Walter Van Tilburg Clark is considered one of the most distinguished Nevada writers of the twentieth century. An author, poet, lecturer, and teacher, Clark's interpretations of the American West are his greatest legacy.

Established in 1861, Washoe County's original seat of government was in Washoe City, the location of its first courthouse. In 1871, the county government transferred to Reno where the commissioners built a simple brick Italianate courthouse. Shortly after the move, a contractor demolished the Washoe City courthouse for the brick.

Kirk Robertson is a poet, essayist, publisher, editor, and artist. Robertson was born in 1946 in Los Angeles and moved around the West before settling in Fallon in 1975, where he has resided ever since. Before leaving California, he studied with the well-known California poet Gerald Locklin at California State University, Long Beach. His poetry has roots in both the "plainspoken" tradition of Locklin and his close friend Charles Bukowski, as well as in the more formal and minimal style of Robert Creeley.

John Battenberg designed Creatures of Nevada, a complex, multi-part set of sculptures and fountain heads for the first block of the Truckee River Walk, at the southwest corner of Virginia Street and the Truckee River in Reno. Retired in 1985 as a professor of art from San Jose State University, San Jose, California, Battenberg moved his studio to Scottsdale, Arizona, in the early twenty-first century.