Old Nevada

I just returned from a few days out of town, to explore old mining towns in Nevada. It was an adventurous, good time. Nevada, by the way, comes from the Spanish meaning "snow covered"! And, us Nevadans don't like the state's name pronounced with a "soft" A. We like the "hard" A like in "BAD".

I wanted to blog about the area, about 2-1/2 hours (depending how you drive, ha ha) north of Las Vegas, up US 95 Highway.   

There is not much history documented about Nevada before 1861, but I did find a few "nuggets" of information that might be of interest. As we know, Native Americans of various tribes roamed the land of the region, but it was Francisco Garces, who became the first European in the area. Garces was a Spanish Franciscan friar, a missionary and explorer. He lived from 1738 - 1781, exploring much of the Southwest. He is even credited with giving the Colorado River its name. He was eventually murdered along with his companion friars during an uprising of the Indians, and has been declared a martyr for the Catholic faith.

The area of Nevada became part of the Commandancy General of the Provincias Internas, part of the Alta California, or Upper California province in 1804, when the Californias were split. Nevada was annexed as part of the Spanish Empire, in what became known as New Spain.

The US was eager to expand into the Southwest to develop farms and settlements, with the national government initially seeking to purchase Native American land by treaties, though the settlers did not like the idea. The US policy toward the Natives continued to evolve after the American Revolution. George Washington believed that they were equals, but that their society was inferior, so he developed a policy to encourage the "civilizing" process. His six point plan included:

 

1. impartial justice toward Native Americans
2. regulated buying of Native American lands
3. promotion of commerce

4. promotion of experiments to civilize or improve Native American society

5. presidential authority to give presents
6. punishing those who violated Native American rights.

And so, here is a little bit about 18th Century Nevada. Actually, there is a lot of fascinating information about the state during the mid 1800's with the mining boom, the Comstock load, in Virginia City and later in the Tonopah and Goldfield area in 1905. Check it out sometime. Those stories are "golden".