Places
Tamarisk
Tamarisk is arguably one of the nation's top ten nefarious weeds, and Nevada is unlucky enough to have more than its fair share of it. This shrub or small tree exerts many negative effects on ecosystems and human resources, including decreased native plant and animal diversity, an accumulation... more
Sybil Rinehart Huntington
Places: Northern Nevada
Sybil Rinehart Huntington epitomized the spirit of the Nevada outback artist. Beginning in the 1930s, she lived with her surveyor husband in Sawtooth Knob, a remote mining camp fifty miles west of Winnemucca, Nevada, and created colorful oil paintings of vistas in Humboldt County. Huntington was... more
Sutro Tunnel
Places: Virginia City, Lyon County, Storey County, Northern Nevada
Entrepreneur Adolph Sutro believed that a tunnel, excavated to intersect with the lower levels of the Comstock, would efficiently drain and ventilate the mines. After a failed early proposal, he incorporated the Sutro Tunnel Company with a legislative charter in 1865. His astonishing plan called... more
Susan Berman
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Susan Berman (1945-2000) lived in Las Vegas from 1945 to 1957. Her father, David ("Davie") Berman, was a prominent hotel owner, devoted Jew, and important citizen of Las Vegas.To Berman, Las Vegas was the center of the world and her father owned it. When... more
Sunshine Locality
Places: White Pine County, Northern Nevada
The Sunshine Locality is a National Historic Register Palaeoarchaic archaeological site located in White Pine County, Nevada. This site, which gets its name from the nearby Sunshine Well, has been the focus of archaeological interest for more than fifty years because of its extensive surface... more
Sue Coleman
Places: Carson City, Northern Nevada
Sue Coleman of Carson City, Nevada, is carrying on a generations-deep family tradition of basket weaving from her Native American, Washoe heritage. The daughter of Theresa Smokey Jackson, whose own mother and grandmother were weavers, Coleman takes great pride in maintaining the family legacy.... more
Storey County Courthouse
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
Organized in 1861, Storey County is named after Captain Edward Storey who died during the 1860 Pyramid Lake War. Virginia City has always been the county's seat of government. Officials initially operated from a variety of structures, the last of which stood on B Street, one block above the... more
Stillwater Indian Reservation: Sewing and Quilting
Places: Churchill County, Northern Nevada
The Baptist Indian Mission located on the Stillwater Indian Reservation near Fallon, Nevada, not only served as a church for Paiute tribal members, but also as a gathering place for many reservation social events, classes, and other activities (1911-1931). Baptist missionary women such as Lillian R... more
Stillwater Geothermal Field
Places: Churchill County, Northern Nevada
Stillwater geothermal field is located near the small community of Stillwater, Nevada, approximately 20 km east of Fallon and just south of the Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge. The community of Stillwater is near the center of a thermal groundwater anomaly covering 52-65 km2 .The Stillwater... more
Steve Wynn
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Few casino builders or operators have had a greater impact on their industry, and especially on contemporary Las Vegas, than Stephen Alan “Steve” Wynn. The son of an illegal bingo game operator, Wynn received an Ivy League education. The combination of the two gave him a unique... more
Stephen Shu-Ning Liu
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Few writers have come so far to wedge their voice into American poetry. Stephen Liu was born in 1930 in Fuling, China, near the Yangtze River—a town that is now underwater. Not long ago, Liu's daughter April filmed the small community before it was flooded and superimposed her father'... more
Steamboat Springs Geothermal Field
Places: Washoe County, Northern Nevada
The Steamboat Springs geothermal resource is located south of Reno, Nevada, just off U.S. Highway 395. Two electric generating facilities utilize geothermal waters believed to be related to a single high temperature fluid that rises from depths beneath the Steamboat Hills and cools along a path to... more
Stardust Hotel
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
The Stardust Hotel became the dream of Tony Cornero, who in a sudden burst of inspiration while drinking with friends at the Louigi's bar on the Las Vegas Strip in the mid-1950s, determined to build the world's largest resort. Cornero would not live to see the completion of his dream, but... more
St. Mary in the Mountains Catholic Church
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
Father Hugh Gallagher built Virginia City's first Catholic church shortly after his arrival in 1860, but a strong wind blew the humble building down within two years. Father Patrick Manogue built its successor, known as St. Mary in the Mountains Church, shortly after he arrived on the Comstock... more
SS Rex Club
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Tony Cornero, a one-time 1920s bootlegger from California and a former casino operator well known in Las Vegas, opened the S.S. Rex Club casino at Second and Fremont streets in downtown Las Vegas in 1944. Cornero, born in Italy in 1895, named the club after an ill-fated gambling ship he owned off... more
Square Set Timbering
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
Comstock mining began in 1859 with open pits at Gold Hill to the south and Virginia City to the north. Within months, the Ophir Mine pit at Virginia City's outcropping became perilously deep, forcing miners to excavate underground.The Comstock challenged traditional methods of supporting mines... more
Sparks
Places: Washoe County, Northern Nevada
The settlement of Sparks sprang up virtually overnight when officials of the Southern Pacific Railroad moved maintenance operations from Wadsworth to an area just east of Reno in the summer of 1904. The railroad cited Wadsworth's outdated structures, lack of a good water supply, and the need to... more
Spanish Speaking Settlers: Nineteenth-Century
The first speakers of Spanish in the western Great Basin came from Mexico and California as well as South and Central America. Like others, they exploited the early Comstock and its vast economic opportunities. In 1860, before the creation of Nevada Territory, the federal census documented a... more
Soda Lake Geothermal Area
Places: Churchill County, Northern Nevada
Soda Lake, 10 km northwest of Fallon, Nevada, was not identified as a geothermal resource until drilling for a water well encountered boiling water north of the lake in 1903. Some surface evidence of geothermal activity is present in sediments that demonstrate shallow subsurface boiling; a hot... more
Singleleaf Pinyon
Singleleaf pinyon (Pinus monophylla) dominates much of Nevada's pinyon-juniper woodlands and is Nevada's state tree along with the Great Basin bristlecone pine, which is not as widely represented geographically nor as important with respect to prehistoric and historic human use. Singleleaf... more
Single Ledge Case
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
One of the most important legal contests in early Nevada history involved two pairs of corporations owning adjacent Comstock mines. The Chollar (pronounced "collar") and Potosi Mines and the Ophir and Burning Moscow had similar situations. In both cases, lawyers argued that either a... more
Silver Bow
Places: Nye County, Southern Nevada
Rich silver deposits were located in the southern Kawich Range of Nye County in November 1904. When prominent Nevadans George Wingfield and George Nixon became involved, people flocked to the newly founded town of Silver Bow. By spring 1905, more than 300 people were living there.Despite a constant... more
Sightseeing Airlines
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Many visitors to Las Vegas take sightseeing air flights to the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam. What may be surprising is that these flight destinations have been popular since the 1930s.One of the first to recognize the tourist potential of flights over the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas and Boulder City... more
Sierra Arts Foundation
Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
Sierra Arts Foundation (SAF) is the local nonprofit arts agency for Reno and the rest of Washoe County, and also serves other communities within a one-hundred-mile radius in northern Nevada. It was founded in 1971 and was run as an all-volunteer organization until 1977, when the first professional... more
Showgirls, The Movie
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Showgirls (1995) is a film about a young woman's rise to the top of the Las Vegas showgirl circuit. Loosely based on the 1950 Oscar-winning Hollywood classic All About Eve starring Bette Davis, Showgirls features a snakelike chorus dancer lying in wait to star in a popular Las Vegas revue.... more