Vernacular architecture is a term encompassing a range of building forms, types, and styles. In the past, the term referred to folk or traditional building by people with no formal architectural training. Today, scholars define the term more broadly to include the architecture of specific regions or popular, ordinary buildings, such as shopping malls, even if designed by trained architects. Vernacular architecture can also refer to an approach to architectural studies that examines the relationships between everyday life and people.

Linda Hussa was born in 1941 in Nevada, but she came to womanhood in the relatively lush hills of Northern California, "at the base of the Diablo Meridian, a point from which California and Nevada are surveyed, mapped, locked into certainty." As a girl growing up surrounded by horses, she would ride to the top of Mount Diablo, and with her telescope look east, toward the desert of Nevada, a land of mirage. This desert drew her back eventually, and it is from the desert that she writes.

Virginia City and the Comstock Lode played a crucial role in the development of the region and the nation. The news of its importance has reverberated throughout the world for nearly 150 years. The wealth of the Comstock's fabulously rich mines affected presidential politics and gave Nevada international fame. Immigrants arrived from every continent, attracted by legendary amounts of gold and silver, which poured into the economy during the crisis of the Civil War.

Virginia McCuin grew up on a ranch in Railroad Valley, Nevada, and gained an early appreciation for practical crafts while watching her father work as a blacksmith. Her own work started with leather tooling, but soon moved to gold and silver smithing. McCuin is mostly self-taught, and she has created a unique three-dimensional style that she uses in belt buckles and pendants.