History

On a quiet day in March 1926, businesses in Las Vegas shuttered their doors. Local schools closed for the day and the federal post office was deserted, for most of the city’s residents were attending the funeral of Helen Jane Wiser Stewart. The homage paid to Stewart by the city she helped create would have surprised the unassuming and frail woman. But the legacy of her strength, character, intelligence, and spirit was evident to all who knew her, and it continues to inspire today.

Another Round of Bad Boys The Wild West saw more than its fair share of criminal capers. BY RON SOODALTER Once again, we step out into the dusty street to face down a handful of early Nevada’s baddest bad guys. For those who have read the first two installments of the Outlaws of Nevada trilogy, […]

In 1910, the penalty for stealing (or kidnapping) a girl in Nevada was five years in prison or a fine of $2,000, while anyone convicted of stealing a horse could be imprisoned for 14 years. At the same time, if a U.S. woman married a foreigner, she lost her citizenship. Another law during the early 1900s, this one concerning community property between a husband and wife, allowed a man to sell or will community property without the consent of his wife. And finally, any wages a woman earned while living with her husband were not deemed her property unless her husband allowed her to use the wages, which were then considered a gift from him.  The rancor felt about the above-noted laws being created without any say from female constituents was growing, and the cry of “taxation without representation” was reborn. While that sentiment was enough to ignite the American Revolution, it sparked little fire with the male citizens of the young nation. It took until 1920 before half of the citizens of the U.S. were granted the right to vote. But the fight began long before. 

The Ong, as it became known, was said to have wings as long as the tallest pine tree, colossal webbed feet, and was covered in both feathers and scales. Legend maintains that the creature also had a human-like face. Though cowardly as the beast may have been at times, the Ong didn’t just drag people away for fun. It consumed them.

For 100 years, streetlights have illuminated Genoa—Nevada’s oldest settlement—thanks to a group of dedicated townsfolk. In 1919, Lillian Virgin Finnegan and her aunt Jane Raycraft Campbell encouraged the 200 or so townspeople to hold a dance in what is now the Genoa Town Hall to raise funds for streetlights. Young ladies passed trays of free homemade candy, and after the dance, a midnight supper was served at the Raycraft Hotel. Today, on the last full weekend of September, Genoans make and sell candy for the two-day Candy Dance Arts and Crafts Faire, which draws between 30,000 and 50,000 visitors to the town, population around 900.

Part 2: More tales of the dastardly desperados that roamed the Silver State. BY RON SOODALTER As described in part one of Nevada’s Outlaws—published in the July/August 2017 issue—Nevada was every bit as wild as such legendary Western Gomorrahs as Deadwood, Tombstone, and Dodge City. The lure of gold and silver and the prospect of […]

Tall tales in journalism were relatively common on The Comstock and surrounding regions during the late 1800s. Because a lull in readership was becoming a worry at the “Daily Appeal,” Sam Davis did as any self-respecting editor would: he conjured up a fictitious newspaper and lied to his readers, and they ate it up. Everyone loves a juicy story, and Davis painted the “Mangler” and its editor as the juiciest.

Melvin Dummar recounts his brush with fortune and loss.   BY SHAUN ASTOR “I grew up in Fallon. There was an airport, where the Churchill County rodeo grounds are at,” Melvin Dummar, now 74 years old, recalls on a warm evening as the sun falls behind the Resting Spring Mountain Range to the west of […]