Nevada Trivia & Tidbits - Page 16

Looking for Nevada trivia? Try our list Nevada little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Tuscarora, once a booming mining camp in Elko County, got its start in 1867 with John and Steve Beard’s discovery of placer gold (ore recovered from streams or rivers). Soon after, in 1871, W.O. Weed discovered rich silver lodes near the Beard claims. The camp was named by C.M. Bensen, who had served on the Civil War gunboat Tuscarora.

first appeared: 1/20/2002

The town called Hiko—an American Indian word for “white man’s town”—was established as a camp as early as 1865 and served as the first county seat of Lincoln County. In 1866, Col. W.H. Raymond helped lay out the town and soon spent a fortune setting up a mill to process locally mined ore, building roads and buildings, and prospecting. Eventually the mining operation failed. The county seat was moved to Pioche in 1871.

first appeared: 1/13/2002

Western explorer Jedediah Strong Smith is credited as the first European to completely cross the land that would become Nevada. He accomplished the feat in May and June 1827 while seeking a route from central California to Utah’s Great Salt Lake Valley.

first appeared: 1/6/2002

Stokes Castle, a three-story square tower near Austin in Lander County, is made of native granite and was modeled after a medieval tower near Rome that was admired by Anson Stokes, a mine developer and railroad magnate. Stokes had the structure built in 1896 as a summer home for his sons, but the family used it for only a brief period, and it has been unoccupied since.

first appeared: 12/30/2001

Nevada’s state artifact is the Tule Duck, made some 2,000 years ago by early inhabitants of what would become Nevada and discovered by modern man during an excavation at Lovelock Cave near Lovelock in 1924. The ancient duck decoys were made of tule reeds, meaning they came from freshwater marshes, and bulrush stems. When completed, painted, and feathered, they resemble a canvasback duck.

first appeared: 12/23/2001

Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City twice burned to the ground in its heyday. After the second fire, in 1883, owner John Piper had no intention of rebuilding. Townspeople encouraged him to raise the theater again, however, and in 1885 it was completed. Piper’s place still stands today, retaining its original scenery, stage, and proscenium boxes (box seats to the side of the stage).

first appeared: 12/16/2001

The Humboldt River, which flows across northern Nevada past such towns as Winnemucca, Battle Mountain, and Elko, was first known as Mary’s River. But during his trips to the area in the 1840s, explorer John C. Fremont named it Humboldt in honor of German scientist and traveler Baron von Humboldt.

first appeared: 12/9/2001

The Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest strewn across Nevada is the largest national forest outside Alaska. Its 6.3 million acres include areas of desert, snow-capped mountains, alpine meadows, and canyons.

first appeared: 12/2/2001

The elegant Rinckel Mansion, in Carson City, was the home of Mathias Rinckel, a German immigrant and wealthy merchant. Rinckel gained wealth in the California gold fields from 1849 to 1859, before moving to Carson City, where he made money in livestock and as a merchant supplying Eagle Valley mining and timber camps with meat.

first appeared: 11/25/2001

Francis G. Newlands, a former Nevada congressman and senator, authored the federal Reclamation Act of 1902, which prompted federal irrigation projects and made large areas of the West suitable for farming.

first appeared: 11/18/2001

The Wonder Mining District in Churchill County was the site of a short-lived boom in which the Nevada Wonder Mining Company produced approximately $6 million in silver, gold, copper, and zinc. The discovery came in 1906, and the boom was over by 1919.

first appeared: 11/11/2001

The 72-mile Rim of the Lake drive, which follows State Route 28 from the Incline Village-Crystal Bay area before connecting to U.S. Highway 50 at Stateline, has been designated a National Scenic Byway. The drive offers spectacular views of Lake Tahoe and surrounding mountains.

first appeared: 11/4/2001

Golconda, in north-central Nevada, is the site of hot springs that were a landmark on the California Emigrant Trail. The springs flow at approximately 100 gallons per minute at 97 to 150 degrees. During the 1800s, the area enjoyed a brief gold and silver boom and became an ore shipping station in 1868.

first appeared: 10/28/2001

The 1865 Genoa Courthouse Museum building in Genoa (pop. 400), near Lake Tahoe, served as the first courthouse in Nevada until the county seat was moved to Minden in 1916. The building was a school until 1956 but now houses a museum that includes the original jail, along with a courtroom and blacksmith shop.

first appeared: 10/21/2001

The diverse wetlands of Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge east of Fallon (pop. 7,536) attract great flocks of shorebirds and other water birds. Both the American Bird Conservancy and the Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve Network have recognized the refuge as a globally important bird area.

first appeared: 10/14/2001

Pershing County began as part of Humboldt County, but when the Humboldt courthouse burned in 1918, the citizens of Lovelock, 73 miles away, decided that rather than help pay for construction of a new building, they wanted a new county instead. They named it after Gen. John J. “Blackjack” Pershing, a World War I hero, and in 1919 built the only round courthouse in the world.

first appeared: 10/7/2001

Songwriter Bertha Raffetto (1885-1952) was having trouble completing a song titled Home Means Nevada. She put it aside for years, finally revising it when asked to perform at the Nevada Native Daughters picnic in 1932. The piece was so well received that the legislature eventually adopted it as Nevada’s official state song.

first appeared: 9/30/2001

Nevada has 49,702 miles of streets and highways, the vast majority of which—40,519 miles—are considered country roads.

first appeared: 9/23/2001

The Ponderosa Ranch, near Incline Village (pop. 9,952) on the north shore of Lake Tahoe, served as the home of the popular late 1960s and early 1970s television series Bonanza. The ranch now offers hayrides and tours of sets, including the Cartwright house.

first appeared: 9/23/2001

Kershaw-Ryan State Park, near Caliente (pop. 1,123), owes its existence to 1870s homesteaders Samuel and Hannah Kershaw, who cultivated grapevines, trees, and a lush lawn around a spring-fed pond. Decades later, the land was sold to James Ryan, whose family donated it as a public park in 1926. The area became a state park in 1935.

first appeared: 9/16/2001

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