Nevada became the 36th State on October 31, 1864

 

Trails to the Past of Nevada is accepting any donations of genealogy materials that you may have such as marriage announcements, news articles, old obituaries, births, (you do not need the birth certificate) just the information, and biographies.  If you have any of these items please contact me Marie Miller the Nevada State Administrator.

The 1859 Comstock Lode discovery opened the era of silver mining in Nevada, and attracted thousands of miners-most from California. It was discovered by James Finney in Carson County. Disputes over the legal limits of a claim soon went to court, as the Law of the Apex, used to determine those limits, was unworkable for the deep ore bodies in the Comstock. The legal and judicial system of Carson County was unprepared for the tremendous demands placed on it. Judges were underpaid and underqualified, bribery of witnesses and jurors was commonplace, vague record-keeping created nearly insurmountable difficulties with property titles, and evidence was often destroyed. Though workable mining laws still were needed, the resignation of the entire territorial supreme court in 1864 did cause litigation to stop and allowed mining work to resume.There was a gold rush that created Aurora in (1860). Located on the disputed border with California, at one time Aurora was the county seat of counties in California and Nevada, until the boundary dispute was settled locating Aurora in Nevada.

The 1867 expansion of the state's southern boundary was prompted by the discovery of gold in the area since officials thought Nevada would be better able to oversee the expected gold rush. By 1872, Nevada mining was an industry of speculation and immense wealth. After 1870, however, the mining industry went into eclipse, as the state's Silverite politicians worked to secure laws to require the federal government to purchase silver.
The discovery of silver and gold in 1910 near Tonopah set off a boom that ended Nevada's Economic depression.

In the 1770s, Franciscan missionary Francisco Garcés, born in Morata del Conde, Aragon, Spain in 1738, was the first European in the area.[8] Nevada was annexed as a part of the Spanish Empire in the northwestern territory of New Spain. Administratively, the area of Nevada was part of the Commandancy General of the Provincias Internas in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Nevada became a part of Alta California (Upper California) province in 1804 when the Californias were split. With the Mexican War of Independence won in 1821, the province of Alta California became a territory-not a state-of Mexico, due to the small population. In later years, a desire for increased autonomy led to several attempts by the Alta Californians to gain independence from Mexico.

Jedediah Smith entered the Las Vegas Valley in 1827, and Peter Skene Ogden traveled the Humboldt River in 1828. As a result of the Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico permanently lost Alta California in 1848. The new areas acquired by the United States continued to be administered as territories. As part of the Mexican Cession (1848) and the subsequent California Gold Rush that used Emigrant Trails through the area, the state's area evolved first as part of the Utah Territory, then the Nevada Territory (March 2, 1861; named for the Sierra Nevada)

The early 1860s saw the end of an Indian war, the great Comstock mining boom of 1859 in Virginia City and the coming of the Civil War. The provisional territorial government led to the creation of Nevada Territory by Congress in 1861. The pragmatic attempts to establish workable frontier institutions had failed and the paternalistic territorial system was welcomed.

Although the transcontinental railroad crossed the state in 1869, most town and mines were remote from it and required a network of wagon freight and stagecoaches. Numerous small companies supplied the horses, mules, and wagons for hauling borax and silver ore. Stagecoaches were notoriously uncomfortable across the roadless land, but were better than the alternatives and flourished until a railroad finally arrived. Hold-ups were rare, and usually involved petty theft since armed guards were an effective deterrent. Mail contracts kept stage lines afloat and allowed the emergence of a class of entrepreneurs who won contracts and subcontracted the actual work.

The Eureka and Palisade Railroad was a narrow-gauge railroad ninety miles long built in 1875 to carry silver-lead ore from Eureka, Nevada, to the Southern Pacific Railroad trunk line that ran through Palisade. Nevertheless, despite the determined and colorful management style of John Sexton, the line succumbed to the effects of flood, fire, competing road traffic, and dwindling amounts of ore extracted in Eureka. The rails and rolling stock of the last surviving narrow-gauge railroad in Nevada were removed in 1938.

Donnor Lake Tradgey 1846