Places
McCarran International Airport
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
McCarran International Airport is central to the long history of aviation in Clark County. It is the second airport to bear the name of Nevada's first native-born United States senator, and today it accounts for nearly sixty percent of all visitors to Las Vegas.Las Vegas and Clark County joined... more
Maude Frazier
Maude Frazier, educator and legislator, worked to improve the state's education system, from the frontline as a teacher and from the state capitol as a lawmaker. She developed the Las Vegas school district during the 1930s and 1940s, brought higher education to Southern Nevada, and improved all... more
Mary McNair Mathews
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
Mary McNair Mathews' memoir, Ten Years in Nevada or Life on the Pacific Coast, established her as an early chronicler of life in Virginia City, Nevada. Mathews was born in western New York in 1834 and attended Oberlin College in Ohio. Widowed by the time she learned of her younger brother's... more
Mary Hunter Austin
Mary Hunter Austin set many of her early stories and novels in the desert and small towns along the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains where she lived from 1891 to 1906. From the Great Basin years came Austin's best-known work, The Land of Little Rain (1903), fourteen sketches... more
Mary Chadwell
Mary Chadwell's distinctive miniature paintings have been shown in countless exhibits in Nevada and across the United States, including the Smithsonian Institution. Her skills as a miniaturist, including resilient eyesight, dexterity, and patience, are reflected in still lifes including locales... more
Mark Twain
Places: Virginia City, Incline Village, Storey County, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in 1835 in Florida, Missouri, and raised there in the eastern part of the state. His schooling was minimal; he was essentially self-taught. As a teenager, he worked for local newspapers, and then for printing shops in Cincinnati and other eastern cities. In 1857,... more
Mark Strouse
Mark Strouse served two terms as Virginia City's chief of police and two terms as city treasurer. Additionally, he developed Nevada's first large meat processing business—which included a kosher option—and married into the prominent Edgington family.Strouse (also Strauss,... more
Margaret Kelly
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Margaret Kelly created a new form of dance entertainment in 1932 when she founded the "Bluebell Girls" in Paris, France. The dancers became famous internationally for their grace, style, and nudity. The Lido de Paris came to Las Vegas and changed showroom entertainment in 1958.Born in... more
Mapes Hotel and Casino, Reno
Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
The Mapes Hotel and Casino was the first major high-rise hotel built in this country after World War II. When the twelve-story Mapes Hotel opened in the heart of Reno in December 1947, it was the tallest building in Nevada. The hotel was significant in the development of the tourism industry and... more
Manx: Immigrants from the Isle of Man
Places: Storey County, White Pine County, Northern Nevada
The tiny Isle of Man, located in the Irish Sea, had a nineteenth-century population of roughly 60,000, so it was not able to send a substantial number of immigrants to Nevada. Nevertheless, those who arrived had an important effect on the territory and state.In addition, the Manx belonged to the... more
Manhattan
Places: Nye County, Southern Nevada
Miner George Nicholl found rich silver deposits in the southern part of the Toquima Range in Nye County during 1866. Only sporadic production occurred there until major new discoveries, assaying at $3000 a ton, were made in April 1905. A rush to the booming mining camp ensued, and by the end of... more
Mackay School of Mines
Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
The 1864 Nevada state constitution called for the founding of a school of mines. The creation of the University of Nevada School of Mines in 1888 makes it one of the oldest in the nation. The institution is a testament to the industry's importance to the state. The name "Mackay"... more
Mabel Hoggard
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Mabel Hoggard was the first black teacher employed by the Clark County School District. As a primary teacher, she taught at Westside Elementary, Matt Kelly, Highland, and C.V.T. Gilbert schools in Las Vegas from 1946 through 1970. Four years after her retirement, she was honored with a school in... more
Lyon County Courthouse
Places: Lyon County, Northern Nevada
Created in 1861, Lyon County established its first seat of government in the mining town of Dayton. The economic success of nearby Virginia City prompted officials to invest early in public architecture. Dayton's courthouse was one of the first built in the state.The county hired Henry... more
Lyle Ball
Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
Lyle Ball (1909-1992) was one of the most prolific painters in the history of the visual arts in Nevada. Following his retirement in 1968 as owner of the Ball Sign Company in Reno, Ball pursued a second career painting architectural landmarks throughout northern Nevada. He was often referred to as... more
Luxor Hotel
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
The Luxor, an Egyptian pyramid-shaped hotel opened by William Bennett's Circus Circus Enterprises in 1993, was among the first of a decade-long wave of new megaresorts to emerge on the Las Vegas Strip in the 1990s during the brief period when megaresorts flirted with catering toward adults with... more
Lutheranism in Nevada
Lutheranism in America between 1840 and 1875 was divided into fifty-eight autonomous synods. Many were denominated by their states, such as the Wisconsin Synod, or were identified by the heritage of their membership, such as the Norwegian-Danish Conference. The Missouri Synod, founded in 1847 with... more
Lucius Morris Beebe and Charles Clegg
Lucius Beebe and his lifelong companion, Charles Clegg, helped restore Virginia City, resuscitated the Territorial Enterprise, and promoted the Virginia and Truckee Railroad. Born in 1902 with Massachusetts aristocratic roots, Beebe flamboyantly disregarded authority from an early age. Although he... more
Lovelock Culture
Places: Pershing County, Northern Nevada
About 4000 years ago, Great Basin archaeological cultures blossomed after an interval marked by prolonged droughts. The overall climate at this time was cooler and wetter than that of today. That resulted in the expansion of regional wetlands and lakes, including formation of wetlands in formerly... more
Lovelock
Places: Lovelock, Pershing County, Northern Nevada
Lovelock owes its formal beginning to the railroad, but was important to travelers many years before the first train arrived. The site was known to pioneers of the 1840s and 1850s as Big Meadows because it was an important place to rest and water animals before crossing the Forty-Mile Desert. James... more
Louis Siegriest
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
Louis Bassi Siegriest (1899-1989) was a major California artist who lived and painted in Virginia City, Nevada, during the 1940s. A solo exhibition of his drawings and paintings of historical buildings on the Comstock was featured at the University of Nevada, Reno in 1983.Siegriest was born in... more
University of Nevada, Las Vegas: Department of Art
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
The University of Nevada, Las Vegas first opened its doors in 1965 as Nevada Southern University, a branch of the University of Nevada, Reno. The Department of Art began its mission by offering service courses for other disciplines with its four faculty members Rita Deanin Abbey, Eric Gronberg,... more
Lost City Archaeology
Places: Clark County, Southern Nevada
The first prehistoric Pueblo (Anasazi) ruins discovered in Nevada were at Lost City in Southern Nevada, near the now-submerged town of St. Thomas. Small homesteads were scattered along the northeast edge of the Moapa Valley for about six miles, starting near Logandale and extending southeast into... more
University of Nevada Reno: Department of Art
Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
The first art instructor at the University of Nevada in Reno was Katherine Lewers (1868–1945), who began teaching freehand drawing in 1905. For the most part, the program served the specialized needs of teaching, engineering, and home economics majors until 1939 when Lewers retired. Her... more
Lorraine Hunt
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Lorraine Hunt has been a prominent member of the Las Vegas community since the 1950s. She served on the Clark County Commission and also served two terms as the lieutenant governor of Nevada.Lorraine Perri Hunt was born in Niagara Falls, New York. She and her family relocated to Las Vegas in 1943... more