When mining partners Edwin Gray and Dave Bartley discovered copper deep within a mountainside in central White Pine County between 1900 and 1902, they sparked a mining boom that would soon become one of the richest in the state. By 1910, four communities called "company towns" were established by businesses that aimed to exploit the deposits.

The White River Narrows Archeological District, approximately 90 miles south of Ely, Nevada, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. The area is especially scenic because of its rhyolite cliffs on which much of the Archaeological District's rock art is situated.

From at least 8300 years ago, and probably earlier, Nevada's ancient Native Americans used the atlatl or throwing stick to propel feathered and, usually, stone tipped darts at their prey. In fact, most “arrowheads” found in the desert are most likely atlatl dart points. Although Native Americans are more typically associated with the bow and arrow, Archaeologists trace the introduction of the bow into Nevada to sometime between 3000 and 1000 years ago, a time relatively late in North American prehistory.

Artemus Ward, often called the first standup comic, played a pivotal role in the history of American literature during an 1863 Christmas visit to the Nevada territory when he influenced the career of Mark Twain. Born Charles Farrar Brown in 1834 in Maine, the future Artemus Ward lost his father when young and became an apprentice printer at age thirteen. Eventually, Brown graduated to reporter and comic columnist during a career that took him to Ohio.