Places
Comstock Lode
Places: Storey County, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
The Comstock Lode is one of the most important mining discoveries in American history, in output and in significance. It was the first major silver discovery in United States history: of the total ore taken out from the district, best estimates are that 57 per cent was silver, yet it was a... more
Communal Antelope Drives
Pronghorn (antelope) were among the most important big game animals hunted by Nevada's indigenous people. Individuals or small groups of hunters would pursue them during the summer months. In the spring and fall, when the animals congregated into larger herds, individual families would come... more
Cole-Malley Embezzlement
Places: Nye County, Southern Nevada
In perhaps the largest and best-known political and financial scandal in Nevada history—State Treasurer Ed Malley and State Controller George Cole embezzled $516,322.16 from the state treasury in the 1920s. With the assistance of a cashier of the Carson Valley Bank, the two began to divert... more
Claudine B. Williams
Claudine Williams of Las Vegas was a trailblazer for women when men controlled Nevada's business world. She was the first woman in the state to head a major casino and the first to chair a financial institution. In later life, she became a leading community philanthropist with education and... more
Clark's Las Vegas Townsite Auction
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
The birth of downtown Las Vegas took place during a land auction on Monday, May 15, 1905, when 1,200 lots in an area called Clark's Las Vegas Townsite were offered for sale. The townsite was named after U.S. Senator William Clark of Montana, who had purchased the 1,800-acre Stewart Ranch from... more
Clark County Courthouse
Places: Clark County, Southern Nevada
Organized in 1905, Las Vegas has remained the county seat of Clark County since its creation. Before the county was organized, civic leaders collected $1,800 and built the first courthouse in Las Vegas in 1909. The simple square structure was made of concrete and included a Mission Revival style... more
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Visitors to the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) are sometimes puzzled by the black column on the plaza between Judy Bayley Theatre and Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall. Closer inspection reveals an almost four-story-high variation on the classic mid-twentieth century ribbed,... more
Churchill County's Shoe Tree
For many decades, a seventy-foot-tall cottonwood tree, known by travelers and locals alike as the Shoe Tree, could be found at a dusty roadside pull-off, just beyond the old Pony Express stop at Middlegate Station. It was on the north side of U.S. Highway 50, approximately sixty miles east of... more
Churchill County Seats
Churchill County was an original county formed when the Nevada Territory was established in 1861. The population at that time was small, and, for governing purposes, Churchill was attached to Lyon County, with the county seat being established at Buckland's Station. From 1861 to 1865 the county... more
Churchill County Courthouse
Places: Churchill County, Fallon, Northern Nevada
In Churchill County's early years, the location of the courthouse moved several times due to an unstable economy. Originally located in La Plata in 1864, it was moved to Stillwater in 1868. The Newlands Project and agricultural growth at the turn of the century prompted a final move to Fallon.A... more
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) have had a presence in Nevada for more than 150 years. They were the first people of European descent to establish a settlement in Nevada. Soon after the Mormons located in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, their leader and prophet,... more
Chinese in Nineteenth-Century Nevada
A mere twenty-one Chinese men lived in the western Great Basin in 1860. It was a humble beginning for immigrants who would compete for the title of largest immigrant group in nineteenth-century Nevada. One of the earliest descriptions of Chinese in the region places them in 1856 digging a ditch... more
Chinese and Mining
Shortly after the news of the discovery of gold at Sutter's Fort in 1849 reached South China, Chinese gold seekers flocked to the Mother Lode in California. These men eventually migrated to the area now known as western Nevada. Present-day Dayton was originally called "Chinatown"... more
Chief Rolling Mountain Thunder
Places: Humboldt County, Pershing County, Northern Nevada
Chief Rolling Mountain Thunder (1920-1989) was a Creek tribal name that Oklahoma-born Frank Van Zant adopted after he arrived in Nevada in 1968. In the years that followed, Chief Thunder and many kindred spirits worked to create Thunder Mountain, a mixed-media collection of buildings and sculpture... more
Cherry Creek
Like many mining towns in Nevada, the story of Cherry Creek in White Pine County is one of boom and bust. It sprang up shortly after Peter Corning and John Carpenter located the nearby Tea Cup claim in 1872. Many mining companies flocked to the area, and the town grew until it busted just three... more
Cheatgrass
Overgrazing in the nineteenth century set the stage for the invasion of the exotic grass species, cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum). Native to the Eurasian steppe, cheatgrass has become the dominant vegetation across much of the Intermountain West. This highly flammable species is able to displace... more
Charles Russell
Many Nevada governors have faced challenging times. Few have faced such sustained challenges over their entire term of office as those of Charles Russell.Born on December 27, 1903 in Lovelock and schooled at Deeth and Elko, Russell graduated from the University of Nevada. He taught school in Ruby... more
Charles Pember Squires
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Charles Pember "Pop" Squires, prominent pioneer Las Vegas newspaper editor and publisher, is sometimes called the "Father of Las Vegas." He was even referred to as "Mr. Las Vegas" before singer Wayne Newton captured the title. During Squires's long tenure as a... more
Charles I. West
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Nothing better describes Dr. Charles I. West's influence on Nevada and myriad accomplishments than the first line of Hank Greenspun's Where I Stand column in the Las Vegas Sun on October 10, 1984. Greenspun, in devoting his column to Dr. West upon his death, began the tribute by saying,... more
Charles F. Cutts
Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
Charles F. Cutts was a major force behind the Nevada Art Gallery. Born in Wakefield, New Hampshire in 1871, Cutts came to Nevada in 1891. He had been educated at Packard College, an early commercial business school founded in New York City in 1858 on the upper floors of the famed Cooper Union... more
Charles Evans
Charles Evans rose fast in Nevada politics, and fell just as quickly. Born Charles Robley Evans in Breckenridge, Illinois on August 9, 1866, he was in the Manhattan, Nevada, mining boom by 1905, reportedly running a saloon and gambling house.From there he went to Goldfield in 1908, the same year... more
Charcoal Burner's War of 1879
Places: Eureka, Eureka County, Northern Nevada
In 1879, the so-called Charcoal Burners War pitted Italian charcoal burners against companies that bought and used the product. During the 1870s, hundreds of Italians and Swiss immigrants (many Italian speaking) settled in the newly emerging Eureka Mining District. Many of these arrivals brought an... more
Central States, Southeast, Southwest Areas Pension Fund
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Once nicknamed "the mob's bank," the Teamsters Union's Central States, Southeast, Southwest Areas Pension Fund, based in Chicago, played a major—and infamous—role in the rapid expansion of the Las Vegas hotel-casino industry following World War II. From 1958 to 1977,... more
Cattail
Cattails were important to Indians in Nevada, most especially the Paiute. Cattails exist in several species. However, the most common species in Nevada seems to be the Typha latifolia, also known as the broadleaf cattail.Cattails were widely used by Nevada Indians in the form of foods, medicines,... more
Castaways Hotel
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
The Castaways Hotel opened on the west side of the Las Vegas Strip across from the Sands Hotel in 1963, became one of the casinos billionaire Howard Hughes bought in the late 1960s and survived into the 1980s, when it was demolished to make way for Steve Wynn's The Mirage in 1989.The Castaways... more