Nevada
Nevada is a state located in the Western region of the United States. Nevada is bordered to the north by Oregon and Idaho, to the west and south by California, and to the east by Arizona and Utah.
- ABBREVIATION: NV
- NICKNAME: The Silver State
- POPULATION: 2,758,931 (2012 est.)
- CAPITAL: Carson City
- STATE BIRD: Mountain Bluebird
- STATE FLOWER: Sagebrush
- AREA: 110,622 sq. mi.
- TIME ZONE: Most of state: Pacific – West Wendover: Mountain
- ENTERED UNION: Oct. 31, 1864
- ALTITUDE: High, 13,147 ft. Boundary Peak
- CLIMATE: Dry and sunny with low humidity. Hot summers, cool winters. Light rainfall, deep mountain snows.
The driest state in the U.S., Nevada is a sun scorched land of desert open space, sharply rising buttes, and playas-evaporated lake beds filled with salty or alkaline deposits. It is, one of the nations most sparsely populated states. Had it not been for the discovery of the celebrated Comstock lode at Virginia City in 1859, which was to yield more than $400 million in silver and other ore, Nevada might have remained simply a highway to California-and the pleasure domes of Las Vegas and Reno might never have come into existence.
Established in 1905, Las Vegas was incorporated as a city in 1911. At the close of the 20th century, Las Vegas was the most populous American city founded in that century (a distinction held by Chicago in the 19th century). A desert metropolis built on gambling, vice and other forms of entertainment, Las Vegas became one of the fastest growing cities in the United States. Today, Las Vegas draws vacationers and gamblers from around the world, producing billions of dollars in tourism revenue with nearly 40 million visitors a year.
Nevada’s very handicaps-dryness and vast isolated spaces- made it indispensable in the Cold War era nuclear age. Yucca Flat, on the sprawling lands of the south, was a major testing area. The secrecy behind the military’s Area 51 would have been much more difficult to achieve in a more populated state.
FUN FACTS:
- In the early days, mail was delivered to Carson Valley by a Norwegian mailman on homemade skis.
- More than a thousand atomic bomb tests, both above and below ground, have been conducted in Nevada by the U.S. Army. During the 1950s, the mushroom clouds from the 100 atmospheric (above ground) tests could be seen for almost 100 miles.
- Between 1975 and 2000 the population of Las Vegas County grew by almost 250 percent.
- Charles Fey invented a slot machine named the Liberty Bell in 1899.
- The top-secret U.S. Air Force base known as Area 51, whose existence was denied by the United States government for years, and where believers in UFOs claim alien spacecraft are hidden underground, is located some 75 miles northwest of Las Vegas on Groom Lake.
- Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain) started his career writing for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise newspaper in the spring of 1862 for $25 per week. he later described his salary as “bloated luxury” in his book Roughing It.