Nevada is a state located in the western region of the United States of America, best known for its easy marriage and divorce proceedings, legalization of gambling and, in some counties, prostitution. It also has some of the country's strictest drug laws. The capital is Carson City and the largest city is Las Vegas.
Nevada's official nickname is "The Silver State." Other nicknames include "The Sagebrush State" and "The Battle-Born State," and the state's motto is "All for Our Country," and the state song is "Home Means Nevada" by Bertha Rafetto. The phrase "Battle Born" is on the state flag.
Derived from the Father Kino expeditions at the end of the 17th century through north Mexico and south U.S., Nevada passed to Spanish control, belonging to the Viceroyalty of New Spain. In 1821, it became part of the First Mexican Empire of Agustin de Iturbide, until 1823, and afterwards of the Mexican Republic. As a result of the Mexican-American War of 1846-48 and based on the Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty, Nevada became part of the United States. On August 14, 1850, the U.S. Congress established the Utah territory which included the present day state. 1859 saw the discovery of the Comstock Lode, a rich outcropping of gold and silver, and the mining center Virginia City sprang up. This discovery brought a flood of miners, prospectors, merchants and others hoping to strike it rich.
On March 2, 1861, the Nevada Territory separated from the Utah territory and adopted its current name, shortened from Sierra Nevada (Spanish for "snowy range"). Eight days prior to the presidential election of 1864, Nevada became the 36th state in the union. Statehood was rushed to the date of October 31 - coincidentally Halloween - to help ensure Abraham Lincoln's reelection and post-Civil War Republican dominance in Congress. As Nevada's mining-based economy tied it to the more industrialized Union, it was viewed as more politically reliable than other Confederate-sympathizing states such as neighboring California. It is a common misconception that one of the reasons Nevada was granted statehood was its large deposits of silver and gold. This is merely a myth, however, and would have been illogical in that Congress had unlimited control over these resources when Nevada was a territory and only limited control after Nevada became a state.
Nevada achieved its current boundaries on May 5, 1866 when it absorbed the portion of Pah-Ute County in the Arizona Territory west of the Colorado River, essentially all of present day Nevada south of the 37th parallel. The transfer was prompted by the discovery of gold in the area, and it was thought by officials that Nevada would be better able to oversee the expected population boom. This area includes most of what is now Clark County.
Mining shaped Nevada's economy for many years. However in the late 19th century, Nevada found it increasingly more difficult to compete with states such as Colorado and Utah in the mining industry. There was even talk of stripping away statehood, the only time in American history such an action was discussed in Congress. However, the rich silver strike at Tonopah in 1900 is thought to have saved the state from near collapse. This was followed by strikes in Goldfield and Rhyolite, lasting well into the 1910s and making Nevada a dominant player in mining once again.
Unregulated gambling was common place in the early Nevada mining towns but outlawed in 1909 as part of a nation-wide anti-gaming crusade. Due to subsequent declines in mining output and the decline of the agricultural sector during the Great Depression, Nevada re-legalized gambling on March 19, 1931, with approval from the legislature. At the time, the leading proponents of gambling expected that it would be a short term fix until the state's economic base widened to include less cyclical industries. However, re-outlawing gambling has never been seriously considered since, and the industry has become Nevada's primary source of revenue today.
In 1931, construction began on Hoover Dam near Boulder City. Thousands of workers from across the country came to build the dam, and providing for their needs in turn required many more workers. The boom in population is likely to have fueled the relegalization of gambling, alike present-day industry. Both Hoover Dam and later war industries such as the Basic Magnesium Plant first started the growth of the southern area of the state near Las Vegas. Over the last 75 years, Clark County has grown in relation to the Reno area, and today encompasses most of the state's population.
The Nevada Test Site, 65 miles (105 km) Northwest of the City of Las Vegas, was founded on January 11, 1951 for the testing of nuclear weapons. The site is composed of approximately 1,350 square miles (3,500 km²) of desert and mountainous terrain. Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site began with a one-kiloton of TNT (4 terajoule) bomb dropped on Frenchman Flats on January 27, 1951. The last atmospheric test was conducted on July 17, 1962 and the underground testing of weapons continued until September 23, 1992. The location is known for the highest amount of concentrated nuclear detonated weapons in the U.S.
Over 80% of the state's area is owned by the federal government. The primary reason for this is that homesteads were not permitted in large enough sizes to be viable in the arid conditions that prevail throughout desert Nevada. Instead, early settlers would homestead land surrounding a water source, and then graze livestock on the adjacent public land, which is useless for agriculture without access to water (this pattern of ranching still prevails). The deficiencies in the Homestead Act as applied to Nevada were probably due to a lack of understanding of the Nevada environment, although some firebrands (so-called "Sagebrush Rebels") maintain that it was due to pressure from mining interests to keep land out of the hands of common folk. This debate continues to be argued among some state historians today.
