Nevada

Copper was especially hard hit by the economic depression which began in 1929 due to the sudden, sharp falling off of demand together with the large inventories of ore the companies accumu lated in the next two years. Production fell off from 84,47 5,0001b. in 1930 to 28,490,000lb. in 1933. It rose to 41,611,000lb. in and to 76,243,000 in 1935, production being stimulated by the contemporaneous vast rearmament programs of the European powers. The value of copper production rose from $1,823,335 in 1933 to in and $6,328,169 in 1935. By far the larger share of the output in Nevada comes from the Nevada Consolidated mine at Ely.

Other metals commercially developed in the State are quick silver, antimony, manganese, arsenic, and tungsten. The produc tion of non-metals such as gypsum, borax, lime, filter clay, etc., has shown a substantial increase from 1932 to 1935. Opals and turquoises of value are mined, a flawless opal, reported the largest in the world, weighing 2,566 carats and valued at $250,000 being found in Manufactures.—The manufacturing interests of Nevada are unimportant. There were in 1933 but 86 establishments employing 1,417 workers, paying $1,763,000 in wages and manufacturing goods to the value of $9,172,000, an amount less than that of any other State. This represents a decrease of 73% in value of manu factures from the $33,717,000 produced in the peak year of 1929.

Transportation.

Nevada is crossed east and west by three main lines of railway, the Southern Pacific and the Western Pa cific in the northern part of the State and the Los Angeles and Salt Lake (Union Pacific system) in the southern. All three are parts of great transcontinental systems. Branch lines connect the more important mining towns with these lines. Railway mileage in the State reached its peak in 1915 when it amounted to 2,332 miles, by 1934 it had .decreased to 2,130 miles. There were in 2,612 miles of road in the State highway system of which 2,274m. were surfaced, 456 miles of the latter being surfaced during the year. The total disbursement for highways in the year 1934 was $6,018,000. There were 34,858 motor vehicles registered in the State.

History.

The first recorded person of European descent to enter the limits of Nevada was Francisco Garces of the Order of St. Francis, who set out from Sonora in 1775 and passed through

what is now the extreme southern corner of the State on his way to California. Half a century later trappers of the Hudson's Bay Company led by Peter Skene Ogden entered Nevada from the north and discovered the Humboldt river. In 1827 Jedediah S.

Smith, an American trader from St. Louis, crossed the State from west to east on his return from California after the first recorded journey from the Mississippi to the Pacific by the central route.

In 1833 Capt. Bonneville's men were on the Humboldt, and during 1843-45 John C. Fremont made a series of explorations in the region. The first recorded emigrant train to California crossed the State in 1841. By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, negotiated in 1848 at the close of the war with Mexico, Nevada became U.S. territory. It was then a part of California known as the Washoe Country, and so remained until 1850, when most of the present State was included in the newly organized Territory of Utah. One of the first settlements was made in 1849 by Mormons at Genoa in the valley of the Carson river. Here in 1851 the earliest recorded public meeting in the State was held to frame a government for the settlers since the seat of the Territorial Government of Utah was considered too remote to afford protection to life and property. But the Utah authorities intervened and in 1854 the Utah legislature created the county of Carson to include all set tlements in western Utah. In 1858 Carson City was laid out, and in the following year the people of Carson county chose delegates to a Constitutional Convention which met at Genoa and drafted a Constitution. It was adopted by vote of the people, but this at tempt to create a new State Government proved abortive, and it was not until the mineral wealth of the Washoe Country became generally known that Congress took action. In 1861 the Territory of Utah was divided at 39° W. (of Washington) and the western portion was called Nevada. The Comstock Lode, one of the rich est deposits of precious metal known in the world, was discovered in 1859, and Nevada ceased to be merely a highway for gold seekers on the way to California and became a stopping-place. Virginia City became the most famous of all the mining camps of the Far West.