When brothers Ethan and Hosea Grosh left Pennsylvania in 1849, they joined throngs of men from all over the world intent on finding a fortune in the California Gold Rush. Their search for wealth took them from San Francisco into the gold country and then over the Sierra into Nevada s Gold Canyon, where they placer-mined for gold and discovered a deposit of silver. The letters they sent back to their family offer vivid commentaries on the turbulent western frontier, the diverse society of the Gold Rush camps, and the heartbreaking labor and frustration of mining. Their lively descriptions of...

The history of St. Thomas, Nevada, the remains of which today lay under the high water mark of Lake Mead, begins in 1865 with Mormon missionaries sent by Brigham Young to the Moapa Valley to grow cotton. In 1871 the boundary of Utah territory was shifted east by one degree longitude, and the town became part of Nevada. New settlers moved in, miners and farmers, interacting with the Mormons and native Paiutes. The building of Hoover Dam doomed the small settlement, yet a striking number of people still have connections to a town that ceased to exist three-quarters of a century ago. Today, the...

Richard O. Davies won Foreword Reviews' INDIEFAB Book of the Year Bronze Medal in Sports for The Main Event: Boxing in Nevada from the Mining Camps to the Las Vegas Strip. Davies' book was chosen as one of the best indie books of 2014.
As the twentieth century dawned, bare-knuckle prizefighting was transforming into the popular sport of boxing, yet simultaneously it was banned as immoral in many locales. Nevada was the first state to legalize it, in 1897, solely to stage the Corbett-Fitzsimmons world heavyweight championship in Carson City. Davies shows that the history of...

In northwestern Nevada, the waters of the Truckee, Carson, and Walker river systems are fought over by competing interests: agriculture, industry, Native Americans and newer residents, and environmentalists. Much of the conflict was caused by the Newlands Project, completed in 1915, the earliest federal water reclamation scheme. Diverting these waters destroyed vital wetlands, polluted groundwater, nearly annihilated the cui-ui and the Lahontan cutthroat trout, and threatened the existence of Pyramid Lake.
Water Politics in Northern Nevada examines the Newlands Project, its...

Eugene P. Moehring analyzes the development of Reno and Las Vegas since 1945 with special emphasis on the years after 1970. Major factors that shaped the development of both cities were the growth of corporate gaming and megaresorts and increased personal leisure and affluence. Moehring provides an engaging, informative, and readable history of the divergent paths that Reno and Las Vegas took over the past forty years. Reno, the nation s gambling mecca in the 1950s, led the way, developing the successful tourist economy that Las Vegas later embraced. Through the 1970s the two cities resembled...

The growth of Las Vegas that began in the 1940s brought an influx of both women and men looking to work in the expanding hotel and casino industries. In fact, for the next fifty years the proportion of women in the labor force was greater in Las Vegas than the United States as a whole. Joanne L. Goodwin s study captures the shifting boundaries of women s employment in the postwar decades with narratives drawn from the Las Vegas Women Oral History Project. It counters cliched pictures of women at work in the famed resort city as it explores women s real strategies for economic survival and...

From the early 1870s until his death in 1902, John Mackay was among the richest men in the world and was without a doubt the wealthiest man to emerge from Nevada s fabulous Comstock Lode. Author Michael J. Makley explores how, from his beginnings as a poor Irish immigrant, John Mackay developed a strong work ethic that distinguished him for the rest of his life. He came west to seek his fortune in the California Gold Rush and then moved on to Virginia City, Nevada, where he dealt in mining stocks and operated silver mines. After making a fortune in mining, he transferred his energies to...

Charcoal and Blood is a detailed account of a heinous crime perpetrated on Italian immigrants engaged in the production of charcoal on Nevada's mining frontier at the close of the nineteenth century. On August 18, 1879, in a canyon near Fish Creek, outside Eureka, Nevada, five Italian charcoal burners were slain and six more were wounded, while fourteen were taken prisoner by a sheriff's posse.

Through meticulous research on the event, relying on such primary sources as newspaper articles, author Silvio Manno provides the only comprehensive account of Eureka's charcoal crisis and...

When brothers Ethan and Hosea Grosh left Pennsylvania in 1849, they joined throngs of men from all over the world intent on finding a fortune in the California Gold Rush. Their search for wealth took them from San Francisco into the gold country and then over the Sierra into Nevada s Gold Canyon, where they placer-mined for gold and discovered a deposit of silver. The letters they sent back to their family offer vivid commentaries on the turbulent western frontier, the diverse society of the Gold Rush camps, and the heartbreaking labor and frustration of mining. Their lively descriptions of...

Howard Cannon (1912 - 2002) represented Nevada in the U.S. Senate from 1958 until 1982 and acquired a reputation as one of its most productive and influential members. Because he was a modest man more comfortable with hard work than self-aggrandizement, he was also one of its most under-appreciated. Nonetheless, Cannon influenced many major changes in American politics and policies during his time in office.
Born to a devout Mormon family in a small farming community in southwest Utah, Cannon served in the Army Air Force during World War II and emerged from the war as a hero. Soon he was...