckee Meadows, or present day Reno/ Sparks. They entered the Sierra Nevada Mountains at the Carson River and soon became the first white men to glimpse the world's largest and most beautiful high mountain lake . . . Lake Tahoe . . . the source of the Truckee River, the source around which Reno sprang up like a weed, and the source of waters that fill the desert oasis of Pyramid Lake.
                              
      Frémont and his crew were heavily armed including a cannon and about 125 animals. Captain Frémont employed the famous frontiersman Kit Carson to assist him in tracking and path finding.
      Because Frémont was on a topographical expedition into areas claimed by Mexico, he chose not to carry a regular U.S. flag. Instead, his wife, Jessie, drew and made a flag using elements of design taken from the Stars and Stripes and Army regimental flags.  The white canton featured twenty-six stars, outlined in blue, in two undulating waves above and below a blue eagle clutching in its talons nine blue arrows and a red and white peace pipe, the latter being a more recognizable sign of peace to the Indians than the classic olive branch. This flag is displayed in the library of the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles, California.
1843  - Immigrant party led by Joseph Walker through Walker Pass took the first wagons across the Sierra.  John Frémont and his party were the first white men to cross the Black Rock desert, and his trail was used by over half the 22,000 gold seekers headed to California after 1849.
1844  - April-May Frémont party returned across southern   Nevada on the last part of a 3500 mile trip around the western region he called the Great Basin.  In his journal for May 3rd he wrote: "We camped at a camping ground called Las Vegas . . ." 
      During Frémont's 2nd, expedition when they were but a few miles from Las Vegas they met a Mexican boy who told them that a few miles back at the springs Indians had attacked and killed his father and mother and some men who were traveling with them.  Arriving at the springs, Frémont found the report to be true.   Goedy, who was part of Frémont's party, requested to go after the killers.   Arriving at the springs the Indians were overtaken and some of them were killed, the horses, which had been stolen, were returned to the boy, who then joined Frémont's party.
      The same year that Frémont discovered and named Pyramid Lake and Lake Tahoe, another emigrant party entered the desert wilderness of North Western Nevada seeking passage across the Final Barrier to California, the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They met a Paiute Indian whose name sounded like "Trucke." The Indian drew a crude map in the sand indicating a river and possible pass over the mountains. When the emigrants found the river, out of gratitude to the Indian who befriended them, they named the refreshing stream the Truckee River. They followed the Truckee River up into the Mountains and became the first settlers to open "The Truckee Pass" into California. The Pass was renamed 3 years later after the tragedy of the Donner Party.  Northern Paiute Indian Chief Truckee and Caleb Greenwood guided the Elisha Stephens wagon train of overland emigrants into California over Emigrant Gap. First wagons to cross Sierra Nevada mountains.
1845  - Captain Frémont crossed Nevada again with his guide, Joseph Walker, for whom the lake is named.  This time from the east to west in a general line running from Flowery Lake to Walker Lake.
      Second exploring expedition of John C. Frémont to Humboldt, Truckee, Carson, and Walker Rivers. Crossed Sierra Nevada mountains into California over Donner Pass November-December. Captain Truckee, Chief of the Northern Paiutes, accompanied Frémont as a guide into California.
1846  - The Donner Party  (separate website) were an ill-advised party of emigrants. Delaying their journey too long in the Truckee Meadows near the present-day city of Reno, Nevada, they subsequently became trapped in the heavy snows of the Sierra Nevada when they attempted to follow the "Hastings Cutoff" through the mountains into California.  They were driven to cannibalism in their attempts to survive the winter.  47 out of 87 perished.
      Applegate-Lassen section of Oregon and California Trails opened by Jesse Applegate and Peter Lassen between Fort Hall, Idaho, and Willamette Valley, Oregon, by way of Nevada and northern California. (This trip is reenacted every July starting out near Winnemucca)
1847  - The great trek of the Mormon people to the fertile Salt Lake Valley in 1847 was the beginning of non-Indian settlement in the Great Basin of North America.
      Mormon scout Jefferson Hunt passes though the Las Vegas Valley.
1848  - January - James Marshall's discovery of gold at Sutter's sawmill on the South Fork of the American River, near the present town of Coloma in California, began the great gold rush. The Truckee River and Meadows became an Oasis watering hole and brief rest stop for thousands of weary settlers along the well traveled California Trail.
      The following year, hundreds and then thousands of prospectors and settlers crossed the Great Basin and Sierra Nevada into California in search of a quick fortune. 
      February, by the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo, which ended the War with Mexico, the United States acquired Nevada. It was then a part of California, known as the Washoe Country.
      July-August - Lieutenant Samuel Thompson of the "Mormon Battalion" made first wagon crossing of Carson Pass in the Sierra Nevada mountains and constructed a wagon road in Carson Canyon, opening the Carson River section of the California Trail.
1849  - It is estimated that 22,500 settlers passed through the Truckee Meadows in 1849, then 45,000 in 1850 and up to 52,000 in 1852. Gold and silver prospectors began combing the barren lands of Northern Nevada.
      William Sharon arrived on the scene to search for gold.  He had no luck so he went into real estate.  He met William Ralston, owner of the Bank of California in San Francisco.  In 1864, a branch opened in Virginia City. 
      Captain Hunt took the first wagon train, The Jayhawkers, through from Salt Lake to Southern California via the Mormon Trail.3  The train was 100 wagons long, for which the Captain received $10 each.  This is the wagon train which gave "Death Valley" its' name as many of them perished there.
      March 18th - State of Deseret, including most of present-day Nevada and Utah, was organized by the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or LDS Church) with Brigham Young as Governor; was not recognized by Congress, and its petition for statehood was rejected.
      Spring-Autumn - Prospecting parties from California and overland emigrants discovered gold on eastern slope of Sierra Nevada mountains, the first recorded discovery of gold (separate website) in Nevada, in Gold Canyon near present day Dayton.
 
1850  - September 9th - Most of Nevada was included in the newly organized Territory of Utah established by the United States Congress. The new territory, which comprised most of what is now the states of Utah, Idaho, and Nevada, came under the control of Brigham Young, Territorial Governor and leader of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City.
      Captain Joseph DeMont and Hampton Beatie are among those who establish Nevada's first trading post, Mormon Station, later known as Genoa.
      Patrick Henness discovered Henness Pass over the Sierra Nevada mountains; a toll road for pack trains was built over the pass which linked the mining camps of the north and central Yuba River in California with the Truckee River section of the California Trail.
      Overland emigrants discovered gold nuggets at the mouth of Gold Canyon in Lyon county near the Carson River; one miner wintered there.
1851  - The first permanent settlement was established at Gold Cañon/Chinatown/Dayton, which is now just Dayton.16  This has been a debated issue however, as Dayton preempted Genoa by only two weeks. Even Ragtown was in the running once upon a time.
      July 7th - Establishment of Mormon Station as a trading post on the site of present-day Genoa by John Reese & a group of Mormons - 17 men and 13 wagons of supplies arrived for a trading post, which became Mormon Station.  Soon the post, included a blacksmith shop, saw mill, general store, hotel, and corral. First known as Reese's Station. Israel & Eliza Mott arrived a week later & settled just south. She was the first non-Native American woman in the state.
      Summer - California sent a militia expedition to Carson Valley during second El Dorado County Indian War. Small garrison commanded by William Byrne wintered at Mormon Station.
      August-September - Indian fights along Humboldt River; William Hickman led emigrant party in battles, reportedly killing 82 Indians.
      November 12th - Nevada's Territorial history begins this day.  First government in Nevada was established by public mass meeting for the purpose of organizing a squatter government.  Less than 100 persons took part in the gathering which was held at "Mormon Station" (now Genoa).  The object of the meeting was to adopt local rules and regulations for the benefit of the settlers than coming into the country.  They established a provisional government to protect their land claims and to maintain civil order. 2001 marked the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the first public record created in Nevada History. 
      November - Frank & Joseph Barnard, George Follensbee, Frank & W. L. Hall and A. J. Rollins opened a trading post at what today is the intersection of Thompson and Fifth Streets in Carson City.  The post was named "Eagle Station."  This was the beginning of Carson City.9 
      November - Absalom Woodward and U. S. Mail party ambushed and killed by Indians on Humboldt River; mail lost.
      James P. Beckwourth, a half breed mountain man, opened Beckwourth Pass road over the Sierra Nevada for overland emigration traveling to Marysville, California.
      U. S. Post Office awarded a contract to Absalom Woodward and George Chorpenning for carrying transcontinental overland mail between Sacramento and Salt Lake City. First overland mail left Sacramento May 1 for Salt Lake by way of Carson Valley; carried once a month; it was the first transcontinental overland mail service in U. S. Nicknamed 'Jackass Mail' because letters were carried in packs on mules.
1852  - Gold Coins began to circulate in Carson Valley.  The coins were minted by the Mormons at Salt Lake City in the Church Mint.
      The first dance in Nevada was in Dayton.  It was attended by nine women and 150 men.  The dance was held at Hall's Trading Post, New Year's Eve.14
      December 1st - The first toll bridge in Nevada was built by Col. John Reese, over the Carson River not far from Mormon Station. 
      The first land claim was granted by the Mormon Station squatter's government, to Col. Reese.
1853  - The first marriage in Nevada took place in what would later become Dayton.   The first divorce in Nevada was also in Dayton, and it is reported to be from the same marriage.
      July - Lola Montress, a actress from California led a small party from Grass Valley, CA on an excursion to the Truckee Meadows, becoming the first tourists to visit Nevada.9
      Benjamin Palmer was the first African American (on record) to settle in Nevada.  He operated a ranch near Sheridan for 40 years.
      The first post office in Nevada was established at Mormon Station, present day Genoa.
      First claims staked in the Comstock area by Alan & Hosea Grosch. More prospectors in that area.
      First bridge built over Carson River constructed on the California Trail at Carson Canyon by John Reese and Israel Mott.
      First post-office in Nevada established at Mormon Station in Carson Valley.

 
1854  - Carson County was created by the Utah territorial Government.
      The first school was established in Nevada, located in Israel Mott's house in the Carson Valley and was taught by a "Mrs. Allen."
      Nevada's first newspaper, the Gold-Canon Switch was founded in the mining camp Johntown.
      The first white birth (a boy) in Nevada was registered in a journal kept by Laura Ellis.  She and her husband James settled on a farm in Gold Canyon, near Dayton.14
      Alpheus Haws became the first settler in Clover Valley, south of Wells in Elko county.  He kept a trading post there.
      A man named McSwain, from Missouri, along with his 19 year old son and 14 men, and 1 woman, drove a herd of 600 cattle, 16 head of horses and mules, 4 covered wagons with 3-4 oxen hitch.  They crossed through Nevada along the Old Emigrant Trail, following the California-Oregon trail for the better part from Missouri.   They were the first to drive a herd of cattle through the area.  They were approached by Paiutes at the Humboldt River.  They wanted to trade fish for a fat cow, and wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, so they got into a fight.  More Indian trouble further on, they stole all their horses and mules so they were afoot.  They lost most of the herd when they crossed the 40-mile desert, between Lovelock and Fernley.   All of their crew, but one young man, announced they were quitting when they reached the Sierras.  McSwain told them to get their traps from the wagons and leave.   They crossed the Sierras during a snow storm and made it to their destination on November 19 of this same year.  Only three of the original 16 were left and only 141 of the 600 cattle survived.
1855  - June 14th -15th - Mormon Prophet Brigham Young sent a group of 30 men, (including Oscar Hamblin, brother of the famed Mormon Indian missionary), led by William Bringhurst to Las Vegas valley. Bringhurst had orders to establish a mission for the Latter-day Saints Church. They built a 1150 square foot fort, part of which still stands today as the oldest structure in Nevada, (but not the first), from sun dried adobe bricks along the Las Vegas creek as well as a post office, which served as a way station for travelers making their way along the Spanish Trail, and is appropriately named the Mormon Fort.
      The mission was to serve a dual purpose: establish supply stations along the Old Spanish Trail and convert the Native Americans. The Mormons spent two years there before the harsh desert defeated their ambitions. The residents of the mission were also instructed to search for minerals that could be of an industrial use.
                                      
 
      By 1857 trouble developed between the settlers in Utah and the U.S. Government and all the settlers in outlying districts were recalled to the Utah center and the fort and mine were abandoned.  However, during the Civil War, rumors were spread that the fort was garrisoned by Union troops to ward off Confederate raids.  Although this was untrue, Las Vegas wasn't exactly a ghost town, and mining did continue at Potosi for a few more years.
1856  - May 16th - Nathaniel V. Jones was assigned to the mission by Brigham Young to explore for minerals in  the area.  Jones was considered the father of Nevada's lode mining, although this has been disputed as being a bit overstated.
      The first Chinatown in Nevada was in Dayton.  Chinese laborers were brought in to dig a ditch from Gold Canyon to within two miles of town.  The ditch remains intact today.14
      First white child born in Las Vegas Valley to Ellen Fuller, a daughter.
      Mormon Station renamed Genoa.
      The Potosi mine was discovered about forty-three miles to the southwest of the mission by James Morgan who worked it for quicksilver and zinc.  It produced lead and a group was later sent to mine and smelt the lead, used to make bullets for hunting and Indian fighting.  The lead was shipped to the Las Vegas rancho where they built and operated the first smelter west of the Missouri River.  The mine was referred to as the Lead Mine, but later became known as the Potosi, and at the time of its discovery was in Arizona territory.
 
           

     

1857  - June - The Pioneer Stage Line, the first stage to navigate the Sierras,  traveled from Placerville, CA to Genoa began a once a month route with passengers and mail traffic.  Regular service was started shortly thereafter.
      Nevada's second newspaper, The Scorpion, was handwritten when Stephen A. Kinsey published the first issue at Genoa.
      The Rogers & Thorington House is Nevada's first hotel in Genoa.
      September 7th - 120 emigrants, men, women and children, were slaughtered as they passed through Mountain Meadows in the Utah Territory.  Their wagon train was attacked by Mormon assailants dressed and painted up like Indians.  The Mormons had also employed a few real Indians.  This is known as "The Meadow Mountain Massacre".

1857/58  - The abandonment of the Mormon Mission at Las  Vegas also meant the closing of the Potosi mine.
      Fort Mohave was established in the southern tip of Nevada, and it's believed that soldiers from the fort discovered gold in El Dorado Canyon which led to active mining in that area. The mines in El Dorado Canyon proved to be among the most consistent producers in the state from 1860 until World War II when the mines were closed.
(They are open to the public for tours).
    

 
1858  - December 18th - The first edition of the Territorial Enterprise was printed in  Genoa, Utah Territory.  The Enterprise was not, however, the first newspaper in Nevada.  It was the first 'printed' paper, but was preceded by two 'handwritten' newspapers.  Nevada's first newspaper was actually the Gold-Canon Switch produced about 1854 in the fledgling mining camp of Johntown.  The second hand-written newspaper, The Scorpion, dates to about February 1st, 1857 when Stephen A. Kinsey issued the first number at Genoa.4
      Adam Curry, founder of Carson City, the first Warden of the Nevada Territorial Prison, and first Superintendent of the Carson City Mint arrived in the area.
      The first telegraph line was constructed between Placerville, CA and Genoa - the newly developed stage line.
      Carson City is laid out.  The Mormon missionaries pull out of the Las Vegas Mission.
1859  - February  - William Billoa was shot and killed by Sam Brown, the notorious desperado in the streets of Carson City.  Nothing was done with Brown, although the act was deliberate butchery.
      July 18th - a constitutional convention was held at Genoa.  A Bill of Rights and a proposed State Constitution was adopted.  Isaac Roop was elected Governor.
      November 26th - One year after the Territorial Enterprise put out its first edition it found a permanent home in Virginia City (Utah Territory), where the paper resumed publication on November 3rd, 1860.
      Telegraph line was extended from Genoa to Carson City.
      June 11th - A rich outcropping of gold and silver discovered by Patrick McLaughlin & Peter O'Riley, later to be known as the Comstock Lode, was discovered 40 miles from the Truckee Meadows.  Henry Comstock jumped their claim, stealing it out from under them, filing the claim before they did.
      Virginia City sprang up over night.  The Virginia City boom brought a flood of traffic through the Truckee Meadows. Stage coaches, pack trains, mule and ox teams, prairie schooners, carrying settlers, miners, foodstuffs, lumber, mining equipment, etc. to Virginia City . . . and they all needed to cross the Truckee River. Charles Fuller built a wooden bridge near the present site of Reno's Riverside Hotel, and charged a toll to everyone and everything that crossed his bridge. His bridge was washed away several years in a row by spring flooding and finally he sold out to Myron Lake in 186?, a veteran of the Mexican War, and the place became known as Lake's Crossing.  Myron Lake rebuilt the bridge and added a Tavern and Inn near the Bridge (site of the present day Riverside Hotel). Soon he added a gristmill, livery, a kiln... and by 1862 a small but thriving village was in place. The trans- continental Railroad was soon to arrive and give life to the Biggest Little City In the World.
      William 'Uncle Billy' Rogers, Indian sub-agent, settled in Ruby Valley in Elko county.  He was the first rancher there and established a farm for the Shoshone Indians.
      Silver City founded.
1860  - April - The Pony Express route began at St. Joseph, MO and ended at Sacramento, CA.  It took about 10 days to make the 1800 mile run - one way.  The riders ran in relays and would cover about 250 miles in a 24 hour period.  Today, Highway U.S. 50 roughly parallels the Pony Express route.  Click here for a map showing the route in Nevada.
      May 12th - A battle between Indians and whites near Pyramid Lake cost the lives of 66 white men, including Major William M. Ormsby.
      Northern Paiute warriors, fighting to retain their way of life, decisively defeated a volunteer army from Virginia City and nearby settlements.
      The battle and consequent white retreat began with a skillful ambush north of Nixon and continued along the plateau on the opposite side of the Truckee River almost to the present site of Wadsworth.
      June 2nd - A strong force of 754 volunteers and regular U.S. Army troops engaged the Indians in battle along the tableland and mountainside in retaliation for the battle on May 12th. Several hundred braves, attempting a delaying action to allow their women, children and elders to escape, fought with such courage and strategy that the superior Caucasian forces were held back during the day until the Indians withdrew. 46 Indians perished in the battle.
      August 25th - E. R. Hicks, James M. Brawley and J. M. Corey discovered gold at Aurora in Mineral County.  The town was founded shortly after.
      November 3rd - The Territorial Enterprise newspaper resumes publishing a newspaper in Virginia City.  The first issue of the paper printed in Virginia City was published from the corner of A Street and Sutton Avenue, then the heart of the booming business district.  The paper was founded two years prior in Genoa.  (Mark Twain got his start as a writer with the Territorial Enterprise in '62). 
      Telegraph line was extended from Carson City to Virginia City.  It was called the "Placerville & Humboldt Telegraph Company Line."  It was part of the first transcontinental telegraph system.
      The first bank opened in Nevada - The Wells Fargo Express and Banking Company opened an office in Virginia City.
      The first ore mill built in Nevada was built at Galena to process gold from the Comstock lode.10
      Nevada's population: 6,857.
           
1861  - March 2nd - By an Act of Congress, signed by President James Buchanan, the  region achieved territorial status.  Separate from Utah, officially adapting the name NEVADA, Spanish for Snow Capped.  Later, President Abraham Lincoln would appoint James Warren Nye of New York to serve as Nevada's first (and only) Territorial Governor. On July 11th Gov. Nye proclaimed establishment of the Territorial Government.
      August - Samuel Clemens first arrived in Nevada Territory, during which time he corresponded with Samuel Youngs of Aurora.
      November 25th - the first Nevada Territorial Legislature met in Carson City and carved nine counties out of the newly created territory - Churchill, Douglas, Esmeralda, Humboldt, Lyon, Ormsby (later to become Carson City County), Storey, Washoe,  and Lake Counties.
      Chinatown was renamed Dayton.
      The first school house was built in Washoe County.  It was built by the mining company and donated to the town.
      The first Board of State Prison Commissioners was created by the Territorial Legislature of 1861.
      Nevada's Territorial motto adopted - "Volens et Potens" - "Willing and Able."10
      A daily overland mail stage established.
      Nevada's population was recorded at 14,404 persons, with about 4,581 persons, residing in and around Virginia City.
1862  - Camp Ruby was established by Col. P.E. Conner and the Territory of Nevada recruited 1,100 men for Civil War service. 
      Walley Hot Springs opened near Genoa on the California Trail, becoming Nevada's first resort.
      Stillwater founded as a stage station for overland mail.
      June - Dayton was the site of the first production of Shakespeare in Nevada.
      September 14th - Decorated U.S. Army officer Jesse Lee Reno, for whom the city of Reno is named is killed in the Battle of South Mountain in Maryland and Pennsylvania.
      Gold and Silver were discovered near Austin, and the Reese River Mining District was organized.
1863  - January 9th - Convicted on October 1862, Allen Milstead became the first to be legally executed in the state when he was hung for the murder of Lyon County Commissioner T. Varney.  Approximately 700 people were in attendance.
      May 16 - The Reese River Reveille is first published in Austin.
      November 6th - Dayton's volunteer fire department, one of Nevada's oldest, is founded.
      Virginia City housed nearly 10,000 miners, prospectors, shop-keepers and  ne'er-do-wells in an odd hodgepodge of mansions, clapboard shelters, and canvas tents.
      Western Shoshone Indians sign treaty of Ruby Valley, signed by Te-Moak.
1864  - April 16th - The Como Sentinel newspaper begins.  Now a ghost town, Como was located southeast of Dayton in the Pine Nut Mountains.
      August - The Silver Bonanza, part of the Comstock Lode, made Nevada famous with the discovery of the richest silver deposit in the U.S.
      July 4th - Charles H. Plem was stabbed and killed at a ball in Ophir, in Washoe County, by a brother of a girl he kissed in a sporting manner wile dancing with her.
     October 31st - Statehood obtained.  Nevada becomes  the 36th state, although the present boundaries were not established until 18 January 1867.   Since this was the time of the Civil War, the state motto of "Battle Born" was adopted.   As far back as 1857 many names were used to refer to the area that became Nevada:  Sierra Nevada Territory; Washoe Territory; Carson Territory; Eastern Slope; Humboldt;  Esmeralda; Sierra Plata; Oro Plata and Bullion. But in 1864 the land emerged as "Nevada" a Spanish word meaning snow-covered.   Nevada is also known as the "Silver State" and the "Sagebrush State."
      The Daughters of Charity arrive in Virginia City establishing a school and orphanage and eventually a hospital.
      Henry Goode Blasdel elected 1st  Governor of Nevada 1864-71.
      The longest Morse Code telegram ever sent was the Nevada state constitution sent from Carson City to Washington, DC. and cost $3000.  The first part was tapped out by Frank Bell, cousin to Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone.
 

1865  - September 29th - A fire started at the Fountain Head Restaurant in Virginia City, burning over an area from Union Street to below Sutton Ave and as far as D Street east and A Street west.  It caused about $400,000 in property damage.
      Former miner, Octavius Decatur Gass (separate website) acquires the land of the Old
Mormon Fort, establishing a station to supply Las Vegas Valley miners and settlers.  He built a ranch house, a small store and a blacksmith shop.
      William M. Stewart and James W. Nye elected to the U.S. Senate.  Sutro Tunnel Company formed.
1866  - January 30th - First black school opened in Virginia City.
      February 24th - The official Nevada State Seal was adopted.
    September 23rd - Fire destroyed the Music Hall in Virginia City.  The cause was the bursting of a lamp.
     October 31st - A Wells, Fargo stage was stopped on Geiger Grade outside of Virginia City and the safe containing $5,150 was taken and blown open.  The passengers were also robbed of several thousand dollars.  Wells, Fargo posted a reward of $9000 for the apprehension of the robbers.  (Read the complete story on our "Story" page)


1867  -  January 20th - The bloody body of Julia Bulette was found in her bed in Virginia City.  She had been beaten and strangled.  She was 25.
      July 26th - Fort Halleck formed as Camp Halleck by Captain S. P. Smith to protect the California Emigrant Trail and construction work on the Central Pacific Railroad.  Virginia City Miners Union formed. 
      Clark County becomes part of Nevada.  Before 1867 it was part of the Arizona Territory. At the time, the area was part of Lincoln County.
      The first bicycle in Nevada made in Dayton.
      December 13th - A locomotive from Central Pacific Rail Road edged across the state line near present day Verdi, becoming the first train to enter Nevada.9
 
1868  - March 2nd, The Virginia & Truckee Railroad Company established.
      April 24th - John Millian, the convicted murderer of the infamous Virginia City prostitute Julia Bulette, was hung by the neck.  Almost four thousand people attended, watching from Geiger Grade and nearby hills.
      June 18th - The first passenger train crosses the Sierra Nevadas into Reno
      July  18th - Peter Hill, alias "Russian Pete", while resisting arrest for robbery at Silver City in Storey County, took refuge in the North Potosi mine tunnel.  While the officers and posse were attempting to drown him out, he killed one of the posse and then putting the pistol into his own mouth, blew his brains out.
      July - The first hot air balloon ride lifted off from Carson City, carrying Tony Ward.
      The Central Pacific railroad (now Union Pacific) auctioned off 400 lots in a neatly laid out town site, now downtown Reno, on 80 acres deeded over by Lake in return for the V&T Railroad choosing the location. The Central Pacific built a depot and created a new town site - Reno.  At the behest of General Irvin McDowell, Charles Crocker, the railroad construction superintendent, named the town for Jesse Lee Reno, an American army officer who had served in the Mexican War and was later killed in Civil War action at South Mountain, Maryland, Sept. 14th, 1862.5
      September 16th - The Central Pacific rails reached Winnemucca.
      October 1st - The "Champion" was the first locomotive into town. There was no celebration at
Winnemucca at the time of its arrival, and the work pushing the line to the east continued. By November the railroad was completed through Humboldt County. 34
1869  - March 3rd - Legislature passed an act for the construction of a suitable building for the care and maintenance of orphans of the state, located in Ormsby County.
      May 10th - The tracks for the Central Pacific Railroad  met the Union Pacific Railroad at Promontory Summit, just south of Promontory, Utah.
      May 11th - The first through train of four cars passed through Winnemucca at noon. The train carried Governor Safford of the Arizona Territory, the Railroad Commissioners, and the President and Vice-President of the Central Pacific
Railroad Company.
       In Carson City, the Nevada State Legislature overrode the Governor's veto and formally legalized gambling in Nevada. Elko County was created. 
In late December an earthquake shook Reno. 
      June 19th - The Elko Independent, Elko's first newspaper begins publication.
      October 19th - Construction on the Sutro tunnel began in order to drain water from the Comstock Lode.  It cost approximately $4.5 million and was 4 miles long.
       A survey team from the U.S. Geographical Survey West of the 100th Meridian, led by Lieutenant George M. Wheeler, traverses southern Nevada through the Las Vegas valley.
       Two-wheel bicycles were introduced to Nevada.
1870  - January 6th - The Carson City mint was opened in response to a need for a mint closer to the famous Comstock Load. Most of the coins struck in this mint was silver of course, but gold was mined in smaller amounts and this made into coins. The CC mint marked $20 Liberties are some of the scarcer Liberties minted, 1893 saw only 18 thousand of them minted and was the last date for the Carson City mint.


This is the "Seated Liberty" silver half dollar
which was minted when the Carson City Mint
first opened.


You can see the "cc" below the bird.
This says the coin was struck in Carson City.


The last year the Mint was in operation this was
one of the $20 Gold Double Eagles minted.

      November 4th - The first train robbery in the Western United States. Eight men, Smiling Jack Davis, James Gilchrist, Chat Roberts, Sol Jones, J. H. Chapman, E. N. Parsons, Tilton Cockerell, and John Squires, robbed the Central Pacific's Atlantic Express of $40,000 in gold, the payroll for Gold Hill's Yellow Jacket Mine.   Three different rewards were offered - Wells Fargo put up $10,000, Nevada Governor Henry Blasdel put up $20,000, and the U.S. Post Office put up $500.  Honesty among thieves wasn't a common practice with these boys.  The first one was captured and quickly told where two of the others were.  After further interrogation, he broke down and gave up the names of everyone involved.  In the end the following verdicts were delivered: Gilchrist and Roberts - released in exchange for their testimony; Jones - 5 years, state prison; Davis - 10 years; Chapman - 18 years; Parsons and Squires - 20 years; Cockerell - 22 years.   Less than a year later, Cockerell, Chapman, Parsons, and Squires joined in a bloody prison break.  All but Parsons were captured; he remained free for 5 more years.  Jack Davis refused to get involved in the break, was considered a model inmate and was released on parole after three years.  He went to work at the Virginia City mines, but was shot in the back two years later by a Wells Fargo guard riding shotgun on a stagecoach carrying a gold shipment.6      
      The Virginia & Truckee RR completed to Carson City.      Fort Churchill abandoned.
      Nevada's population: 42,491 - 27 percent of the State's total were located in Virginia City and its environs. 


1871  - Lewis R. "Broadhorns" Bradley elected 2nd Governor of Nevada 1871-79, (2 terms).
      July 13th - George Kirk was hung by vigilantes at Virginia City.  He had been ordered to leave town and never come back but was later found drunk in a dance house.  He was taken to the Sierra Nevada Works and hung.
      September 9th - The first Scottish Rite lodge (Free Masonry)  to be instituted in Nevada was organized at Hamilton, White Pine County, and was known as Adoniram Lodge of Perfection.
      September 17th - Twenty-nine of Nevada's most desperate outlaws escaped from the Carson City Territorial Prison well armed from the prison armory.

1872  - Virginia & Truckee RR extended to Reno. 
      July 2nd - Jacob W. Davis of Reno, Nevada, sent Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco a sample of his work pants and a business proposal for Strauss to apply for a patent in exchange for a half share in the patent. Davis soon sold his half share to Strauss and moved to San Francisco to supervise the manufacture of the work pants.
 
1873  - March - The Great Bonanza Mine in Virginia City discovered.  Eureka County was created from part of Lander County.
      March 23rd - The first lodge of the KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS was instituted, it was Lodge No. 1, located at Virginia City.
      Nevada became the world leader in the production of Borax from the plant at Teels Marsh.  Borax is a hydrated sodium borate - a salt of boric acid, which is a white or colorless crystalline compound, H3BO3, used as an antiseptic and preservative and in fireproofing compounds, cosmetics, cements and enamels.10
      June 29th - At 11:00 p.m. the McLaughlin & Root Bldg in Virginia City, located on B Street exploded and caught fire.  Major General Van Bokkelen had stored 100 pounds of Hercules powder, six cases of nitroglycerine, 100 pounds of giant powder, and 200 pounds of common powder under his bed-room.  He was killed in the explosion.
1874  - The University of Nevada was opened at Elko.
         Walker River and Pyramid Lake Indian reservations were established.
1875  - Wednesday, October 27th - News from the Territorial Enterprise -  ". . . There was a convulsion in Virginia City yesterday.  A breath of hell melted the main portion of the town to ruins.  Our eyes are still dazed by the lurid glare; our ears are still ringing with the chaos of sounds of a great city passing away on the whirlwind of a storm of fire.  As the sun arose yesterday morning it turned to purple and gold the smiling features of the most prosperous city on earth.  Before the sun set, last night, the greater portion of the sky had disappeared; and men and women and little children, by hundreds and thousands, knew not where to get a morsel of food, or where to lay their heads.  The catastrophe is appalling . . . ."  Another fire this year laid waste to Eureka.
1876  - August 8th - Pat McCarran born, Reno.  O. D. Gass mortgaged the Las Vegas Ranch to his old friend William Knapp.  Top production year for the Comstock - $45,653,477.
      The Fourth Ward School in Virginia City, a gem of Second Empire architecture, was built on C Street.
      October 27th - Captain Joseph Walker dies at 78 years old.
1877  - An act entitled "An Act to Prohibit The Winning of Money from Persons Who Have No Right to Gamble It away," was passed.  This law, a monument to naïveté and impracticality, prevented those legally in debt or possessing a wife or dependent children from wagering.
      Electric telephones installed in mines at Virginia City after the invention was shown at 1876 U. S. Centennial Exhibition; first telephones in Nevada in Storey county.
      Hannah K. Clapp and Annie Martin opened the first kindergarten in Nevada at Carson City, as a private institution.
      Nevada Wildlife Commission was established.
      The Virginia & Gold Hill Water Company manufactured ice using Holden's Machine and were able to produce 15 tons of ice daily.
      Prospectors outside of Eureka Nevada found a human leg broken off four inches above the knee cap including the foot. This leg was found sticking out of solid red quartzite rock dating from the time of the dinosaurs. After using their picks to extract their find from the rock they took it to Eureka. Medical doctors examined the bones and stated that it did indeed belong to a human of very modern appearance. The interesting part was the size of the bones. They measured from heel to knee 39 inches. The owner would have stood over 12 feet tall. The area was searched for more remains but nothing else was found.
      December 21st - Sam Mills, a 23 year old black man, the son of freed slaves, once a slave himself, through a series of misfortune and bad judgment ended up becoming the first person to be legally hanged in Elko County.  For the murder of his best friend, which he said he had no intention of killing, he was sentenced on July 24th to be hanged.  To read the complete story, click here: THE FIRST, Halleck Station, Nevada - 1877
1878  - July 8th - The Sutro Tunnel was completed, reaching the Comstock mines. 
      New Silver Dollar arrives, known as the Morgan Dollar, but no one welcomed its return since it was discontinued in 1873.  There simply was not much clamoring among the American public for a heavy, nearly palm-sized dollar coin.  The Morgan Dollar came from America's richest silver strike, the great Comstock lode. The vein of silver was so thick and so rich that a million dollars of silver a week was coming from the Comstock mines. There had to be a market for this river of silver or the bustling Nevada economy would collapse. The Federal government was the obvious customer for all this silver and lobbyists successfully shepherded the new silver dollar into existence with the passage of the Bland-Allsion Act in 1878. Passed over the veto of President Rutherford B. Hayes, Bland-Allison required the United States Treasury to purchase between $2 and $4 million worth of silver bullion per month and coin it into silver dollars.11



1879  - John Henry Kinkead elected 3rd Governor of Nevada 1879-83. The city of Reno becomes incorporated. 
      O. D. Gass mortgaged the Las Vegas Ranch and its 960 acres for $5000 from a wealthy Pioche business man, Archibald Stewart.
      March 21st Governor Bradley died in Elko.  

1880  - The right to vote for political candidates was extended to non-whites in Nevada - yet still excluded Native Americans.
      September 7th - President Rutherford B. Hayes visits the Comstock after a brief stop and speech in Reno.
      Nevada's population: 62,266.

1881  - Fifty silver-lead mines were producing in the Eureka District.   The Big Bonanza  at Virginia City became exhausted and the mines began to close. 
      The notes on O. D.. Gass' loan from Stewart came due on May 2nd.  Gass was unable to settle so he and his family left Las Vegas the following month.7
       First high school opened in Nevada.
1882  - February - Sutro tunnel completed.  Sold for $700,000.
       October - Old Chief Winnemucca died at Coppersmith Station, Nevada.  (NOTE: The only mention of a Coppersmith Station in NV, is in relation to this story as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle).

1883  - Jewett Adams elected 4th Governor of Nevada 1883-87.  Adams had been a farmer and stock raiser.
      Sarah Winnemucca wrote the book "Life among the Piutes."  She  was a dedicated and influential Native-American woman.  She worked throughout her life to improve living conditions for Native Americans in Nevada and elsewhere.
      Virginia City's Fourth Ward School was the first in the state to offer a high school education. The graduating class of 1883 included an African American, a member of a well-respected family.
                        
1884  - Sarah Winnemucca established Nevada's first school for Native Americans.  Her brother Natchez organized construction of the building. Known externally as a champion of the rights of indigenous peoples, she remains a controversial figure within the Native American community. Sarah Winnemucca, was the daughter of Chief Winnemucca and the granddaughter of Chief Truckee. 
1885  - The Carson Mint ceased operation.  The legislature provided for removal of the state university from Elko to Reno.
      Absalom Lehman, a local rancher and miner discovered what became known as the Lehman Caves.
1886  - Fort Halleck in Elko County was abandoned, the troops moved to Fort Douglas in Utah.
     Indian Courts established.

1887  - Charles Clark Stevenson elected 5th Governor of Nevada 1887-90.
      February 14th - First electric street lamps in Nevada were operated in Reno by the private power outfit the Reno Electric Light Company.  Carson City got its lamps a year later.

1888  - September 29th - The cornerstone for the (now historical) Federal Building in Carson City was laid.

1889  - April - Carson Mint re-opened with $1,600,000 in gold bars on hand.
      Fort McDermitt Indian reservation established.   Wavoka's Ghost Dance movement.
      New invention shown at Ormsby County Fair at Carson City - the phonograph.

1889/90  - Winter - Known as the "White Winter" because nearly 100 inches of snow fell - the heaviest snowfall in northern Nevada history.  An estimated 90-95% of the state's livestock died during that winter.9
      September 21st Governor Stevenson died.   He was the first to die in office.
1890  - Francis Jardine Bell elected 6th Governor of Nevada 1890-91.  The first installation of phones in Nevada was made by Francis Jardine Bell, cousin of Alexander Graham Bell, in the Consolidated Virginia Mine in Virginia City to facilitate communication between men in the mine and those on the surface.  Bell also was one of two men who telegraphed Nevada's constitution, and was manager of the telegraph.1
      December 17th - Stewart Indian School established.  It opened with 37 students from local Washoe, Paiute and Shoshone tribes and three teachers.   It lasted 90 years when it was closed due to budget cuts and earthquake safety issues.       
      Josiah and Elizabeth Potts were jointly hung in Elko County, Nevada for the crime of murder for killing Miles Faucett, her ex-husband.  After their appeals had been turned down, an execution date was set and a gallows was brought from California and re-assembled in the prison yard in Elko.  Elizabeth had a new white dress with black silk bows made especially for her execution. On the trap their wrists were bound, their shoes removed, and their legs strapped. They leaned forward and kissed affectionately before the black hoods were pulled over their heads and nooses adjusted around their necks. The trap was sprung at 10:44 a.m., the force of the drop nearly decapitating Elizabeth who had put on weight in prison. Elizabeth was the first and only woman to be executed in Nevada.    Nevada's population: 47,355.

1891   - Roswell Keyes Colcord elected 7th Governor of Nevada 1891-95.  
      Nevada received first prize for wheat at the New Orleans Exposition.
      Stewart Indian School opened outside Carson City.
      Nevada Silver Party formed; controlled Nevada politics 1896-1906.

1892  - Las Vegas gets its first Post Office, but was not called the Las Vegas Post  Office.   It was the Los Vegas Post Office in order to keep it separate from the Las Vegas in Arizona.  Delamar mine discovered.

1893   - Coin minting operations cease at U.S. Mint, Carson City.

1894   - February 1st - The Great Meteor - A eastbound meteor brilliantly  illuminating the State of Nevada and Central California exploded six miles above the town of Candelaria and chunks of the outer shell fell and struck the ground between Candelaria and Bellville in Esmeralda County, Nevada, about five miles from the railroad track.  The remaining chunk of meteor continued on for another 50 miles witnesses said.
      October 18th - The following article is reprinted as it appeared in the Carson Morning News,    "At a meeting of the colored voters held last evening it was decided to form a political club to be known as the Colored Republican Club.  D. J. Harris was elected president, Alex Harris Secretary, Wm. Lynch Treasurer.
      "Chas. Bennett was Sergeant-at-Arms of the meeting.  The committee on platform and resolutions reported as follows:
      "We, the Colored Republican Club of Ormsby County, do hereby adopt the platform of the Republican party of Nevada, and we do hereby request all the colored voters of the state to stand firm by the Republican party as the best means of bettering their condition of the State at large."
      The Sunset Telephone & Telegraph Company installed first municipal telephone system in Nevada at Reno; completed 1895.
1895   - Nevada legislature authorized the state's first public library in Reno.
      First public kindergarten in the state opened in 1895 at Reno.
      John Edward Jones elected 8th Governor of Nevada 1895-96. 
      Elko Co. Bd. of Education established first county high school.  

1896 - April 10th - Gov. Jones died in office.
      Reinhold Sadler became Acting 9th Governor of Nevada 1896-1903 after Governor Jones died.
      Development of cyanide process for silver at the University of Nevada. 

    
1897   - Gold discovered in Searchlight by G. F. Colton. The area became very   productive and a number of mines were developed. Notable mines which played a significant role in the economy of the area include the Duplex, Pompei, Quartette, Good Hope, Cyrus Noble, Blossom and the Searchlight M & M. Searchlight was isolated by desert from other areas of population and markets and originally void of a water supply to maintain a community and operate mills. In order to overcome this a mill was constructed on the Colorado fourteen miles away. A narrow gauge railway was built from that point to the Quartette mine. The ore was then hauled to the river mill for reduction. River steamboats then transported the refined ore to the railhead of the Santa Fe railroad at Needles, California. Later water was discovered at depths of 200 to 300 feet. This eliminated the need for the long haul to the river. The mill was moved to the town and the railway was abandoned.
      March 17th - The first legal prize fight in the United States is held in Carson City.  It was also the first world championship fight and the first fight to be filmed.  Bob Fitzsimmons beat the reigning champion, "Gentleman Jim" Corbett in the fourteenth round.
      Anson P. Stokes built an unusual structure just southwest of Austin, Nevada.  As a summer place, it became known as Stoke's Castle.  It still stands today.
      Austin mines closed.
1898   - Reinhold Sadler was elected Governor  (already acting Governor from 1896.)  The Mint at Carson City was dismantled and re-equipped for assaying.
      Searchlight in Clark county founded.

1899  - Charles Fey invented a slot machine  named Liberty Bell.  The device became the model for all slots to follow.  The original Liberty Bell slot machine can be seen at the Liberty Belle Saloon & Restaurant at 4250 S. Virginia St, in Reno.
      Long distance telephone service became available for the first time in Nevada at Reno.

1900  - May 19th - Jim Butler discovers an  outcropping of ore in the desert.  He (and his wife) made camp at a small spring known by the Indians as Tonopah, a Shoshone word for little spring.    In the morning while looking for his burros he found the outcropping.    Folk lore tells that he was so mad at his burro, he picked up a rock to throw it and noticed the rock felt unusually heavy, at which point he examined it.   His discovery triggered the beginning of the fast paced 20th century  mining era in Nevada.  Initial assays revealed over 640 ounces of silver and $200 of gold per ton.
      June 30th - Reno Lodge No. 597, The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Was organized.
      September 19th - The Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy's "Hole in the Wall gang" (without Butch), robs first National Bank in Winnemucca of $32,000.  The story has been greatly distorted over the years since then.  Read all about it here. (separate web site)
      Henry Goode Blasdel, Nevada's first Governor, dies at his home in Oakland, California.
      Nevada's Population: 42,335.
1901   - May 15th - The Pinkerton Detective Agency put up a $6000 reward for the arrest of the members of the Hole in the Wall Gang.  Members of the gang, minus Butch Cassidy, robbed Winnemucca's First National Bank the previous Sept.
      A law was passed making it unlawful to sell horse-meat without informing the purchaser of its nature. (Yummy!)
      It became unlawful to have in operation any form of nickel-in-the-slot machine.
      Dan Stewart led a losing fight to have lotteries legalized.
      Tonopah of Nye county founded.
1902   - January - H. M. McCartney, chief engineer for Clark’s SP, LA&SL Railroad writes to Senator Clark’s brother, J. Ross, in Los Angeles, that the Stewart Ranch is the best land in the Las Vegas Valley with its springs which would give the railroad control of all the water it required.
      John W. Mackay, most famous of all the Comstockers, died in   London,  England, at the age of 72. 
      Goldfield was discovered.
      The rush was on to the Goldfield Mining District.  So reminiscent of the Comstock era, it provided an unexpected boom to the state.
      Goldfield's population was recorded at only 1,972.  Within five years, this isolated mining community swelled to between 25,000 and 30,000 persons and was by far the largest city in Nevada.
      October - William Clark signs contract with Helen Stewart for purchase of the Stewart Ranch with its water rights for $55,000. The railroad hires local surveyor J. T. McWilliams to survey the ranch.        

1903   - John Sparks elected 10th Governor of Nevada 1903-08.  Construction of a railroad through southern Nevada was started to connect Salt Lake City and Los Angeles.
      November 30th - The Vitagraph Theater in Reno opened and was the first movie house in Nevada. The Nevada State Journal reported in its Sunday edition: "Beginning tomorrow evening the Vitagraph company under the management of E.W. Grosbeck will give continuous performances in the vacated Model store on West Commercial street. The theater will run from 2 o’clock to five and from 7 to 10 p.m.. The performance will consist of moving pictures and illustrated songs. The very latest machine will be used and the public may expect a splendid entertainment. Mr. Grosbeck comes highly recommended by the California press. It will be refined entertainment, suitable for ladies and children."
      In the December 2nd edition, it reported: “This afternoon and evening there will be a complete change of program at the Vitagraph theater on Commercial street. The novelties will consist of a number of unique and pleasing features, including “A trip to the Moon,” and a number of comic scenes. The illustrated songs will be sung by Wm. Roberts. The theater has been crowded every evening since it was opened and hereafter it will be open in the afternoons also.” 32
1904   - The San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad laid its tracks through the Las Vegas Valley.    The railroad purchased land from Helen Stewart in 1902, bought the water rights and surveyed a town site for its railroad servicing, repair facilities, lodging, and entertainment establishments.
      The town of Rhyolite founded.  Rhyolite is said to be the most photographed ghost town in the west. The population of Rhyolite passed 8,000 at it's peak.
      The first tent put up in Las Vegas and was used as a hospital. The photo is dated 1904, actual placement of the tent is unknown.
      Wyatt Earp operated a saloon in Tonopah, "The Northern."
      Virgil Earp, brother of lawman, Wyatt, and survivor of the famous shootout at the O. K. Corral, became Deputy Sheriff in Goldfield.  He later died of pneumonia in Goldfield, Oct. 19th, 1905.9
      December - Surveyor J. T. McWilliams purchases eighty acres of land on the west side of the railroad tracks and begins selling lots in his “Las Vegas Original Town site.”
1905   - January 30th - Rail line completed to Los Angeles, first through train passes through Las Vegas.
      February 7th - Deseret News in Salt Lake City quotes J. Ross Clark, speaking on behalf of the railroad, who points out that McWilliams town site has no water and no access to the railroad. Similar stories appear in the Los Angeles newspapers
      May 15th - The railroad going through Las Vegas held an auction on the spot where the Union Plaza stands today, and sold 700 lots.  Auction prices started at $150.00 to $750.00 for corner lots, and from $100.00 to $500.00 for inside lots.   Las Vegas became a small watering stop with repair shops and depot (built the following year) with a few hotels, stores, a saloon and a few thousand residents.    Block 16 - between 1st Street & 2nd Street (now Casino Center Blvd), and between Ogden Street &Stewart Street - was designated as the drinking block, an anything-goes red-light district.  Block 17 (same block as the Lady Luck Casino),  to the rear between 2nd & 3rd, was designated for "non-white" residents.  The first state flag was adopted.

                                                                            Graphic Flag Image created and copyrighted by James Shown

      June 10th - The first fire in Las Vegas broke out at 10:30 at Chop House Bills.  The fire was caused when the dishwasher was filling the stove with gasoline while it was still lit, and it caused a "bursting of the stove."  When this happened it set fire to neighboring building, including the real estate office of Fulmer & Herrick, the coffee house of J. H. Brown and the barber shop and confectionary store of T. E. MacGee. 
A total loss of $3600, no one was seriously injured.
      October 7th - first baby born in Clark's Las Vegas, as it was known then.   It's a boy!  The son of J. A. Lytle was delivered by attending physician Dr. Renshaw. (Las Vegas Times)
      November 11th - Vegas Artesian Water Syndicate organized by residents to dig test wells, the wells to be sold with adjacent land to farmers.
      The first school in Las Vegas was an old converted building, but wasn't ready until October 2nd.   It had to close by March 30th due to lack of funds, even though there were fifty or sixty students and only two teachers.

 


      The "Las Vegas Hotel", regarded as the first hotel in Las Vegas, although it was a mere tent, unlike others, it was 140 feet long and has a wooden structure and thereby considered a hotel. It had 30 rooms, a kitchen & dining room and a beer & cigar bar.

1906   - Searchlight's increasing community demanded a more efficient transportation and  communication with the outside world. A twenty-three mile long spur line, the Barnwell and Searchlight, was constructed to connect the town to the Santa Fe Line. However, Searchlight's boom reached its peak during 1906-07. Continuous production was recorded through 1954. The Barnwell Searchlight Line was abandoned in 1924.  The Union Pacific Railroad depot is completed in Las Vegas.
      The Hotel Nevada (now the Golden Gate) opens in downtown Las Vegas.
      February 3rd - Las Vegas gets first streetlights.
      May 3rd - Ruby Mountains Forest Reserve is established by Presidential Proclamation.
      June 2nd - First carload of distilled whiskey to be shipped into Nevada directly from the distillery was received by J. O. McIntosh of the Arizona Club.  The car had a full-length banner which read: For J. O. McIntosh, from the Old Early Times Distillery, Bardstown, Nelson County, Kentucky."
      October 22nd - The first train from Las Vegas arrives in Beatty via the Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad.
      October 24th - The Daily Bonanza newspaper begins publication in Tonopah under the guidance of W. W. Booth, who was also responsible for the weekly Tonopah Bonanza.
      November 5th - Congress created the Independence National Forest.       
1907   - July - First successful artesian well drilled in Las Vegas.
      Nevada's first Chamber of Commerce was  established in Elko.
      Riepetown founded.  Riepetown was a mining camp 5 miles north of Ely and had 16 saloons, providing liquor,  gambling and prostitution and was widely known for its sinful reputation.
      Copper boom at Ely.  Rawhide boom, 90 saloons & 1 church before town burned in 1908.
      December 6th - President Teddy Roosevelt orders federal troops to Goldfield to settle a dispute between mine owners and union workers.
      The Esmeralda county seat was moved from Hawthorne to Goldfield.

1908  - Denver Sylvester Dickerson elected 11th  Governor  (served his term as Acting-Governor), of Nevada 1908-11.  After his term as Governor,  Dickerson was appointed  Superintendent of  the State Police and Warden of the  State Prison.  He served  as head of the state prison until his death on  November 28th, 1925.   
       Las Vegas  consisted of a few ranches, the Kyle Ranch, the Las Vegas Ranch, and a few neighboring communities.  See 1908 map here.
      Construction began on Governor's Mansion, Carson City, completed the following year.
      May - The courthouse in Goldfield opened.
      July 1st - Congress created Humboldt National Forest out of Ruby Mountain and Independence National Forests.
    

      September 4th -  Fire sweeps through the town of Rawhide devastating the mining boomtown.


      September 5th -  James Bliss and W. M. Walters were indicted by the Esmeralda County Grand Jury for the robbery of a stagecoach in Rawhide.  Furthermore, a defense witness testifies that Bliss is actually C. L. "Gunplay" Maxwell, a member of Butch Cassidy's "Wild Bunch".
      Jarbidge gold boom, lasted until 1935.

1909   - Jarbidge - Gold was discovered in this isolated area in 1909 by Dave Bourne, and a total of $9 million was produced.
      Clark County was formed out of Lincoln County. Las Vegas was made county seat.  December - A snow storm at Las Vegas left twelve inches of snow on the city. 
      July 3rd - first marriage certificate filed in Clark County.
       November 1st - Las Vegas City Commission grants a franchise to the Las Vegas Land and Water Company to install, maintain, and operate a water system.
1910   - January 1st - One hundred miles of the San Pedro, Los Angeles, & Salt Lake Railroad are washed out by a flood in the Meadow Valley Wash.
      Goldfield's population dwindled to 9,369.  Gambling was abolished in Nevada. 
      Las Vegas is nearly wiped out due to more than 100 miles of track on the Nevada route to Salt Lake being destroyed by flood.
      June 23rd - The first air flight in Nevada took place on the old Raycraft Ranch immediately to the west. The flight was of national interest not only because an air journey had never before been made at such an altitude (4,675 feet), but also because Ivy Baldwin, a nationally known parachutist and balloonist, would make the flight.   Baldwin made the flight in a 48-horsepower Curtis Paulham biplane, reaching a height of 50 feet and covering one-half mile before returning to the starting point.
     July 4th - Jack Johnson becomes the first African American to win the heavyweight boxing Championship in a bought  with Jim Jeffries.  Johnson wins in 15 rounds.
      First gasoline-powered tractor in Nevada (called a 'self-propelled plow') at Lovelock in Pershing county.
      Nevada Legislature passed a statute allowing condemned prisoners to choose execution by being hung or stand before a firing squad.  The first and only shooting would come in 1913.
      See a panoramic view of Las Vegas-1910
      Goldfield ceases to be the largest city in Nevada.
      Nevada's population: 81,875.
1911  - January - Last Indian uprising in the U.S.      
      Tasker L. Oddie 12th Governor of Nevada 1911-15.  Las Vegas becomes  incorporated.  The original boundaries for Las Vegas were from Garces Street to Stewart, and  from Main Street to 5th Street.  Helen Stewart deeded 10 acres to Paiute Indians in  the Las Vegas Valley area.  This would be their only legal land base until 1975.       
      March 16th - Las Vegas is incorporated.
      July 4th - Belle Isle, (Wingfield Park), Reno.  Eugene Ely flew the first airplane ever seen in the state.   Ely was to take off and fly a single engine bi plane around Reno.  However, once in the air he developed engine trouble when a wrist pin in one of the cylinders broke. He was forced to make a figure "S", gliding back to the runway. He had been in the air barely seven minutes but made history for having become the first airplane known to have flown within the state of Nevada.  Unfortunately, his fame only lasted about a year.  In 1912 he plunged to his death in Georgia.
      November 11th - Las Vegas Population: 800, Clark County Population: 3,321
1912  - January 20th - The Las Vegas Age newspaper reported:  Government To Establish A School On Vegas Reservation  - Mr. Francis A. Swayne was in Las Vegas to close the deal for the land for the Vegas Indian Reservation. The tract purchased adjoins the railroad on the tract just north of the city.  It was a portion of the property owned by Helen Stewart and included valuable springs.  A school house was planned to be built and in the charge of a teacher and a housekeeper as soon as possible.  The Indians would be encouraged to build houses and otherwise improve their own condition.   Mr. Swayne was the supervisor of the Vegas Reservation as well as the Moapa School.
      First Mayor of Las Vegas, Peter Buol elected.
1913  - The first state motor vehicle law passed, the license fee to be 12.5 cents per horsepower, minimum horsepower  rating to be 20.
      Nevada State Route 1 was designated as the first highway and went across the northern part of the state from Wendover to Verdi.  Later it was named "The Victory Hwy" (1920), then in 1926 - U.S. Hwy 40, and finally in 1958 it became Interstate 80.9
                   


      The Northern Club opened on the property of the Las Vegas Coffee House. On the surface it was a place
that sold soft drinks, but as most miners knew only to well Northern was code for alcohol and gambling which of course were both illegal at this time.
      Governor Emmitt D. Boyle creates the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
      Las Vegas Population: 2,304, Clark County
      Population: 8,045.

1914   - June 17th - The first transcontinental telephone line is completed with the last pole installed near West Wendover.
      November 3rd - Women got the right to vote in Nevada.  Lahontan Dam completed.

1915   - Emmet Derby Boyle elected 13th Governor of Nevada 1915-23, (2 terms).  Boyle was  the first "Native Nevadan" governor, born in Goldfield July 26th, 1879.  During his two terms as governor many progressive programs were initiated for the benefit of children, women and workers.  The second state flag was adopted.

                                                                     Graphic Flag Image created and copyrighted by James Shown
   
1916   - December 5th - Jarbidge, NV - The Last Stage, (a U.S. Mail wagon) Robbery, in the country took place in Jarbidge Canyon, one-quarter mile north of the town. This case is also notable as the first ever decision where a palm print was used for identification and conviction, State v. Kuhl 42 Nev. 185.  When a search party later located the missing stagecoach, the driver was found dead amidst signs of foul play. The mail sacks had been slashed open with a knife, and the $4,000 in gold double eagles that the stagecoach had been carrying with the mail were missing.      A local miner, Ben Kuhl, was soon identified as a suspect and brought to trial. The evidence against Kuhl was largely circumstantial and included a letter from the mail pouch smeared with a bloody palm print. Experts convinced the jury that the print was made by Kuhl, and on October 6th, 1917 the jury returned a verdict of murder. As for the $4,000 in gold coins, the money was never recovered and legend has it that the treasure remains buried  somewhere in the vicinity of Jarbidge.
1917   - March 20th - Sagebrush adopted as state flower.
      June 16th - The Las Vegas Age newspaper reported: Boy's Pig Club - A Mr. Baldwin, a ranch owner in the upper Moapa Valley, made a generous offer to let each of 25 boys, who may wish to join the Boy's Pig Club, to have a registered Duroc Jersey pig for $3, to be paid when profits come in.  The pigs were from 6 to 8 weeks old and were the pick of his lot.
1918   - February 16th - The Las Vegas Age newspaper reported: Valley Men Reclaim An Old Silver City - Silver City, with all it's famous riches has been reclaimed by men of Logandale, and silvery stories are afloat about the rich returns from ore samples.  The sandy trails leading west from Overton are traveled day and night by farmers, prospectors and cowboys on horseback.  The center of attention was located a little southwest of Overton, not 5 miles from the railroad tracks.  Will Dotson of Logandale sold three-fourths interest in one of his claims to Dan Potter and Mat Reese for $300.
      State prohibition law goes into effect.

 

1919   - March 19th - Trans-Sierran Pioneer Flight.  The first authenticated air flight over the Sierra Nevada was successfully completed when four U.S. Army planes touched down in Reno on an improvised field, also becoming the first Airmail into Nevada.
      Originating at Mather Field, Sacramento, and led by Lt. Col. Henry L. Watson, the squadron was made up of three Liberty-powered DeHavilands and one 90-horsepower Curtiss trainer.
      The fliers, personally welcomed by Governor Emmet D. Boyle, were Watson, Lts. Ruggles, Curtis, Krull, Schwartz, Haggett, and Sgt. Conway. It was Haggett who introduced an added surprise by landing his small trainer, unannounced, some minutes after the main flight.
      Governor Boyle flew as a passenger in one of the planes on its return flight to Sacramento, thus making him the first civilian to cross the Sierras in flight.
      Clara Dunham Crowell was appointed the first  woman sheriff in Nevada.
      Nevada Legislature passes a law forbidding any public utility to install or operate water meters in towns with a population greater than 4,500.    

 
1920   - May 7th - Newspaper editor and reserve army pilot Lieutenant Randall Henderson accompanied by former Las Vegan Jake Beckley, landed the first flight into Las Vegas. Their flight in a Curtiss JN-4 plane originated in Blythe, California.
      July - Edna Howard Covert Plummer was the first woman to found a national bank.  She founded the Farmer's and Merchant's Bank in Eureka.  Nevada's population: 77,407.
      November 24th - The first airport to serve Las Vegas was Anderson Field, located on what is now the Sahara Hotel parking lot. The airfield opened officially on Thanksgiving Day.
     Goldfield's population: 2,410.

 

      


      The Northern Club opened in the building that used to be the Las Vegas Coffee House.  Mayme Stocker renamed the coffee house offering liquor and gambling, both which were illegal at this time.  The name Northern was a code known by most miners for the illegal activities.
      Governor Emmitt D. Boyle creates the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
      NV Population: 8,045
1921   - Ruth Averill, Republican from Nye County, was the first woman attorney to serve in the Nevada Assembly.
      The Copper mines Company at Ruth and the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company of Ely closed down because of the low price of copper.
      Bureau of Reclamation engineer Walker Young moves the location of the proposed dam from the original site in Boulder Canyon to the narrower Black Canyon.
      David Lorenzi finishes the first of two lakes on his property which would become the Twin Lakes Resort.

1922   - July 21st - The first  radio station in the state, station KDZK, was established in Reno, broadcasting from Reno's Majestic Theater.
      August 23rd - A fire in Tonopah which started from an unknown source near the Casino dance hall spread four blocks to the railway depot, was out of hand due to a fifty mile an hour wind.  Damage was estimated at $200,000 to $350,000.
      Great Railroad Strike. Las Vegas rail yards and machine shops besieged by strikers. Railroad requests state troopers to protect railroad property. Most people in Las Vegas support the strikers. After the strike the railroad moves its machine shops to Caliente.

1923   - July - Fire ravages over 50 square city blocks of Goldfield; only half of the town is left standing.
      James Graves Scrugham elected 14th Governor of Nevada 1923-27. 
      Nevada, along with Montana, pass the country's first old age pension act.  The first State recreation grounds were set aside.
 
1924   - December 10th - O. D. Gass dies in California.
      A Chinaman, Gee Jon, was executed for murder at the state prison with lethal gas, the first execution of this type.
      All American aboriginal people (Native Americans) were given the right to vote by U.S. Congress.
      Railroad drills its first well, Well No. 1, near the Las Vegas Springs.

1925  - February 13th - A silver strike at the Piermont Mine in Spring Valley which was        believed to be a continuation of the vein which had yielded between  one and three million dollars between 1871 and 1872, was opened a  week prior.  The Piermont Mine was one of the wealthiest producers during the time of its existence that the west had known.  (The Ely  Record)
       Dat-So-La-Lee died at the age of about 96.
       Las Vegas gets its first paved street, Fremont Street from Main to Fifth.    Congress made Indians U.S. Citizens.
1926   - First Airport in Las Vegas established at Rockwell Field, now the Sahara Hotel parking lot.  This was Anderson Field where the first plane landed in 1920, but the brothers Earl and Leon Rockwell bought the field in 1925 and renamed it after themselves.
      The first commercial airline flight in the nation, Western Air Express, carrying the first load of mail bags between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City had to land at Las Vegas to refuel.  Landing at the primitive airport southeast of town established the Las Vegas Airport as the first in the state to log in a scheduled commercial flight.   Western Air Express was the beginning of Western Airlines, which later merged with Delta.

     
      April 17th - The first air mail delivery departed Las Vegas 10.45am piloted by Maury Graham. (Who died in a  plane crash in 1930).
      May 23rd - The first passengers arrived in Las Vegas.  The plane was piloted by C N. "Jimmy" James.
      May - David Lorenzi completes a 90 x 100 foot swimming pool with a fountain in the center and opens the Twin Lakes Resort to the public.
      June 10th - The first woman to fly to Las Vegas arrives. Maude Campbell paid $160 for a round trip from Salt Lake to Los Angeles via Las Vegas.  

 

1927   - Fredrick Bennett Balzar elected 15th Governor  of Nevada 1927-34.  During his administration, he  signed Nevada's open gambling law and the six  weeks divorce law. He was the only governor to die in the governor's mansion. He died there on March 21st, 1934.

1928  - June 21st - The El Portal Theater opens at 310 Fremont Street. It is the first   building in Las Vegas to install air conditioning.
      It opened with a pre release screening of Clara Bow's movie "Ladies of the Mob". It was built on the site of the old Las Vegas Airdome open air theater, which was the first  theater built in Las Vegas.


    
             
                                     The theater closed at the end of the 1970's and became a gift shop
                  
      December 21st - President Calvin Coolidge signed the bill approving the Boulder Canyon project.
      The first neon sign appears at the Oasis Cafe on 123 Fremont Street.
      U.S. Government appropriates $165 million for the Boulder Canyon Project. First President Hoover's interior secretary called it Hoover Dam. It was later renamed Boulder Dam, Las Vegas by President Roosevelt, but changed again by Congress in 1947 to Hoover Dam.
      Less than an hour SE of Las Vegas, Hoover Dam confines Lake Mead and supplies the Colorado River,  plus hydropower to California, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. Built during the Depression, the project was completed in 1935 during the Roosevelt administration.  There was some concern and even fear of building the dam.  Read it here.
      Tunnels had to be bored through hillsides to allow tracks to be laid for the train that brought supplies to the construction site.  These tunnels still exist today, minus the tracks, and make for an interesting hike. 
      Las Vegas receives its first real wave of residents. Thousands of depression-weary job seekers came to help build the world's largest gravity dam just 30 miles from Las Vegas. 
      The Union Mining District near the town of Berlin uncovered the remains of the prehistoric Ichthyosaurs (more excavation of the site was begun in 1954).  
             
1929   - June 25th - The phrase The Biggest Little City in the World  is branded on the downtown Reno arch.
April 1st - The Boulder Club opens on the Strip where Binions now stands
      The third state flag was adopted.  This was not the final or present day flag as believed by many.  There were four state flags in all.   The flag of 1929 was never approved by the NV legislature, but the omission of approval was not discovered until 1989.  Our present flag was adopted in 1991.   Read the details here.
      The federal government paid the State of Nevada $595,076.53 as a "full and final settlement against the federal government . . . for money advanced during the Civil War".
      2.5 million gallon covered reservoir completed at Las Vegas Springs.
      There are 730 telephones in Las Vegas.
The 1929 Unofficial flag

                                                                                              Graphic Flag Image created and copyrighted by James Shown             
1930   - February 21st - City of Las Vegas grants a 50 year franchise to the Las Vegas Land and Water Company.
      Secretary of the Interior, Lyman Wilbur visited Las Vegas to inspect the town to see if it would be a suitable place for the workers to live. But after smelling alcohol on one of his employees and visiting Block 16, it was decided that this was not the kind of place they wanted their workers to live.

 

      The original plan was to complete the town before work on the dam began, but the construction schedule for the dam was accelerated by six months, and the town was not ready when the first dam workers arrived at the site in early 1931. Because of this the infamous town of Ragtown was born. Or Shantytown to be more precise. Located on the floor of the Black Canyon, it consisted of tents, cardboard boxes, scrap tin and anything else that would provide some shelter from the blistering 120° summer heat, and the freezing winter nights.
      September 17th - Union Pacific Railroad completes branch to Hoover Dam site.
      Las Vegas Population 5,165, Clark County Population  8,530.  Nevada's population: 91,058 including 4,871 Indians.
1931   - January - The Red Rooster nightclub is the second property to open on the Los Angeles Highway, Highway 91 - The Strip. The one story Spanish mission style building had a stage for a singer and orchestra, a dance floor, and a restaurant. It was located on the ground where the Mirage is today.
      March 19th - The Governor of Nevada, Fred Balzar, approved the "wide open" gambling bill that had been introduced by Winnemucca rancher, Assemblyman Phil Tobin.  Up until this time gambling had been abolished in Nevada.
      June 19th - The Review-Miner reported the find of two giant skeletons in the Humboldt lake bed. Both skeletons were wrapped in a gum treated fabric. The first skeleton was 8 and one half feet tall, the second was just under 10 feet tall.
March 20th - The first gaming license in Las Vegas went to Mamie Stocker for the Northern club. Mamie Stocker was a wife and mother so respectable her birthday parties were covered in the Las Vegas newspaper society pages.  She was the original licensee when the Northern Club opened in 1920, even though she had no background in the gaming business. But because her husband and three sons were all connected with the railroad, they were not supposed to be involved with things such as gambling. So you could say she was the "respectable front" of the operation.
        April 1st - The Red Rooster gets a casino license even though it was the second property on the strip behind the Pair O' Dice.
        April - Actual construction on the dam began.
        May 2nd - The Meadows, an early casino, opens up to receive the workers of the dam.  It was located on the corner of Boulder Hwy/Frémont Street & Charleston. Built by bootlegger and first known mobster in Las Vegas Tony "The Hat" Cornero.  Tony Cornero who had been convicted of illegal alcohol sales in California in the 1920's had his brothers Louis apply for the Meadows gaming license from Clark County in early 1931, because he would never get a gaming license with his record. He became the nightclub manager which of course was just a front to hide behind while he ran the whole operation. Cornero had made $1 million by the time he was 25 by selling liquor during prohibition.

      The Meadows made a lot of money for Cornero, but before long the New York mob led by Costello, Luciano and Lansky were demanding a piece of the action. Cornero rejected their demand and just a few months after it opened a fire destroyed the casino. The fire department refused to fight the fire  because the property was just outside the city boundary.
      Cornero soon realized he could not win a battle against the syndicate and a short time later he sold the property and returned to California. The resort became a popular nightspot for locals, but was never a big success. In 1935 new owners remolded it and renamed it Meadows Coconut Grove. But with the Hoover Dam being completed this same year, Las Vegas was dwindling, and the place only operated intermittently. Another set of owners only ran it as an hotel, but it got a bad reputation for prostitution and in 1943 it was completely destroyed by another fire.
 
    
      The Meadows Club was one of the first casinos to open in Las Vegas in the weeks after the Nevada legislature legalized casino gambling in March 1931. In its early years, the Meadows, with its live entertainment and fancy interior, was regarded as the finest casino in Las Vegas, and it was a forerunner of the modern casinos that followed in the 1940s. In the early 1930s, the club's concert stage featured performers such as the Gumm Sisters, with a young girl named Frances Gumm, later known as Judy Garland.
      The casino featured two roulette tables, two craps tables, two blackjack tables, two poker tables, a English hazard game, a faro table, a big six wheel, a chuck-a-luck and five slot machines. And incredibly it even had its own landing strip for wealthy clients.
May 5th - The Pair O' Dice got their casino license.  The Pair-O-Dice Club was the first casino to open on Highway 91, the future Las Vegas Strip. (Some report it as opening in 1930).  It was built by British theater owner R. E. Griffith. The nightclub was only open at night. In addition to bands and jazz performers, the Pair O' Dice served Italian food. In 1936 it was renamed the Ambassador Night Club.
      In 1939, Guy McAfee buys the Ambassador for $20,000 and calls it The 91 Club, after Highway 91. McAfee owned the Clover Club, on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles which was a private illicit casino .  McAfee was always telling people that some day there would be a string of clubs and casinos opening alongside his joint on Highway 91. Most historians credit him as the first to nickname the area "The Strip" after the Sunset Strip.
      June 5th - Amelia Earhart makes an emergency landing at Lovelock during her Beech-Nut Transcontinental Autogiro Tour.
      August 24th - Sam Gay the sheriff of Clark County between 1911-1931 dies in the Las Vegas hospital after suffering a heart attack.   He was a huge, muscular man, weighing 260 pounds. He established his reputation as one of the toughest lawmen in town who never carried a gun while keeping the peace. In 1911, while still Sheriff, he was appointed as the Police Chief of Las Vegas. He was reported to regularly tie "rowdies" to a hitching post and "hose" them down through the night. The Las Vegas Review Journal in 1926 described Gay as "big and genial, with muscles of steel and courage that never waivers."
      The Las Vegas Club opens at 21-23 Fremont Street.  The Las Vegas Clubs claim to fame is that it was the first casino to install a neon sign on the outside of its building.
      The first traffic light is installed in Las Vegas on Freemont Street.

1932   - March 19th - The first luxury hotel downtown The Hotel Apache opens on Fremont Street.  The three story, 100 room hotel contains a very elegant bar, expensive furniture, stained glass windows and the first elevator in Las Vegas.  A short time after opening a small casino was opened on part of the ground floor.  Over the years the hotel remained under same ownership, but the casino downstairs changed hands several times. In 1941 it became the Western Casino for a short period. Not to be confused with the Western Casino down past the El Cortez.
      September 20th - Paiute religious leader and founder of the Ghost Dance, Wavoka died in Mason Valley near the Walker River Reservation.
      Pat McCarran, 1876-1954, elected to the U.S. Senate.   He was noted for his strong anti-Communist stance.  He received the Democratic nomination by default since everyone believed he would lose to the popular but lackluster incumbent Republican senator, Tasker Oddie. This was, however, during the Great American Depression and the conventional wisdom failed to take into account that the influx of workers to construct Hoover Dam had changed the politics of the state.
         

 


 


1933   - Construction worker hard hat's were first designed and used specifically for workers on the dam. Frémont Street was a bustling business district.
      June 6th - The first concrete was poured for Hoover Dam.

 

1934   - In order to bring people to the city, Las Vegas begins "Helldorado Days". Its an attempt to capitalize on the city’s frontier roots, marketing the city as a vacation spot
in the theme of the Old West. It started when Clyde Zerby, a member of the Protective Order of Elks Lodge created a multiday festival on the lot where the El Cortez now stands, and named it Helldorado. The first festival included a Whiskerino contest, a publicity stunt in which local newspapers encouraged men to put down their razors for several weeks in an attempt to grow the longest beard.
      July 18th - First emergency city ordinance limiting waste and irrigating hours passed. One would be passed nearly every summer for the next twenty years.
      November 27th - The Carson City newspaper reports that a Paroled Convict (Dave Drawbridge) Attempted to Blow Up Governor's Mansion Friday Night .
      Morley Griswold elected 16th Governor of Nevada 1934-35.
      Nevada became eligible to receive 18% of the power generated at Boulder Dam.
     

 


1935   - Richard Kirman, Sr. elected 17th Governor of Nevada 1935-39. Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates Boulder Dam with a motorcade down Frémont Street.
      The Las Vegas Elks Club institutes Helldorado Days, a week-long celebration of Las Vegas' frontier heritage featuring a parade on Frémont Street.
      The first convention held in Las Vegas.
      May 29th - The last concrete was poured for Hoover Dam. The project was completed two years ahead of schedule, and $15 million under budget.
      September 30th - President Roosevelt dedicated Hoover Dam in front of 10,000 people gathered to see the ceremony.

1936   - January - Nevada Highways and Parks — known today as Nevada Magazine — was introduced by the state highway department.
      The success of the multiday Helldorado festival in 1934 led organizers to expand the festival to include a full scale rodeo and beauty parade.

      Hoover Dam is completed.
      September 11th - An electrical impulse released by President Roosevelt pressing a button on the opposite side of the continent this day sent 3,600,000 cubic feet of water per minute tumbling through gigantic Boulder Dam putting the mighty Colorado River to work generating electrical power.
      October 26th - The generation of electricity began at Hoover dam.
      November 18th - work began on a power line between Hoover Dam and Pioche.
1937   - February 24th - Three Federal Judges, Clifton Mathews, Harold Louderback and Frank Norcross upheld the decision made by a master in chancery and issued a permanent injunction against the law that trains be limited to 70 cars, saying it was unconstitutional.  It was decided that such a restriction would then require more trains, as many as 5,000 more, to be on the railroad system, thereby creating greater risks of accidents.    (Caliente Herald).
      As part of President Roosevelt's "New deal public works program" Highway 91, The Strip, was partially paved, creating a vital automobile link to Los Angeles.
      The Caliente Herald reported they were having the "coldest weather spell in memory for the past five days," with temperatures down to 10° above to 31° below zero, with 18 inches of snow.
1938   - April 1st - Carson City -Warden Lewis announced the formation of the first State Police Department, independent of the state highway department, and appointed five men as officers with the approval of Governor Kirman.  A. T. McCarter of Las Vegas was named Inspector, with George Gottschalk - Carson; Dan Borax - Las Vegas; Gene Walker - Reno and Frank Carpenter - Elko as Privates.
      The town of St. Thomas, NV becomes a ghost town.   A town of about 500 had to be abandoned to the rising waters of Lake Mead. Most of the people transplanted to Overton Nevada, just up the river.  Founded January 1865 by Mormon settlers, it is located at what was once a prime farming location, the confluence of the Muddy and Virgin Rivers.  St. Thomas had limited success as a farming settlement, however a spur of the railroad stopped there. This made St Thomas a place that also served the interests of miners in the region.
1939   - Edward Peter Carville elected 18th Governor of Nevada 1939-45. In 1945 he resigned to be appointed U.S. Senator by then Acting-Governor Vail Pittman.
      March - Hollywood film star, Clark Gable divorces his second wife Ria Franklin Prentiss Lucas Langhamwaits. They had been separated for some time and Clark had asked her repeatedly for a divorce so that he could marry Hollywood actress Carole Lombard, with whom he'd been having an affair with for three years. Eventually she agreed when he offered her a large sum of money. In January she moved to Las Vegas to wait out the required six week residency. The divorce was finalized in March. Before the month was out Gable and Lombard were married in Kingsman, Arizona on the 29th of March.
      May 1st - A ranching community in central Nevada, south of Cherry Creek Summit is named Adaven — Nevada spelled backwards.  A post office remained there until the 1950s.
      October 30th Governor Colcord  died in Carson City, at the age of 100.
 
1940   - February 21st - The body of Queho was found 30 years after his first murder just a few miles from Searchlight. 
      The oldest mummified remains of man on the continent, known as the "Spirit Cave Man" were discovered by S. M. and Georgia Wheeler,  in a cave in the Grimes Point area east of Fallon.  Spirit Man was recently dated to ca. 7420 B.C.   Read more about the Spirit Cave Man from Archaeology magazine website.
      Nevada's population: 110,247
1941   - Thomas Hull, who owned a string of motor inns in California, decided to open the El Rancho Vegas, just outside the city limits right off the highway from Los Angeles.  The El Rancho had 63 rooms (some reports say 100), a western style casino, and was located right off the  highway.  It had a large parking lot with an inviting swimming pool in the middle.   The El Ranhco's quick success led to the building of another property down the road called the Hotel Last Frontier.   Thus, the Las Vegas Strip was born.
      January 2nd -  The city of Las Vegas buys an airstrip run by Western Air Express -
      January 25th -  The city of Las Vegas leases property, formerly known as the Western Air Express runway and field, to the U.S. Army Quartermaster for the development of an aerial gunnery school.    The facility, which opened in 1942, provided training to pilots and instruction on handling machine guns mounted on the B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-24 Liberator and, later, the B-29 Super Fortress.
      The War Department threatened to bar service personnel from the entire town, unless something was done about Block 16, so it was officially shut down the next year.
      August 11th - Heavy thunderstorms soaked much of Nevada and took out one-half mile of Western Pacific track near Beowawe, causing 40 cars on a freight train to derail. Floodwaters rushed across U.S. 40.
1942   - The western-themed Hotel Last Frontier opened, using a stagecoach to bring gamblers from the airport.
      January 16th - Famed film star, and wife of famed film actor Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, and her mother, along with 20 others, died in an TWA Skysleeper crash when the plane she was on went down on Table Rock Mountain on the Potosi Range.  She was returning from a defense bond campaign trip.  It was Hollywood's fist wartime tragedy.  The search was led by the Army on horseback, led by an Indian tracker.  Guiding the posse of cowboys, Indians and soldiers under the direction of Major W. H. Anderson, executive officer of the Air Corps gunnery school at nearby McCarran Field, were workers from the Blue Diamond Mine near Arden, NV.
      B-24 Bomber and fighter pilots trained at Tonopah.
1943   - The Northern Club becomes The Turf Club when Wilbur Clark takes over the casino. Although the Stocker family still run the hotel above the Turf Club.
      A total of 3,733 tons of scrap was collected in Nevada to help the war.  Washoe County led the collection for iron and steel with 1,800,000 pounds followed by Elko with 922,000 pounds.  A total of 119 tons of rubber was gathered during the month with Washoe leading this category with 96,000 pounds followed by White Pine County which gathered 60,055 pounds. (Elko Daily Free Press, 16 February 1943)
      Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegal, along with a group of bookmakers and ex-bootleggers took over the El Cortez casino.  The profits helped finance the Flamingo.
1944   - On the Vegas Strip the Turf Club becomes the Monte Carlo Club.
      March 3rd - "A total of 1251 motor vehicle licenses have been issued to date this year in Nye Co, Sheriff W. H. Thomas reported.  The report showed that 902 passenger, 316 commercial, 32 trailer and one motorcycle license have been sold by Thomas' office in 1944."  (Tonopah Times Bonanza)
      July 3rd - Jack Dempsey, former heavyweight boxing champion, and Commander in the U. S. Coast Guard (in 1944) sold $453,000  worth of U. S. War Bonds in Washoe County.  Dempsey is a former resident of Reno. (In Tonopah the young Jack Dempsey was once the bartender
and the bouncer at the still popular Mizpah Hotel and Casino.)
      Tony Cornero took over the lease of the Western Casino and renamed it the S.S.Rex.
      November - Liberace makes his Las Vegas debut.

1945   - July 24th - Vail Montgomery Pittman became acting 19th Governor 1945-50, when Governor Carville resigned.  He was officially elected in 1946.
      Las Vegas Land and Water Company begins work on a 1.5 million gallon reservoir.
      The first all-jet powered airline in the United States was Las Vegas based Bonanza Air Lines. Founded by Edmund Converse, Charles Keene, and June Simon founded Bonanza Air Services began as a small charter operation known as Bonanza-Air. The name changed to Bonanza Air Lines when it became an intrastate airline in 1947.

1946   - December 26th - The Strip's third resort, the Flamingo Hotel, opened under the control of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel at a cost of $6 million, $4.5 million more than budgeted by his bosses, Meyer Lansky and Charles "Lucky" Luciano.
      The Goldfield Hotel ceases operations.
      Nevada became  the nation's leading producer of Tungsten - a hard, brittle, corrosion-resistant, gray to white metallic element.10

1947   - March 1st - The Flamingo Hotel changes its name to The Fabulous Flamingo.
      June 20th - Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel died.  After Siegel reopened the resort on March 1, 1947, with the hotel rooms now completed, business at the Flamingo slowly began to improve. Siegel himself greeted many guests.
      Bingo games were offered to attract locals. Although the casino showed a $300,000 profit by May, Siegel's backers were impatient with him after sinking more than $3 million into the project and seeing little in return. A group of mob investors, headed by exiled former New York organized crime figure Charles "Lucky" Luciano, met secretly in Havana, Cuba to discuss the Flamingo. After hearing about the meeting, Siegel went to visit his long-time friend in Havana. He asked for more time to pay off the investors, but Luciano demanded he start paying immediately. Siegel, known for his violent temper, refused and left the meeting in a rage.
      In an odd way, Siegel was better for business in death than in life. Had Siegel lived a long time, he might have ended up respectable or in the penitentiary. Had he died of a heart attack or the gout, he might have become a footnote in time. Instead, he died violently and, in a sense, got to live forever. Through the years, Siegel has been credited for everything from putting the glow in neon to inventing Las Vegas. The fact the
Flamingo wasn't even his idea tells you something about how myths are made.  While sitting on a sofa inside the Beverly Hills, California home of his girlfriend Virginia Hill, Siegel was gunned down after a contract killer fired nine rifle shots through a window.
      The S.S. Rex became the Eldorado Club/Casino.
      The air field was deactivated after the war.
      Las Vegas Vic was unveiled. It was replaced by a newer version in 1951 and its sidekick, Vegas Vicky (aka Sassy Sally), was built in 1980.
1948   - July - A B-29 Superfortress bomber was on a scientific mission when due to difficulties, it struck the water of Lake Mead at 250 mph.  It eventually came to rest on the surface, the crew escaped, and the plane sank.
      July 31st - After serving in both World Wars, the USS Nevada is deemed outdated, decommissioned and then used as target practice in in the Navy's atomic bomb experiments.
      September 2nd -  The Thunderbird opened as the Strip's 4th resort.  Its name was changed in 1977 to the Silverbird, then again in 1982 to the El Rancho, which was imploded on October 3rd, 2000.
      Clark County buys Alamo Airport which later becomes McCarren International Airport.
1949   - The gunnery school/air field was reactivated as the Las Vegas Air Force Base.

 

 

      The University of Nevada in Reno was the setting for two movies released this year.  Mr. Belvedere Goes To College starring Clifton Webb and Shirley Temple, and Mother Was A Freshman, starring Van Johnson and Loretta Young.
 
 
1950   - May 6th - In 1947, Benny Binion became a partner of the Las Vegas Club when the LVC moved a couple of years later he took over the property and opened the Westerner.  Binion sold the Westerner just a year later and opened the Horseshoe Casino.
      May 20th - Students at Las Vegas High School recommend the Las Vegas Air Force Base be renamed in honor of Lt. William Harrell Nellis of Searchlight.  The Lt. was killed in combat December 27, 1944, over Bastogne, during the Battle of the Bulge, after 69 successful missions. He was flying with the 513th Fighter Squadron, 406 Fighter Group.  A dedication ceremony was held renaming the base Nellis Air Force Base.  His family attended the ceremony.
      December - President Harry Truman approves the establishment of a continental nuclear proving ground 65 miles north of Las Vegas to be known as the Nevada Test Site.
      Charles Hinton Russell elected 20th Governor 1951-1958 of Nevada. 
      Nevada's population: 160,083.  Las Vegas Population: 24,624, Clark County Population: 48,289.
                           
1951   - Vegas Vic, the waving cowboy who greets downtown visitors and welcomes them to Las Vegas is erected on the Pioneer Club. The 48-foot tall sign quickly becomes the most recognized symbol of Las Vegas.
      Benny Binion bought the Eldorado Club and renamed it The Horseshoe Casino.
      First classes at Nevada Southern University began.
      January 11th - Atomic testing began at the Nevada Proving Grounds, Frenchman and Yucca Flat.  The first atomic bomb series of tests, code named 'Ranger', began on January 27th.
      March 1st - The former military installation known as the Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Fallon is reactivated as an Auxiliary Landing Field after five years of being inactive.
1952   - December 15th - The Sands opens as the Strip's seventh resort.  Las Vegas was  growing by 1952, with several small airports, and North Las Vegas was barely on the map.  Click here for a 1952 map of Las Vegas.
      Jim Thorpe lived in Nevada for a time in 1952, running a bar in Pittman, a small community located on Boulder Highway between Henderson and Las Vegas.  In 1950, Thorpe was voted  the greatest athlete of the first half of the twentieth century by an Associated Press poll of sports writers.  He is an American Native.

1953   - July 22nd - KLAS, Nevada's first TV station, went on the air beating KOLO in Reno by 2 weeks 5 days.    An extension of the University of Nevada in Reno was established in Las Vegas known as Nevada Southern University, and was two years at first.  The "Southern" in the title is where the mascot "Rebels" comes from. It eventually became a 4 year college, and renamed the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, UNLV.  Classes had already started in 1951.
      Uranium discovered in the Reese River Mining District.
 
1954   - February 15th - Ronald Reagan began a two-week engagement at the Last Frontier, billed as a "Singer and Dancer."10  According to The History Channel, Reagan was booked at the "New Frontier", and had a act involving chimps.  They were booked as "The Marquis Family Chimps," and on the third night the chimps were so unruly the act bombed.
      September 28th - Pat McCarran died at Hawthorne, Nevada.
      The first woman Mayor in Nevada was Dorothy Porter, a former Ziegfield dancer.  She was elected to the NLV city council in 1953, then was elected Mayor of North Las Vegas by her fellow council members in 1954.
      The first paved road between Las Vegas and Pahrump was built.
      In preparation for upcoming atomic tests in the spring, the Public Health Service was advised to reactivate 200 health officers for a brief tour of duty for monitoring purposes by the Atomic Energy Commission.  Off-site radiological monitoring will extend for 300 miles around the proving grounds at Frenchman and Yucca Flats.31
1955   - February 18 - The U.S. Government began a new series of atomic tests at the Nevada Proving Grounds. The nine-story Riviera Hotel became the first high-rise resort.   May 23rd - The Dunes opens as the Strip's 10 resort.
      April 4th - The Last Frontier opens under new management and a new name - The New Frontier.  The new owner didn't feel Las Vegas was the Last Frontier any longer, so he changed the name.15
      May 9th - Joan Crawford and Pepsi-Cola President Alfred Steele eloped to Las Vegas avoiding their planned New Jersey wedding which they felt had gotten out of hand.   They were married in the penthouse of the Flamingo Hotel by a municipal Judge.        
      July 31st - Tony "Mr. Lucky" Cornero, founder of the Meadows Casino in 1931, dies from a reported heart attack at the craps table at the Desert Inn Casino.  Tony made his last roll of the dice, clutched his chest, and collapsed. The next day Las Vegas newspapers carried front-page stories about his life and death. Review-Journal reporter Bob Holdorf best captured the circumstances of his death: "Tony died the way he had lived. He died at a gambling table."
      November 17th - Fourteen people died when a C-54 transport en route from Burbank, CA to the Area 51 installation on the dry Groom Lake bed, crashed into the west side of Mt. Charleston.  The plane was transporting workers to test the U-2 spy plane at Groom Lake.
1956   - Nellis Air Force Base became the home of the Thunderbirds, the aerobatic team of the Air Force. The team photo below was signed between 1953 and March 12, 1959, when Salmon was killed during solo training at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. The Thunderbirds were formed at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona as the 3600th Air Demonstration Unit on May 23, 1953. In 1956, the Thunderbirds, who represent the U.S. Air Force at air shows and other events, moved to their current home base at Nellis Air Force Base. They're shown with the F-100C Super Sabre, which the team used from 1956 to 1963 and was the United States Air Force's first operational supersonic plane.
  
      April 23rd Comedian Shecky Greene, starred at the New Frontier. The opening singing number for him was Elvis, making his Las Vegas debut.10  He would not return to Vegas for 13 years, and then it wasn't to perform, but to film "Viva Las Vegas".
      November 25th - At 6.30pm a fire swept through the second floor of the Boulder Club, causing $200,000 worth of damage. The fire had started in an upstairs dressings room. As firemen fought the flames, attendants hurriedly removed stacks of chips and silver dollars. Money and chips were loaded into a police car and taken next door to the Horseshoe Casino for safe keeping. Around 2,000 people crammed on to Fremont Street to watch 30 firemen fight the blaze. One person was saying, "That police car was so full of dough I thought it was going to tip over."
1957   - The U.S. Government began a new series of atomic weapons tests. 
      All of Nevada has been designated by the federal government as a dispersal area.  This makes the state eligible for new defense installations, industrial plants, testing installations or any other facilities affecting national defense or supply goods to the federal government — Pioche Record Newspaper 1957
1958   - April 21st - A jet from Nellis AFB collided with a United Airlines DC-7, just west of Las Vegas, killing 49 people.
      On the Strip the Boulder Club becomes the New Boulder Club.
      September - C. P. Squires died at the age of 93.  If there is any individual who deserves the title The Father of Las Vegas, it is Charles Pember Squires, a native of Austin, Minn., who spent more than 50 years in Las Vegas, building, boosting and ballyhooing his city. Fellow citizens who knew him during that time in Las Vegas greeted him with the sobriquet of "Pop," and his wife, Delphine, as "Mom."
      Squires had the good fortune not shared by many of the other 1905 pioneers; he lived long enough to see the fly-infested tent town grow into a booming city, which was continuing to boom when he died at age 93.
      The C. P. Squires Elementary School located in North Las Vegas is named for him.

1959   - Grant Sawyer elected 21st Governor of Nevada 1959-67. Sawyer was responsible for creating the State Gaming Commission.
      The "Welcome To Las Vegas" sign is designed by Betty Willis.
      September 12th - The television series Bonanza debuts on NBC and enjoys a 14 year run.  The famous opening scene of Bonanza was filmed on location at North Lake Tahoe near Incline Village, and Lake Tahoe was among the outdoor locations used to film the weekly episodes.
      December 25th - The burlesque show Folies Bergèrie debuts in Las Vegas.  It is directed by Lou Walters, father of broadcasting icon Barbara Walters.  The show has a 50 year run.
1960   - The El Rancho, the first casino on the Strip, burns down. The site of this hotel/casino is still vacant today, at Las Vegas Blvd. and Sahara.
      The "Rat Pack" makes its Las Vegas debut.
      September 5th - Actor John Houston rides to victory in Virginia City's first official Camel Races.  Fifty years later the annual event is still going strong as competitors and spectators gather in the historic town in September.
      On the Strip the New Boulder Club caught fire yet again, only this time it would never re-open.  The building was bought by the Binion family and became part of the Horseshoe Casino.
      Nevada's population: 284,920
1961   - December 7th - A small crowd of watchers gathered in Carson City on this day to honor and pay tribute to the 80 officers and crew members who died and the 140 who were wounded aboard the USS Nevada when it was attacked just 20 years prior at Pearl Harbor.  The Nevada was the only vessel to get underway during the attack.  The USS Nevada's destruction began on July 31st, 1948 when it was the target of an underwater atomic bomb test.  It survived the test only to be used for target practice by naval gunfire and arial torpedoes.
      The ceremony took place at 7:55 a.m.,  by raising the same flag which flew over the ship over the State Museum as Governor Sawyer presented Captain Joseph Taussig, Jr. (Ret.) a proclamation declaring December 7th as Pearl Harbor day in Nevada.  Captain Taussig was the Sr. Officer present in the anti-aircraft battery during the attack.  (Reno Evening Gazette)

1962   - The Westerner became the Club Bingo
      July 6th - The mightiest H-Bomb tested, and the first announced H-bomb of its type, was set off this day.  The bomb was set off at 10:00 a.m., 650 feet below Yucca Flats.  It was reported to be a test of "peaceful use of a atomic energy to make harbors and canals."  The force was 100 kilotons, equal to 100,000 tons of TNT.  Previous most powerful was that of 74.3 kilotons in 1957.  (Reno Evening Gazette)
      July 17th - The last atmospheric test detonation occurs at the Nevada Test Site.
      The town of Denio, on the state border of Nevada and Oregon in northern Humboldt County, for the first time in the history of the town got 5 street lamps.  The post office was on the Oregon side in the 1890s, but in the 1950s one opened on the Nevada side.
1963   - April - Maude Frazier died in her sleep at age 82.  Maude was a lady through and through, but she wouldn't run from a fight, and she had no problem calling it like it was. She spent a long life making liars of those who said certain jobs were not for a woman.17
      The U.S. Government resumed underground tests of nuclear weapons.
      Wayne Newton makes his Las Vegas debut.
1964   - In a U.S. Senate election, incumbent Democrat Howard Cannon defeated Republican Lt. Gov. Paul Laxalt by 48 votes. When Laxalt demanded a recount, Cannon won by 84 votes.
1965   - February 16th - Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Dick Gordon, Buzz Aldrin, Dave Scott and Rusty Schweikart begin three days of training at the Nevada Test Site.  They learn how to conduct geological and geophysical studies while wearing suits similar to what they would wear on the moon.
       Nevada ranked first in the United States in production of Barite - a colorless crystalline mineral of barium sulfate that is the chief source of barium chemicals.  Barium is used in rat poisons and to deoxidize copper.
1966   - On the Strip the Monte Carlo Club becomes the Coin Castle Casino.
      November 27th - Howard Huges moved to Las Vegas and stayed in the Desert Inn penthouse.

1967   - Paul Laxalt elected 22nd Governor of Nevada1967-71. 
      The first community college in Nevada opened in Elko.
      The New Frontier changed hands and names again.  Under the ownership of Howard Hughes it no longer maintained a theme so it was simply called The Frontier.15    Huges also bought the Desert Inn.
      The Ponderosa Theme Park Ranch, the fictional setting for the TV show Bonanza opened.  It was located at Incline Village near Lake Tahoe.  It closed in 2004.
        Sammy Davis, Jr. and Bill Cosby appeared at Harrah's in Lake Tahoe, while Liberace and Roger Miller played at the Sahara in Las Vegas.
       Siegfried & Roy make their Las Vegas debut.
1968   - October 18th - The $15 million Circus Circus Casino opened on the Las Vegas Strip.15
The "Lucky the Clown" sign outside the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino is erected for $1 million.  The entire hotel cost only $15 million.
      A. E. "Al" Cahlan suffered a stroke and died three weeks later at age 69, in Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital.  Al Cahlan came to Las Vegas as a schoolteacher, metamorphosed into a newspaper editor and within a few years dominated news media in Southern Nevada. Between 1926 and 1960 he transformed a 300-circulation weekly into a daily boasting 27,000 subscribers, the largest in the state. The newspaper he built, now known as the Las Vegas Review-Journal, retains first position.18
1969   - January 15th - The U.S. Government held two underground tests. On 01/30/69 and again on 02/12/69 more underground tests were done.  
      July 4th - The Landmark Hotel opens. The International, now the Hilton, opened.
      Yonema "Bill" Tomiyasu died in Las Vegas at age 87.  He wasn't an engineer or a construction worker, but Yonema "Bill" Tomiyasu just as surely helped build Hoover Dam. He was a local farmer who fed the dam's workers with the literal fruits and vegetables of his labor: fresh tomatoes, asparagus, luscious watermelons and cantaloupe.
      His legacy lives on in several ways.  With dry wit his son Nanyu jokes that allergy sufferers can thank his father for the abundance of fruitless mulberry trees that dot the Las Vegas landscape -- and dust it every spring with their pollens.19
 
1970   - The burial site of the prehistoric Ichthyosaurs, containing the only complete skeleton of the Ichthyosaurs to be found in the United States, would be protected by the Nevada State Legislature as the Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park. 
      Nevada's population: 488,738.
1971  - Donald Neil O'Callaghan elected 23rd Governor of Nevada 1971-79. 
       The Fabulous Flamingo changes its name again to the Flamingo Hilton.
      June 30th - Mark Harrington the famed archaeologist died at the age of 89.  Mark discovered the the ruins of the Lost City along the banks of the Muddy River proved Nevada was inhabited long before modern times.20
        The Goldfield Hotel is used in the film "Vanishing Point".
1972   - An attempt is made to break into the office safe of Las Vegas Sun Publisher Hank Greenspun, who had memos written by Howard Huges. The break-in apparently is related to the Watergate break-in in Washington, D.C.
      Charles Duncan Baker, The Colonel, died at age 71. A combat engineer and mayor of Las Vegas from 1951 to 1959, he would redesign what was essentially a Depression-era city infrastructure and guide Las Vegas through the frantic '50s and into the modern era.
      The year was 1951 and the battle of Las Vegas was under way. The growth the city had encouraged and nurtured for so many years was threatening to strangle it. There was a shortage of housing and electricity. A large percentage of the city's streets were unpaved. The demand for phone service increased daily, and the wait for hookups often ran into months. Nellis Air Force Base had been reactivated, and the Nevada Test Site had just opened. People were pouring into town.
Worst of all, the town was running out of water - fast. Since modern air conditioning was then an expensive indulgence, residents relied on swamp coolers. Problem was, on some days, the water pressure wasn't strong enough to push water up onto the roof and over the cooler pads. Lawns and gardens died.
      It was at an employment agency in Chicago that he first heard of Las Vegas. The town needed a high school mathematics teacher and athletics coach. In 1922, Baker took the job for $1,650 per year. With his no-nonsense approach, former Las Vegas Mayor C.D. Baker helped bring the city's dilapidated infrastructure out of the Depression and into the modern era.21
      Emilie Wanderer became the first woman to run for district judge in Nevada.30
1973   - The MGM Grand opens its doors to the public, and with 2,100 rooms it was the largest hotel in the world at the time.  The Flamingo's breakfast buffet costs $2.75.
      Republican Paul Laxalt succeeds Alan Bible as U.S. Senator from Nevada.

1974   - May 15th - Highway Department Issues first Atlas of State.  The Nevada Map Atlas a 136 page booklet was available for $6.00. Photo 29

1975   - May - Walter Baring died of heart and lung failure at age 63. He had entered Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital for surgery on his hip, which had troubled him for several years, but the strain of the procedure was too great.  He has been called by his detractors the least effective congressman in Nevada history and a demagogue who would say anything to get re-elected. But Walter S. Baring's constituents returned him to office 10 times. Known as The Paradoxical Politician, his motto was, "Nobody likes Walter Baring but the voters."
      Oran Grayson leaves office after an unprecedented four terms as Las Vegas Mayor.22
 
1976   - Clark County Museum receives the Boulder City Railroad Depot and moves the structure to a new location for the museum on Boulder Highway in Henderson. 
1977   - After roaming the world's oceans for approximately 135 million years, and some 200 million years after its entombment,  Ichthyosaurs Shonisaurus Popularis,  named after the mountain range in which it was discovered, on a hillside in the Shoshone Mountains of central Nevada, nearly 7,000 feet above sea level, 280 miles from the ocean, would become immortalized as Nevada's official state fossil.

 

1978   - The Valley Times reports that Attorney General Bob List was comped for rooms and meals at the Stardust, but still billed the state for his per diem allowance. List already had been elected governor.

1979   - Robert Frank List elected 24 Governor of Nevada1979-83.
      Barbara Bennett was the first woman elected Mayor of Reno.  She resigned in 1983 to accept a state level job.

1980   - Labor Day - " Old Vegas" tourist town scheduled to open located south of Henderson, near Railroad Pass. More than just a replica of an old west town, Old Vegas was to be a theme park on a grand scale.
      Nevada's population: 798,523
1981   - March 25th - The Lahontan Dam is added to the National Register of Historic Places.   The dam was completed in 1915, creating the Lahontan Reservoir as part of the Newlands Project.
       Nevada adopted the Lahontan Cuthroat trout as its official state fish.
1982   - Republican Patty D. Cafferata was elected state treasurer - the first constitutional seat to be won by a woman.

1983   - December 21st - Anna Dean Kepper died young and spent only 10 of her 45 years in Las Vegas. But in that decade she taught the community a new respect for its own history.   "Without Anna Dean there perhaps wouldn't be a state park at the Old Las Vegas Fort," said Frank Wright, curator at the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society in Lorenzi Park.23
      Richard H. Bryan elected 25th Governor of Nevada1983-89.

1984   - A special legislative session changes state law so that Citicorp could open a credit card-processing plant in southern Nevada.
      Jay Sarno died at age 62. You can get an argument over who started the Las Vegas Strip, but there's no question it was Jay Sarno who changed it forever. The fast-living genius behind Caesars Palace and Circus Circus invented the fantasy resort and the modern family resort, twin ideas that have guided the past three decades of Las Vegas' growth.
      After Sarno cashed out of Circus Circus he was simultaneously flush and frustrated at his inability to get enough financing to build the Grandissimo. His boredom led him deeper into gambling, usually at the craps tables at Caesars, where he had once ruled the empire and was still treated as royalty. Not one but two of his own brothers, the hotelman Sam and the doctor Herman, had dropped dead at these tables in the excitement of a craps game. Jay had his own fatal heart attack in a suite at the same hotel.24
 
1985   - A historic landmark Demolished.  The UPRR (Union Pacific Railroad) depot in Winnemucca, built in 1906 was demolished despite the efforts of the Curator of the Humboldt Museum to save the old Spanish style building.  Even though it had been termed an historical landmark for Northern Nevada.
1986   - Congress established the Great Basin National Park, Nevada's only National Park.
1987   - August 15th - The dedication of the Great Basin National Park, the nations 49th National Park and Nevada's first, commenced at 10 a.m.  On hand were Gov. Richard Bryan, Sen. Chic Hecht, Sen. Harry Reid and Congresswoman Barbara Vucanovich of Nevada.  The act, which created the 120 square mile GBNP in the South Snake Mountain Range was signed by President Reagan, October 27, 64 years after the first proposal had been introduced in Congress.

1988   - Richard Bryan becomes the first Nevadan elected attorney general, governor, and U.S. Senator

1989   - July - H.M. 'Hank' Greenspun died at the age of 79.  As publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, he stood up to the anti-communist crusade of Sen. Joe McCarthy and the political power of Sen. Pat McCarran, winning admirers and enemies.  He and his family invested in real estate, leading to the development of Green Valley, and in cable television, with his heirs eventually selling their company to Cox Cable. He also was part of the group that started Las Vegas's first television station, KLAS-TV-8.25
      November - Nevada legislative researcher Dana Bennett discovered a clerical error in the state flag's legislation of 60 years earlier.
      December 25th - Benny Binion died of heart failure.   Men and cities can be judged by their heroes, and it tells you something of Las Vegas that there are only two historic equestrian statues in the city. There's Rafael Rivera, said to be the first white man to find the Las Vegas Valley, and there's Benny Binion, said to be the first to give gamblers a fair shot at winning big.28
      Moe Dalitz died at age 90. Las Vegas history is filled with characters who lived double lives. The life of Moe Dalitz is perhaps the best example of a gambling man existing in sunshine and in shadow.27
      Robert Joseph Miller elected 26th Governor of Nevada 1989-99.  The Mirage opens, beginning a new "mega resort" era.

1990   - Jan Laverty Jones was the first woman elected Mayor of Las Vegas.
      Nevada's population: 1,236,130


1991   - Nevada's 125 Birthday Celebration Committee commissioned George Dare of Henderson, Nevada to write a new state song.  The Commission was headed up by Attorney General Frankie Del Pappa.  Although the song was never officially adopted as the new state song it is sung by students around the state.
      Due to finding the mistake in the state flag design in 1989, the Nevada Legislature changed the placement of the word "Nevada" on the state flag.
      December 12th - Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford married at the Little Church of the West.  It lasted until 1995.

The redesigned and official state flag of 1991

                                                                            Graphic Flag Image created and copyrighted by James Shown
 
1992   - June 29th -   A earthquake in southern Nevada measured at magnitude 5.5 at Little Skull Mountain in Amargosa Valley. The area is just west of Yucca Mountain, where the U.S. Department of Energy may create a repository to hold thousands of tons of nuclear waste.
      The Stratosphere Tower began construction in 1992 next to Vegas World.
1993   - October 29th - The Dunes Hotel/Casino imploded.  The new MGM Grand opened and is the largest hotel in the world with 5,005 rooms serviced by 97 elevators.  It took 39 armored cars two nights to deliver the 3.5 million quarters needed to operate the casino.
      October 15th - The Luxor Hotel & Casino opens.  The beacon tip is the brightest in the world with 40 billion candlepower.  The beacon is visible to planes 250 miles away in L.A.
1994   - Ending a 60-year tradition, the final Helldorado Days Parade is held on Frémont Street in Las Vegas. Later in the year, the street is permanently closed to vehicular traffic to make way for construction of the Frémont Street Experience.
      A new MGM Grand  in Las Vegas was built with 5,005 rooms, and that hotel recaptured the "world's-largest" honors.    26.8 million passengers pass through McCarran International Airport.
      June 29th - A record temperature of 125 degrees Fahrenheit is recorded in Laughlin, making it the state's hottest spot, the second hottest spot in the country.
1995   - November 7th - The Landmark Hotel & casino imploded. Clark County surpassed the 1 million population mark.  
       June - The Gaming Control Board reports there are 176,995 slot machines statewide, and  5,782 live table games statewide.
       November 22nd - The Freemont Street Experience opens in Las Vegas.
1996   - On the Strip the Coin Castle Casino is demolished and the La Bayou is built in its place.
      November 26th - The Sands Resort Hotel imploded.
      The Las Vegas Motor Speedway opens.
1997   - March 5th - John Code Mowbray died at age 79.  A man who loved to sing and was born to lead spent 25 years on the Nevada Supreme Court in an effort to make sure the state kept its promises to the people.26
      October 15th - The first supersonic land speed record was set in Nevada's Black Rock Desert 125 miles north of Reno.  The record set was 763.035 mph. (Mach 1.016)
1998   - September 17th - Ted Binion, son of Benny Binion of the
Binion's Horseshoe Casino, was found dead in his home.  His girlfriend, Sandy Murphy and her lover Rick Tabish were arrested and charged with the crime.  In May of 2000 they were convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but in 2003 their convictions were overturned.  A second trial began in 2004 where they were found not guilty of the murder. They were found guilty of other lesser crimes related to a stolen collection of rare silver and gold coins and rare paper money taken from Binion's home after his death.  Binion's death was the result of a lethal level of a combination of opiates and Xanax.35
      October 15th - The Bellagio resort opened on the land once occupied by the Dunes Hotel at a cost of $1.7 billion.
      Goldfield is the set of the film "Desert Blue".                         

1999   - Kenny Guinn elected 27th Governor of Nevada. 
      March 2nd - Mandalay Bay  opened in Las Vegas.
      Under new ownership, the Frontier changed its named again, back to the New Frontier.  The new owner wanted to assure everyone that it was no longer to be associated with all the union problems which had plagued it, and in remodeling it he choose the "New."15
      May 3rd - The Venetian opened in Las Vegas.
      With 37 million annual visitors to Las Vegas, it becomes the most visited place in the world.

2000   - Nevada's population: 1,998,257

2001   - February9th - 3 Millionth marriage certificate recorded in Clark Co.
      March 14th - The State of Nevada adapts an official "Tartan."
      May 8th - The town of Gabbs, Nevada's smallest city was disincorporated, (separate website)

2002  - April 27th - For the first time in Nevada history more than one person was killed inside a casino, according to state archivist Guy Rocha.   On this day, 3 motorcycle gang members were killed inside Harrah's Casino in Laughlin during the annual River Run.  The incident occurred after a fight broke out between rival gang members of the Hell's Angels and the Mongols.  In addition to the 3 killed, another 13 were taken to local hospitals with gunshot and stab wounds.
      May 29th - Moulin Rouge, 900 W. Bonanza Road, was destroyed in a fire.  It was Las Vegas' first integrated resort on the Strip. The Moulin Rouge lasted only six months as a full-fledged casino after its grand opening May 26, 1955, but it was a part of Las Vegas history, duly entered on the National Register of Historic Places.   On June 19th two men were arrested for starting the blaze.  Fred "Bubba" Ball and John Antwan Caver were the devious creeps responsible for destroying a great part of Nevada history.  The Casino was undergoing restoration.  During the five months it remained open, it became popular as an after-hours club of sorts, where black entertainers headlining on the Strip stayed and performed late into the night to crowds of blacks and whites. Sammy Davis Jr., Harry Belafonte and Frank Sinatra were among the performers.
      August 2nd - "Las Vegas, Nevada - A B-29 "Superfortress" bomber, missing for over 50 years in Lake Mead, has been located by Henderson resident Gregg Mikolasek. The aircraft was found with side scan sonar, a device which uses sound to image objects resting on the bottom of a body of water."13
      December 2nd - www.Nevada-history.org becomes incorporated and a Board of Directors is created.
2003   - Work begins on the Nevada side of the Hoover dam by-pass.
2004   - Pop singer Britney Spears weds Jason Alexander in Las Vegas, the marriage is annulled 55 hours later.
2005   - November 24th - Actor Pat Morita, known for his role as the wise and dry-witted Mr. Miyagi in "The Karate Kid" and his role on "Happy Days" died at his home in Las Vegas of natural causes at age of 73.
      Construction begins on the Hoover dam by-pass bridge, formally named the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge.


2006   - February 1st - Federal, state and local officials gather to break ground in Boulder City for the 64-megawatt Nevada Solar One power plant.


2007   - October 12th - Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas begins operating its solar photovoltaic system, which is one of the largest in North America.
2008   - August 22nd - North Las Vegas, an experimental aircraft,  the Velocity 173 RG crashed into a house killing the pilot along with 2 people in the house.
2009   - July 24th - A B-17 Bomber, Sentimental Journey, touched down at the Winnemucca Municipal Airport at 12 noon.   This bomber came off the assembly line November 1944 and was placed into service March 1945 and was in the Philippines for the duration of the war. Elko and Winnemucca were the only two stops in Nevada. 
2010   - Mar 31st - The CalNeva casino on the north shore of Lake Tahoe closed due to declining gambling revenues.
      April 14th - A 198-gram piece of the meteorite known as the "Wisconsin Fireball" which lit up the sky on this day, was found in the Nevada desert. It was found by a German Shepherd known as Brix. Brix's owner, meteorite hunter Sonny Clary has trained Brix to "sniff" out meteorites in the deserts of Nevada.
      October 19th - The Mike O'Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge opens for public traffic.  It is the key component to the Hoover Dam Bypass project and was the first concrete-steel composite arch bridge built in the United States, and it incorporates the longest concrete arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere.  This four-lane highway bridge provides a crossing of the Colorado River for U.S. Route 93, linking Nevada with Arizona about 1,600 feet (about 500 meters) downstream from the Hoover Dam.
 
2011   -
 
2012   - January 9th - The Nevada State Prison in Carson City closed its doors after 150 years of continuous operation.  It was one of the oldest prisons in the country.

 

Questions or Comments?

   Sources:

  1. 'Nevada the American Guide Series', Chronology;
       Binfords & Mort, Portland, OR, 1940
  2. http://www.washoe.lib.nv.us/yfact_nv.html#renofounded)
  3. 'Nevada the American Guide Series', Chronology; Binfords &
       Mort, Portland, OR, 1940
  4. Who's On first? Nevada's first Newspaper 
       http://dmla.clan.lib.nv.us/docs/nsla/archives/myth/myth71.htm
  5. http://www.washoe.lib.nv.us/yfact_nv.html#reno founded)
  6. The Historical Nevada Magazine, pp. 54-61,Carson City,
      NV,1998
  7. Ibid
  8. Many of the aforementioned facts were supplied by the Nevada Department of
      Cultural Affairs website.
  9. Nevada Trivia Book by Richard Mareno
10. Nevada Trivia by Bouton & Bouton
11. Robert G. Carrington
12. http://pa.essortment.com/morgandollars_rlxq.htm
13. Press release from In Depth Consulting
14. http://daytonnvhistory.org/history.htm
15. http://www.lvstriphistory.com/
16. http://www.daytonnvhistory.org
17. http://www.1st100.com/part1/frazier.html
18. http://www.1st100.com/part1/cahlan.html
19. http://www.1st100.com/part1/tomiyasu.html
20. http://www.1st100.com/part1/harrington.html
21. http://www.1st100.com/part2/baker.html
22. http://www.1st100.com/part2/baring.html
23. http://www.1st100.com/part3/kepper.html
24. http://www.1st100.com/part3/sarno.html
25. Michael Green
26. http://www.1st100.com/part3/mowbray.html
27. http://www.1st100.com/part2/dalitz.html
28. http://www.1st100.com/part2/binion.html
29. Rick Free - Cartographic Supervisor
       Nevada Department of Transportation
       1263 South Stewart Street
       Carson City NV 89712
30. Reviewjournal.com
31. Las Vegas Review Journal 1957
32. Michael Maher, Librarian, Nevada Historical Society
33. Adventures of Zenas Leonard. p.111, 1934 from his original story 1839
34.The History of Winnemucca by J.P. Marden
     The Central Pacific Railroad
35. http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/binion/