Explorers and settlers

Missionaries and fur traders were in the vanguard of the exploration of the Nevada area. The missionary travels of Francisco Garcés from New Mexico to California in 1775–76 were imitated by other Spanish Franciscans. In 1825 Hudson’s Bay Company trappers explored the northern and central region, and two years later Jedediah Smith led a party of American traders into the Las Vegas Valley and across the Great Basin. By 1830 the Old Spanish Trail was bringing traders to the area from Santa Fe and Los Angeles, and in 1843 and 1845 John C. Frémont’s explorations with Kit Carson publicized the Great Basin and the Sierra Nevada region. During the 1840s pioneers followed the Humboldt Valley–Donner Pass route to the Pacific Coast, and the Gold Rush of 1849 greatly expanded migration through Nevada to California.

Nevada, which came within U.S. sovereignty under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), was a part of California until it was incorporated into the newly organized Utah Territory in 1850. In 1849 a settlement was made at Mormon Station (later Genoa) in Carson Valley, but the population remained sparse until the discovery of the famous Comstock Lode in 1859. From that time on Nevada ceased to be merely a highway for gold seekers on the way to California. Virginia City became the most famous of all the Western mining camps, and the rapid influx of prospectors and settlers resulted in the organization of Nevada Territory in 1861.

The American Civil War (1861–65) gave strategic importance to the new territory. Pres. Abraham Lincoln realized that Nevada’s mineral wealth could help the Union; he also needed a Northern-allied state to support proposed antislavery amendments to the Constitution and a strategic buffer zone to check Confederate advances against California from Arizona and New Mexico, whose people were sympathetic to the Southern cause. Although Nevada Territory had only about one-fifth of the population required for statehood, Congress accepted the proposed state constitution and voted for statehood in 1864.

Mining and cattle-ranching decades

In its early decades Nevada’s economy was dependent on mining and ranching. The rich Comstock mines reached a maximum annual output of $36 million in silver in 1878. During the 1870s, however, the federal government limited the role of silver in the monetary system, causing a decline in silver prices, the closing of many Nevada mines, and the decay of once-thriving communities into ghost towns.

As mining declined, cattle ranching became a major industry. Beef prices, however, were unpredictable, high railroad rates were burdensome, and severe winters often killed thousands of cattle. In the late 1880s many cattle ranchers were forced into bankruptcy. With the depression of the mining and ranching industries, the state’s population dropped from 62,000 in 1880 to 47,000 in 1890.

Prosperity returned to Nevada only after the beginning of the 20th century, when rich silver ores were discovered near Tonopah and major copper deposits around Ely and when a major gold strike occurred at Goldfield. Thousands of miners answered the lure of these bonanzas, and the railroads built extensive branchlines to bring in equipment to the mining areas and haul out the ore. Accessible railroads and low shipping rates also encouraged cattle ranchers to renew large-scale production. Irrigation of fertile river valleys produced sizable hay crops. Thus assured of winter feed, ranchers further expanded their herds in the upland regions. World War I created demand for Nevada’s beef and metals, which kept the boom going, but the failing markets of the 1920s brought the return of economic depression.

Politically, during its first three decades as a state, Nevada was a Republican stronghold. Reflecting the lax standards in national politics, the state was often manipulated by corrupt politicians. Mine owners and ranchers frequently subsidized government officials, and there were accusations that rich men in the state had bought seats in the U.S. Senate. Monetary issues became of paramount importance in the 1890s, and the Silver Party grew out of the Free Silver Movement, taking members from both the Democratic and Republican parties, though mostly the latter. In the 1890s, candidates of the Nevada Silver Party won election to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and to the state governorship. By 1902, however, the silver issue had taken a back seat, and thereafter the two major national parties were in control.

Creation of a modern economy

Nevada began its transition to a modern economy during the Great Depression of the 1930s. After the legalization of gambling in 1931 and the reduction to six weeks of the residence requirement for divorce, Nevada became a marriage, divorce, and resort centre.

Construction of Hoover Dam (1930–36) on the Colorado River substantially aided the economy of southern Nevada, and its cheap hydroelectric power opened the way for manufacturing. The importation of hydroelectric power from Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River and piped-in natural gas also brought industrial development in the northwestern region.

Gambling was legalized statewide in 1931, and by the late 1930s Reno had been established as a tourist centre and casino gambling destination. Organized crime syndicates also were attracted to Nevada by the potential profits from gambling and prostitution, which was regulated to varying degrees but not prohibited from the earliest days of Nevada Territory. (A 1971 law allowed legally regulated brothels in certain counties and prohibited them elsewhere; all other prostitution is illegal in the state.) Members of the syndicates established gambling casinos in Las Vegas in the 1940s, and their enormous success led to an influx of legitimate developers into the city. In the 1950s the establishment of the Nevada Test Site by the federal government expanded employment opportunities and stimulated the development of technical industries within the state. Overshadowing the new industrialization, and fundamentally responsible for the current prosperity, was the diversification and expansion of the tourist trade to include not only the gaming and entertainment facilities of the Reno and Las Vegas areas but also the scenic and recreational opportunities statewide. Laughlin emerged as a tourist centre in the 1980s and Lake Tahoe much earlier as a fashionable playground. The principal resort areas—Las Vegas, Reno, Laughlin, and Lake Tahoe—continue to attract tourists from elsewhere in the United States, particularly southern California, and many international visitors. Las Vegas also hosts business and professional conventions.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Nevada was consistently among the fastest-growing states in the country and often held the top position in that regard. Rapid growth continued to pose considerable challenges for resource management, social services and health care, and other aspects of Nevada’s society and economy. The proposed nuclear-waste repository to be located deep within Yucca Mountain was a source of controversy from the time the site was designated by the federal government in 1987. Opposition to the repository was strong among urban Nevadans because of fears that storage plans and environmental regulations were inadequate to protect against radioactive contamination of the groundwater, and federal approval of the site took some 15 years to accomplish. A majority of residents of the rural towns near Yucca Mountain, however, favoured the development of the repository because of the potential for job creation.