McKeen Motor Car is a nationally important self-propelled gasoline engine railway vehicle built by the McKeen Motor Car Company of Omaha, Nebraska. The Virginia & Truckee Railway Company ordered it in October 1909 at a cost of $22,000. The McKeen Car entered regular service as V&T Motorcar #22 on June 2, 1910, operating between Carson City and Minden, Nevada.

The Valley of Fire is located approximately 50 miles northeast of Las Vegas, in an awe-inspiring landscape of flaming red sandstone. The area was utilized by Basketmaker peoples and later by Ancestral Puebloan peoples between approximately 300 B.C. and 1150 A.D. Bright red sandstone carved into intricate shapes by the wind provides the backdrop for a rich concentration of archaeological sites, including rock art.

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.

The Wadsworth area was important for settlers as early as 1841, but was not formally established until the railroad arrived. Westbound immigrants, having crossed the Forty-Mile Desert to the east, found the area on the big bend of the Truckee River a welcome place to rest and water livestock. Seasonal trading posts were established by 1854. Wadsworth turned from small settlement to permanent town in 1868, when it was designated as a service station and headquarters for the Central Pacific Railroad's Truckee Division.