Places
African Methodist Episcopal Church in Virginia City
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and congregation in Virginia City functioned as one of two congregations organized, administered, and attended by African American residents of the Comstock during the peak years of the 1860s and 1870s.After the Great Awakening waned in the United States... more
African Americans on the Comstock
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
African Americans came to the western Great Basin in the 1850s. Some were former slaves seeking freedom, while others were freeborn. All sought opportunity. Although the western environment did not have the same level of oppression as the East, African Americans encountered racism both from... more
Adrian C. Louis
Places: Lovelock Indian Colony, Pershing County, Northern Nevada
Adrian C. Louis (1946-present) was born and raised in Nevada. He is the eldest of twelve children, and an enrolled member of the Lovelock Paiute Indian Tribe.Louis received his bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees in creative writing from Brown University. A former journalist and co-founder... more
Adolph Sutro
Places: Dayton, Virginia City, Lyon County, Storey County, Northern Nevada
Adolph Sutro was a remarkable character whose tunnel remains a legend in the history of mining. Born to Prussian Jewish parents, he immigrated to North America at age twenty in 1850. Sutro tinkered with mechanics while young, but throughout his life he applied himself to a wide range of occupations... more
Adam Fortunate Eagle
Places: Churchill County, Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, Northern Nevada
Although he is a Chippewa from Minnesota, Adam Fortunate Eagle has become an established artist in Nevada's native American community.At his home on Fallon's Stillwater Reservation—his wife's native home—he has a well-equipped shop and a gallery where he makes and shows his... more
Abraham Curry
Places: Carson City, Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
Abraham (or Abram) Van Santvoord Curry was the founder of Carson City and a businessman who greatly influenced the evolution of Nevada territory and the early state. Curry was born in 1815 in Ithaca, New York, married Mary Cowen in Ogdensburg, New York, and spent a brief time in business in... more
Abe Zetooney
Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
Abraham Zetooney was a near penniless immigrant in 1912. En route to Los Angeles he stopped in Reno and never left. He saved enough money to build the fashionable El Cortez Hotel and died a millionaire.Born in Damascus, Syria in 1893, Abe Zetooney immigrated to New York at the age of 19 with a few... more
Abandonment of Lost City
Places: Clark County, Southern Nevada
The end of the Anasazi occupation of Nevada's Lost City is an ongoing research question for archaeologists. Some of the reasons considered are long-term drought, overpopulation, disease, or competition for resources. Social issues and religion may have also contributed. A combination of all of... more
Nuclear Testing Before Nevada (1942-1950)
Places: Nye County, Southern Nevada
The Nevada Test Site was the United States’ Cold War continental nuclear proving ground. Nuclear weapons testing began during World War II and came of age during the Cold War. The nuclear tests conducted in Nevada between 1951 and 1992 had their origins in major scientific discoveries of the... more
Donner Party: Frequently Asked Questions
Places: Northern Nevada
How many people were in the Donner Party and how many died?The answer depends on time and geography. Of the ninety-one people associated with the group, including one who left the party and six who died before reaching the Sierra camps, forty-four died and forty-seven survived. Of the eighty-seven... more
Donner Party
Places: Northern Nevada
Part 1: The PicnicThe Donner Party was a group of families that set off overland for California in ox-drawn covered wagons in 1846. They planned a two-thousand-mile, five-month walk across the continent to new opportunities, but were trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains by the terrible winter of... more
Gold 'N Silver Inn
Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
The Gold 'N Silver's motto is simple: “Like home, we never close.”Located on Fourth Street near Keystone Avenue in Reno, Gold 'N Silver is known for being open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, no matter what the weather looks like outside. Since it first opened its doors, the... more
What They Cannot Say before Dark
There's lots to say that don't need words.—Maxine KuminAt the kiosk, thirteen women sittheir wheelchairs, trying to find a face.The nursing station is empty, the lightblinks for assistance and the bell snickersto no one. I walk in, cross their pathlike a deer in the field of eyes... more
Palliative
for Hayden CarruthAre there wordsfor what you cannot,lying in this wilderness, express—with her hands to love youto the center of the bed,the window with a cardinalat the lopsided feeder, andthe weathercock that crowsin all weatheras you almost crowto the harrowing horizonand the day after... more
Now I Sit the Saddle to Freedom
12:00 noonStrangely wonderful it isto bike this paththrough eastern Arizonawithout a belongingto say my name.5:30 p.m.Crow at my back,cattle in the creek meadowand wildfire beyond the ridge—is Snyderstillin the lookout tower?6:30 p.m.Mountain bluebird,buffalo, and perhapsan angel belowthe... more
My Sons Who Have No Opera to Console Them
Pavarotti lies in a hospital bed,and my sons who have no operato console them, pulled from the driveway.I held them in the garage without words—poet who could say nothing—and my hands, the empty tools of fatherhood—chased their bikes from the greasy floor,fished laundry from the... more
Los Vendedores
Out of the sand they comecrowing like cocks in the morning sunchanting their strange, melodious hymns to food:Tortillero, Helado, Maní tostado,and the children, burnished and thinscurry to meet the musical menand the women, smoked in their shawlsfloat on brooms behind themand the beach is... more
Hunting for Rain
Walking your dog, Cookie,through the low curbs of Carson,wondering who will cash your checkfor misery, for rain, so that youmight escape the brick terraceof rent, of living outside this land—the rucksack piled in your sledyou drug up the snow of Wild Rose Creekto meet me. I wonder too, Maria,... more
Anthem for a Burnished Land
Places: Carson City, Northern Nevada
[Anthem for a Burnished Land is the poem that poet Shaun Griffin wrote for Governor Sandoval's inauguration. He read the poem on January 3, 2011 and has kindly granted us permission to publish it on the ONE.]The great Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, said the end of art is peace. If a poem can do... more
Shaun Griffin
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
Shaun Griffin is a poet, translator, editor, and activist. A native of Southern California, he has lived with his wife and family in Virginia City, Nevada, since 1978. Griffin is the author of five poetry collections, which honor the West's many cultures and landscapes through resonant,... more
Fallon Tom Turkey
Places: Churchill County, Fallon, Northern Nevada
Generations after the once profitable turkey-growing industry in Churchill County had ceased to exist, menus and newspaper advertisements for popular Reno casinos and restaurants still promoted "Roasted Fallon Tom Turkey."Turkeys had been grown in Lahontan Valley since... more