Nevada Essay

In population Nevada is one of the smallest states of the fifty states in the Union, but it invites and receives more intense national publicity than many others. “It is a testing ground for unorthodox social theories and an outpost of solid American conservatism” (313). Because the state is so large and its centers of population is so widely scattered, no single generalization about it will suffice for a historical summary. Nevada, with its 110,000 square miles, would cover more than half of Spain. Nevada is not the largest state in the Union, but it is big enough to inspire awe in its visitors” (2). About 86 percent of the land in Nevada was still under the control of the federal government as the year 2000 opened (3). It was mainly managed by Washington because it had been largely unpopulated and unclaimed since the days of the pioneers. “The land has been utilized by Indians, miners, livestock and tourists with special interests” (3). Most Nevadans seldom stray from their valley cities, when they do, they usually follow the roads east-west crossing the mountains and valleys. Because of its vast, semi-arid expanses, Nevada has often been described as a “desert waste.” Within decades they developed cities and had some natural changes. “There was a much higher, more serene Native American civilization living in the Great Basin province and northeastern Mojave Desert regions in 1810 than there was in the 1840s when the Pathfinder, John Fremont described these bands” (26). Before the arrival of European descendants, a dozen of Southern Paiutes lived north and west of the middle Colorado basin, which one of them was Las Vegas. Las Vegas was given its name by the Spaniards in the Antonio Amijo party, who used the water in the area while heading north and west along the Old Spanish Trail from Texas. The areas of the Las Vegas valley contained artesian wells that supported extensive green areas therefore came the name Las Vegas, Spanish for “The Meadows.”