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Derived from the Father Kino
expeditions at the end of the 17th
century through north Mexico
and south U.S., Nevada passed to Spanish control,
belonging to the Viceroyalty of
New Spain. In 1821, it became part of the
First Mexican Empire
of Agustin de
Iturbide, until 1823, and afterwards of the
Mexican Republic. As
a result of the
Mexican-American War of 1846-48 and based on the
Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty, Nevada became part of
the United States. On August 14,
1850, the
U.S.
Congress established the
Utah territory which
included the present day state. 1859 saw the
discovery of the Comstock
Lode, a rich outcropping of gold and silver, and
the mining center
Virginia City sprang up. This discovery brought
a flood of miners, prospectors, merchants and others
hoping to strike it rich.
Statehood
On
March 2, 1861,
the Nevada Territory
separated from the Utah territory and adopted its current
name, shortened from Sierra Nevada (Spanish
for "snowy range"). Eight days prior to the
presidential
election of 1864, Nevada became the 36th state in the
union. Statehood was rushed to the date of
October 31 - coincidentally
Halloween - to help ensure
Abraham Lincoln's reelection
and post-Civil War
Republican dominance in Congress. As Nevada's
mining-based economy tied it to the more industrialized
Union, it was
viewed as more politically reliable than other
Confederate-sympathizing states such as neighboring
California. It is a common misconception that one of the
reasons Nevada was granted statehood was its large deposits
of silver and gold. This is merely a myth, however, and
would have been illogical in that Congress had unlimited
control over these resources when Nevada was a territory and
only limited control after Nevada became a state.
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, essentially all of present day Nevada
south of the 37th parallel. The transfer was prompted by the
discovery of gold in the area, and it was thought by
officials that Nevada would be better able to oversee the
expected population boom. This area includes most of what is
now Clark County.
Industry
Mining
shaped Nevada's economy for many years. However in the late
19th century, Nevada found it increasingly more difficult to
compete with states such as Colorado
and Utah in the mining industry. 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 is thought to
have saved the state from near collapse. This was followed
by strikes in Goldfield and
Rhyolite, lasting well into
the 1910s and making Nevada a dominant player in mining once
again.
Gaming and labor
Unregulated
gambling was common place in the
early Nevada mining towns but outlawed in 1909 as part of a
nation-wide anti-gaming crusade. Due to subsequent declines
in mining output and the decline of the agricultural sector
during the Great Depression,
Nevada re-legalized gambling on March 19,
1931, with approval from the
legislature. 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, and the industry has become Nevada's
primary source of revenue today.
In 1931,
construction began on Hoover Dam
near Boulder City.
Thousands of workers from across the country came to build
the dam, and providing for their needs in turn required many
more workers. The boom in population is likely to have
fueled the relegalization of gambling, alike present-day
industry. Both Hoover Dam and later war industries such as
the Basic Magnesium Plant first started the growth of the
southern area of the state near Las Vegas. Over the last 75
years, Clark County has grown in
relation to the Reno area, and today
encompasses most of the state's population.
Nuclear Testing
The
Nevada Test Site,
65 miles (105 km)
Northwest of the City of Las Vegas, was founded on
January 11, 1951
for the testing of nuclear
weapons. The site is composed of approximately
1,350 square
miles (3,500 km˛)
of desert and mountainous terrain.
Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site began with a
one-kiloton of TNT (4 terajoule) bomb
dropped on Frenchman Flats on January
27, 1951. The last atmospheric test was conducted on
July 17, 1962 and
the underground testing of weapons continued until
September 23,
1992. The location is known for the highest amount of
concentrated nuclear detonated weapons in the U.S.
Homesteading
Over 80% of
the state's area 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 desert 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. This debate continues to be argued among some
state historians today.
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