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- State: Nevada
- Capital: Carson City
- Admission to Union: October 31, 1864
- Nickname: Battle Born State
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State Background:
Nevada achieved its current boundaries on May 5, 1866 when it absorbed the portion of Pah-Ute County in the Arizona Territory west of the Colorado River. The transfer was prompted by the discovery of gold in the area, and it was thought that Nevada would be better able to oversee the expected population boom. This area includes most of what is now Clark County, Nevada.
Mining shaped Nevada's economy for many years. In the late 19th century, the Comstock Lode played out, and Nevada went into a tailspin. There was even talk of stripping away statehood, the only time in American history such an action was discussed in Congress. However, the rich silver strike at Tonopah in 1900 helped save the state. This was soon followed by strikes in Goldfield and Rhyolite in the following years. These strikes lasted well into the 1910s and made Nevada a dominant player in mining once again.
Over 87% of the land is owned by the Federal Government. The primary reason for this is that homesteads were not permitted in large enough sizes to be viable in the arid conditions that prevail throughout Nevada. Instead, early settlers would homestead land surrounding a water source, and then graze livestock on the adjacent public land, which is useless for agriculture without access to water (this pattern of ranching still prevails). The deficiencies in the Homestead Act as applied to Nevada were probably due to a lack of understanding of the Nevada environment, although some firebrands (so-called "Sagebrush Rebels") maintain that it was due to pressure from mining interests to keep land out of the hands of common folk.
Gambling was common in the early Nevada mining towns but was outlawed in 1909 as part of a nation-wide anti-gaming crusade. Due to a sharp decline in mining output in the 1920s and the decline of the agricultural sector during the Great Depression, Nevada re-legalized gambling on March 19, 1931, when senate bill 98 was signed into law. At the time, the leading proponents of gambling expected that it would be a short term fix until the state's economic base widened to include less cyclical industries. However, re-outlawing gambling has never been seriously considered since.
In 1931, construction began on Hoover Dam near Las Vegas. Thousands of workers from across the country came to build the dam, and providing for their needs in turn required many more workers. The dam, and later war industries such as the Basic Magnesium Plant, first started the growth of the southern area of the state. Over the next 75 years, Clark County grew in relation to the Reno area, until today it encompasses most of the state's population.
Sources: Wikipedia.com, May 2006
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