Timeline Nevada
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Facts & Links: http://www.50states.com/nevada.htm
Nevada means "snow-capped" in Spanish. The Mountain Bluebird (Sialia Artica, also commonly known as the "Arctic Blue-bird") is the official state bird and the Sagebrush is the official flower. The state motto is "All for our country," and the state slogan is "Battle Born." Its size is 110,561 square miles.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E3)(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.1B)
Before whites arrived the Indians around Pyramid lake called the lake Cyui-ui Pah and called themselves Kuiyuidokado (eaters of the Cui-ui fish).
(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A20)
The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) owned about 85% of Nevada.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.37)
230Mil BC The Panthalassa Ocean covered much of what later became the western United States. Sediments later called the Luning Formation were deposited in what later became the mountain ranges of central Nevada. Fossil ichthyosaurs included Shonisaurus popularis.
(NH, 6/01, p.22)(www.shgresources.com/nv/symbols/fossil/)
225Mil BC Icthyosaur fossils first found in 1928 by Prof. Seimon W. Muller of Stanford 150 miles SE of Reno, dated to this time. An inland sea linked to the Pacific and submerged California and Nevada during the Triassic.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.T10)(www.factmonster.com/ce6/sci/A0849392.html)
145Mil BC The seas over Nevada receded.
(SFC, 12/2/06, p.A6)
112Mil BC-99Mil BC Most of Nevada was a flood plain and supported dinosaurs including the raptor dromaesaur, sauropods, tyrannosauroids and iguanodonts.
(SFC, 12/2/06, p.A6)
50Mil BC The collision of the North American and Pacific Farallon plate, began lifting the Sierra Nevada about this time. The Clear Lake basin of California rose above sea level. The rise of the Sierra Nevada continued for another 20 million years.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.C8)(SSFC, 1/16/11, p.C2)
23-5 Million BP Mastadons, mammoths and rhinos roved Nevada during the Miocene.
(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.C5)
15590 BC Saber tooth cats roamed the hills north of Las Vegas about this time. Fossils of the front legs of such a cat were identified in 2012.
(SFC, 12/17/12, p.A5)
c10,000BCE Petroglyphs dating to this time were later discovered in the Big Smokey Valley of Nevada, where Lake Tolyabe and Lake Tonopah provided for human habitation.
(USDI, 2004)
8000 BC In Nevada about this time the Lathrop Wells Cone erupted. It is less than a mile from Yucca Mountain, a site later proposed for the long-term storage of radioactive waste.
(Smith., 5/95, p.44)
c0AD The last small lake disappeared from the Death Valley basin about this time. At least 4 lakes covered the valley floor in Earth's history.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, p.T5)
1843-1844 John C. Fremont discovered that Nevada lies within the Great Basin, where all waters run inward without outlet to an ocean.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, BR p.10)
1844 John Fremont discovered Pyramid Lake in Nevada. For a number of reasons the lake’s native trout went extinct in the 1940s. Federal officials in 2006 began restocking the lake with the native Lahontan cutthroat found near Pilot Peak and the trout fluorished.
(SFC, 5/1/13, p.E8)
1845 John C. Fremont led his 3rd surveying expedition through the central Great Basin of Nevada. He was accompanied by Thomas E. Breckenridge, a Missouri fur trapper.
(BLM, 2001)(ON, 12/06, p.5)
1846 Oct 31, Heavy snows trapped the Donner party in the eastern Sierras near what is now Truckee.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.C1)(www.utahcrossroads.org/DonnerParty/Chronology.htm)
1846 Dec 16, In desperation 10 men and 5 women of the Donner Party left on snowshoes to cross the Sierra Nevada. The 5 women and 2 men survived. All but one of the dead were eaten. Of the 89 members in the whole group 42 died.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.C1)
1846 The Applegate Trail across northwest Nevada and northeast California was blazed as a southern approach to Oregon's Willamette Valley.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, p.T7)
1849 The first white settlement was by Mormons at Genoa near Carson City, then called Mormon Station.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.1B)
1849 Peter Lassen pioneered a new route to California that bypassed the 40 Mile Desert in Nevada. The trail led from Nevada to Oregon and was combined with another trail that led past his ranch and trading post near Chico. The trail however led across more desert and came to be called "The Death Route."
(SFC, 8/22/98, p.A13)(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A1,9)
c1850 Peter Lassen pioneered a new route to California that bypassed the 40 Mile Desert in Nevada.
(SFC, 8/22/98, p.A13)
1851 A Mormon trading post in Carson Valley, later called Genoa, became the 1st permanent white settlement of Nevada.
(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)(SSFC, 6/22/14, p.N22)
1853 Kit Carson herded some 7,000 sheep through Eagle Valley, where Carson City was later founded.
(SFEC, 7/25/99, p.T7)
1856 Jan 3, John Thompson (1827-1876), Norway-born immigrant, departed Placerville, Ca., with skies and snow shoes on his first mail run to Carson City, Nevada. By the spring of 1857 he made 31 crossings of the Sierra to deliver mail.
(ON, 4/10, p.7)
1859 May 26, Captain James Simpson and his party, looking for the shortest route across Nevada, crossed the Hickison Summit into Big Smoky Valley. Their path was later followed by the Pony Express (1860) and the Overland Mail and Stage (1861).
(BLM, 2001)
1859 Jun 11, The Comstock silver load was discovered near Virginia City, Nevada. Prospector James Finney stumbled across thick, bluish clay in western Nevada. A fellow minor, Henry Comstock, gave his name to the lode, the most lucrative silver ore mine in history. Ott’s Assay Office in Nevada City, Ca., first assayed samples of the rich Comstock Lode of Nevada. Four Irishmen known as the Bonanza Kings bought up shares in the Comstock mines and became rich. They were John Mackay (1831-1902), James Fair, James Flood, and William O’Brian. Ore from the Comstock lode was hauled by horse-drawn wagon over Donner Pass to SF. In 2018 Gregory Crouch authored "The Bonanza King: John Mackay and the Battle Over the Greatest Riches in the American West."
(SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T6)(SFC, 4/14/96, T-3)(SFC, 5/19/96, City Guide, p.17)(RFH-MDHP, 1969, p.107)(SC, 6/11/02)(SFC, 6/26/18, p.E1)
1859 Colonel Frederick W. Lander led an expedition to the West to survey a railroad route across Nevada to California. Artist Alfred Bierstadt accompanied the expedition.
(www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/sherman2.html)
1859-1860 The International Hotel was built in Virginia City. In 1863 it was taken down to make room for a larger version. The original was moved to Austin, Nevada.
(ACC, 2004)
1860 Aug 11, The first US successful silver mill began operation near Virginia City, Nev.
(AP, 8/11/97)
1860 John Wagner established Nevada's longest-operating brewery in Carson City during the rush to Virginia City. The Carson Brewing Co. built a new two-story brewery in 1865 in the commercial form of Classical Revival, on the corner of Division and King streets, where it was later turned into an arts and performance center.
(www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/nevada/bre.htm)(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)
1861 Mar 2, The Territory of Nevada was created by an act of Congress. The first elected governor of the state was Henry G. Blasdel
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.1B)(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)
1861 Orion Clemens was appointed Secretary of the Territory of Nevada. He took along his young brother, Sam Clemens (Mark Twain).
(SFEC, 9/17/00, Z1 p.2)
1862 Jan, In California an extensive flood caused when warm rain melted a heavy snowpack. Marysville, Yuba City, Colusa and Stockton were all flooded along with all the other towns of the state's Central Valley. One-quarter of California's estimated 800,000 cattle were killed by the flood, accelerating the end of the cattle-based ranchero society. The Great Flood of 1862 was the largest flood in the recorded history of Oregon, Nevada, and California, occurring from December 1861 to January 1862.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862)(SFC, 5/27/98, p.A13)(SFC, 4/24/18, p.A1)
1862 Mar 2, Gen’l. Frederick W. Lander (b.1821), transcontinental engineer and Union General, died of “congestion of the brain" at Paw Paw, Virginia. He was the chief engineer of the Central Overland route. In 2000 Gary L. Ecalbarger authored “Frederick W. Lander: The Great Natural American Soldier."
(www.picturehistory.com/find/p/16832/mcms.html)(ACC, 2004)
1862 Dec 19, Lander County, Nevada, was formed and took in the eastern third of the state with the 1st county seat at Jacobsville. It was later broken up into Lander, Eureka, White Pine and Elko.
(ACC, 2004)
1862 Austin, Nevada, was born when a horse kicked loose a rock revealing rich silver ore.
(ACC, 2004)
1862 David Walley of New York discovered natural hot springs about 90 miles south of Carson City.
(SSFC, 12/18/05, p.F4)
1863 Feb 3, Samuel Clemens became Mark Twain for 1st time. In Nevada the Territorial Enterprise in Comstock printed some humorous letters from a reader named “Josh." The editor hired the man, who was Samuel Clemens, for $25 a week. Clemens accepted and changed his pen name to Mark Twain. Sam had dropped the penname "Josh" and first signed himself "Mark Twain" in a letter written on January 31, 1863. The Territorial Enterprise published the letter in its Tuesday, February 3, 1863 issue.
(http://www.twainquotes.com/18630203t.html) (SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)
1863 Mar 3, Congress authorized a US mint at Carson City, NV, and Gold certificates as currency.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1863 May 16, The Reese River Reveille, Nevada’s oldest newspaper, began publishing and continued until June, 1993.
(ACC, 2004)
1863 The Sears-Ferris House was built in Carson City, Nev. It was the boyhood home of Gale Ferris (1859-1896), the inventor of the Ferris Wheel.
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)
1863 Austin, Nevada, got itself declared the official Lander County seat.
(ACC, 2004)
1863 In Virginia City, Nevada, a 3-story brick mansion was built as the office and residence for the owners of the Chollor-Potosi mining company.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T6)
1863 The Kingston silver mine was discovered in central Nevada.
(ACC, 2004)
1863 In Nevada the Livingston Exchange, a saloon, opened in Genoa. It later became known as the Genoa Bar and Saloon.
(SSFC, 6/22/14, p.N22)
1864 Oct 31, Nevada became the 36th state under a proclamation signed by Pres. Lincoln.
(AP, 10/31/97)(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.1B)(HN, 10/31/98)
1864 The Clemens House was built in Carson City, Nev., by Orion Clemens, brother of author Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. Orion served as the first and only Territorial Secretary (1861-1864), and at times, acting governor of the Nevada Territory.
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)(www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/nevada/ori.htm)
1864 William Sharon (44) was sent from SF to Virginia City as manager of the Nevada branch of the Bank of California.
(Ind, 7/1/00, p.5A)
1864 Ruel C. Gridley (d.1870), owner of the Gridley Store in Austin, Nevada, lost an election bet and had to carry a 50 lb. sack of flour the length of Austin to the tune of “John Brown’s Body." The sack was auctioned and the proceeds went to the Sanitary Fund, a forerunner to the Red Cross, to help relieve suffering created by the Civil War. The sack was resold many times and soon other towns called for a similar auction. The last auction was at the St. Louis World’s Fair.
(ACC, 2004)
1865 William Brown opened the Boston Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada, for black patrons. It burned down in an 1876 fire.
(AM, 11/00, p.23)
1865 In Nevada the town of St. Thomas was settled as an agricultural center and way station on the Arrowhead Trail between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. In 1936 the town was submerged under Lake Mead following the completion of the Hoover Dam.
(SSFC, 5/6/18, p.F7)
1868 Jan 15, The Masonic-Odd Fellows Hall in Austin, Nevada, formally opened with a ball.
(ACC, 2004)
1868 The Central Pacific Railroad came through Reno. The town had been founded on the banks of the Truckee River by Myron Lake and was named after a Civil War general. Lake's land was bought up by Charles Crocker, who had surveyors lay out streets and a town for which he sold lots. The Crocker land eventually came under the control of the Pacific Improvement Co., controlled by Crocker, Huntington, Hopkins and Stanford.
(SFC, 2/16/00, p.A12)
1868 The Virginia and Truckee railroad line was built to serve Virginia City, Nv., site of the richest silver strike in history. Ted Wurm (d.2004) later co-authored with Harre W. Demoro "Silver Short Line," a history of the line.
(SSFC, 2/29/04, p.A25)
1868 St. Peter’s Episcopal Church was built in Carson City, Nev.
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)
1869 The courthouse in Austin, Nevada, was built.
(ACC, 2004)
1869 Gambling in Nevada was legalized.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)
1869 The first assay report from Berlin Canyon was filed.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.T10)
1869 A fire at Yellow Jacket Mine near Virginia City killed 45 people.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T7)
1870 Nov 4, Reuel Gridley, supporter of the Civil War Sanitary Commission, died in poverty. He had been a co-partner of the Gridley, Robert and Jacob Store in Austin, Nevada.
(AHS, brochure)
1870 Palisade, Nevada, was established and became a railroad transfer point for ore from nearby mines.
(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A2)
1870 A US Mint began operations in Carson City, Nev., and continued to 1893, after which it was turned into the Nevada State Museum.
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)
1870s George Hearst (d.1891) built the Charcoal Kilns in Death Valley.
(CHA, 1/2001)
c
1871 Sep 9, A cornerstone was laid for the Lander County Courthouse in Austin, Nevada.
(ACC, 2004)
1871 The silver-domed state capital in Carson City was completed. It was completely rebuilt between 1977-1981.
(SFEC, 7/25/99, p.T7)
1871 In Reno, Nevada, Jacob W. Davis (born as Jacob Youphes), a Jewish tailor from Latvia, custom made a pair of work pants using rivets to reinforce the pockets.
(ON, 4/05, p.11)
1872 Jul 2, Jacob W. Davis of Reno, Nevada, sent Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco a sample of his work pants and a business proposal for Strauss to apply for a patent in exchange for a half share in the patent. Davis soon sold his half share to Strauss and moved to San Francisco to supervise the manufacture of the work pants.
(ON, 4/05, p.11)
1872 Mark Twain wrote "Roughing It." It chronicles the night he and 2 friends spent in a blizzard only 15 steps from the Desert Wells Trading Station in Nevada.
(SFEM, 9/15/96, p.24)(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.19)
1872 In Nevada Francis Marion "Borax" Smith (d.1931) found borax in Peel’s Marsh. In 1890 he developed the Pacific Coast Borax Company to transport the borax on a 1-day, 169-mile trip from Death Valley to a railhead at Mohave with the famed 20-mule team. He later consolidated the SF Bay Area trolley lines into the Key System.
(SFC, 11/6/98, p.D5)(SSFC, 10/20/02, p.A19)
1873 The "Big Bonanza," a huge silver deposit, was found by miners working for the Comstock Kings in Virginia City. The 1999 book "The Roar and the Silence" by Ronald James described the silver boom in Virginia City.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, Z1 p.4)
1874 Trinity Church in Nevada City was established.
(SFC, 7/15/98, p.A20)
1874 The Nevada state legislature overrode the Governor’s veto and approved a railroad from Austin to Battle Mountain. Construction only began 4 ½ years later.
(ACC, 2004)
1875 William Sharon of SF was elected to a 6-year term as Senator. It is believed that he spent some $1 million to get elected.
(Ind, 7/1/00,5A)
1876 The Fourth Ward School in Virginia City, a gem of Second Empire architecture, was built on C Street.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, Z1 p.4)
1878 A tunnel to drain and ventilate the silver mines at the Comstock Lode was completed by Adolph Sutro.
(G, Winter 98/99, p.1)
1879 The Bliss Mansion was built in Carson City for Duane Bliss, a lumber magnate. He supplied lumber to the Comstock mines.
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)
1879 Adolph Sutro returned to SF after becoming a millionaire from building a tunnel at the silver mines of the Nevada Comstock Lode.
(G, Winter 98/99, p.1)
1879 In Nevada the "Great Fire of Reno" claimed six lives.
(AP, 11/5/06)
1880 Feb 9, Austin, Nevada, extended its city limits in order to obtain a railroad subsidy that required the completion of a road by midnight.
(ACC, 2004)
1880 Jacob Bressman left Pennsylvania with his family and homesteaded in the what later became Ruby Lake National Wildlife Refuge.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.C5)
1885 Dec, A Nevada Circuit court reversed the 1884 SF ruling against William Sharon and ruled that the marriage certificate and letters of Sarah Althea Hill were forgeries. Hill later married one of her attorneys, David Terry.
(Ind, 7/1/00,5A)
1885 Piper's Opera House in Virginia City was rebuilt a third time. It had been founded by John Piper.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, Z1 p.4)
1885 Emma Nevada (d.1940), opera singer born in Austin, Nevada, as Emma Wixom, returned to America and her home town for a triumphal tour.
(ACC, 2004)
1887 Ely, Nevada, was incorporated.
(SFC, 8/21/02, p.A12)
1887 Charles Lux died. His firm, Miller and Lux, by this time owned some 700,000 head of cattle in Arizona, Nevada and Oregon. Over 700 miles of private telegraph lines connected their ranches.
(SSF, 1976, p.2)
c1890s In the late 1800s soldiers found garnets in the mountains of eastern Nevada and named the area the Ruby Mountains.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.C4)
1894 A fireball was seen streaking across the skies of southern Nevada. 14 years alter a prospector found a 1.45 kg meteorite that was named the Quinn Canyon meteorite.
(www.viamagazine.com/top_stories/articles/treasures_rock_jan10.asp)
1895 The Berlin Mine was established.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.T10)
1897 Anson Phelps Stokes, an eccentric business man in the Reese River Valley, built his 3-story Stokes Castle in Austin, Nevada. He built the 92-mile Nevada Central Railroad from Battle Mountain to Austin.
(SFCM, 3/28/04, p.43)(ACC, 2004)(SSFC, 6/22/14, p.N13)
1900 Robert LeRoy Parker and Harry Alonzo Longabaugh (aka Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and their Wild Bunch went to Fort Worth after their last holdup of the First National Bank at Winnemucca, Nevada. They posed for pictures at John Swartz’s photo studio.
(HT, 4/97, p.45)(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)
1900 Major silver and gold deposits were found at Tonopah.
(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)
1902 Aug 23, Gold was discovered in Goldfield, Nv., near Tonopah. By 1907 Goldfield grew to 20,000 residents.
(SFC, 8/31/02, p.A2)
1902 The US Newlands Act established the Bureau of Reclamation and began to enact some of the ideas of John Wesley Powell concerning control of water resources in 17 western states. Results included the Newlands Irrigation Project in Nevada’s Fallon area that diverted water from the Carson and Truckee Rivers to new farmland.
(HFA, ‘96, p.128)(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A20)
1903 Major silver and gold deposits were found at Goldfield.
(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)
1904 California’s Wells Fargo merged with the Nevada Bank, owned by Isaias Hellman, making it one of the West’s largest financial institutions.
(SSFC, 11/30/08, Books p.3)
1905 Las Vegas, a Mormon outpost, railroad burg and silver mining camp, rose to township status.
(SFEM, 4/30/00, p.19)(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.T8)
1905 In Nevada the Virginia Street Bridge was built over the Truckee River in Reno. In 2014 it was set for demolition and reconstruction as part of the Truckee River flood project.
(SFC, 5/28/14, p.E2)
1906 Jan 13, The Golden Gate Hotel opened on Fremont Street in Las Vegas, Nev..
(SSFC, 11/13/05, p.F4)
1906 Sep 3, Joe Gans (1874-1910), born as Joseph Gant, defended his lightweight boxing title against Battling Nelson in Goldfield, Nevada. He was the first African-American World Boxing Champion, reigning continuously as World Lightweight Champion from 1902 to 1908. In 2012 William Gildea authored “The Longest Fight: In the Ring with Joe Gans, Boxing’s First African-American Champion."
(Econ, 7/14/12, p.75)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Gans)
1906 The Hotel Nevada opened in Las Vegas shortly after the rail lines from Los Angeles and Salt Lake City met nearby.
(WSJ, 5/29/98, p.B1)
1908 The Goldfield Hotel was completed in Goldfield, Nevada, to accommodate a gold-mining frenzy. In 2004 the hamlet had shrunk to 356 people from 25,000 at its peak.
(WSJ, 12/7/04, p.A1)
1909 The governor's mansion in Carson City, built in Southern Colonial style, was completed.
(SFEC, 7/25/99, p.T7)
1910 Jul 4, African-American Jack Johnson knocked out Jim Jeffries in the 15th round of a heavyweight boxing match in Reno, Nevada. As Johnson entered the ring a band played “All Coons Look Alike to Me." Johnson’s victory prompted race riots in major cities across the United States leaving as many as 26 people dead. Jack London covered the match and coined the phrase "The great white hope" in his story.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.B10)(Econ, 6/21/08, p.104)(ON, 4/09, p.7)
1910 Oct 1, At midnight a strict anti-gambling law became effective in Nevada. It even forbid the western custom of flipping a coin for the price of a drink. Illegal but accepted gambling flourished until 1931 when the Nevada Legislature approved a legalized gambling bill authored by Phil Tobin, a Northern Nevada rancher.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)(http://www.lvol.com/lvoleg/hist/lvhist.html)
1911 Nevada, in an effort to raise revenue, began offering divorces in 6 weeks, the quickest in the US.
(Econ, 7/10/10, SR p.11)
1911-1931 The Nevada state ban on gambling went largely ignored.
(SSFC, 5/8/05, p.F4)
1912 Mar 16, Thelma Catherine Patricia Ryan Nixon, first lady (1968-75) to Richard Nixon, was born in Ely, Nevada.
(HN, 3/16/01)(MC, 3/16/02)
1913 In Goodsprings, Nevada, the Pioneer Saloon opened. In 2006 Noel Scheckells, a Las Vegas entrepreneur, purchased it. In 2007 Nevada added the saloon to its Register of Historic Places.
(SFC, 4/26/08, p.A6)
1914 The Krebs-Peterson House was built in Carson City, Nev. It was featured in actor John Wayne's last movie, “The Shootist" (1976).
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)
1916 Drillers on the 30,000 acre Fly Ranch in the Hualapai Flat struck geothermal water and gave birth to the Fly Geyser. It transformed the area into a desert wetland.
(NH, 7/98, p.83)
1919 Jul 4, In Mountain City the grand old Overland Hotel was torn down.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, BR p.8)
1920 Pat McCarran represented Mary Pickford in a divorce that freed her to marry Douglas Fairbanks.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.12)
1922 The Mizpah Hotel was built in Reno, Nev. In 1984 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
(AP, 11/5/06)
1922 The Colorado River Compact allocated 7.5 million acre-feet of water from the upper basin states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico) to be delivered to the lower basin sates (California, Arizona and Nevada) plus the rights to divert another 1 million acre-feet from the river’s lower tributaries.
(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.A10)(SFCM, 7/17/05, p.6)
1923 Mar 5, Montana and Nevada passed the U.S.'s first old age pension grants, giving $25 per month.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1924 Feb 8, The gas chamber was used for the first time to execute a murderer. Major D.A. Turner of the US Medical Corps used hydrocyanic gas on an alleged Chinese Tong member named Gee Jon at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City, Nev.
(HN, 2/8/98)(SFC, 6/27/98, p.E4)(AP, 2/8/99)
1924 Four school boys discovered Hidden Cave near Fallon, Nevada.
(SFCM, 3/28/04, p.41)
1925 Dat So La Lee, famous Carson City Washoe weaver, died at age 90.
(SSFC, 2/4/01, p.T5)
1927 The Pacific Borax Co. opened the Furnace Creek Inn as a luxury resort in Death Valley.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, p.T5)
1927 Las Vegas instituted the 90-day divorce to attract more visitors. The residential requirement was later reduced by half.
(WSJ, 3/23/00, p.W12)
1928 Ichthyosaurs fossils were first found by Prof. Seimon W. Muller of Stanford near Berlin, 150 miles SE of Reno.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.T10)
1929 Lora Knight, eccentric heiress, built a teahouse on Lake Tahoe’s Fanette Island. Her 1929 home was named Vikingsholm and later became a part of Emerald Bay State Park.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.C8)
1929 Neon lights first came to Las Vegas.
(SSFC, 11/17/02, p.C12)
1930 Jul 7, Construction began on Boulder Dam on the Colorado River. It is now known as Hoover Dam.
(AP, 7/7/97)
1931 Mar 19, Nevada legalized gambling a 2nd time to raise tax revenues and stabilize the state’s economy. Gov. Fred B. Balzar signed a measure legalizing casino gambling. The Northern Club on 15 E. Fremont was soon issued the 1st gaming license.
(HN, 3/19/98)(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)(AP, 3/19/07)
1931 The Vatican assigned the first Catholic bishop in Nevada to Reno.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A23)
1932 Nov 8, Patrick McCarran of Nevada won a US Senate seat.
(SSFC, 10/3/04, p.M3)
1933 Feb 11, Pres. Hoover declared Death Valley a national monument.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, p.T5)
1933 Mar 10, Nevada became the first U.S. state to regulate narcotics.
(HN, 3/10/98)(MC, 3/10/02)
1933 Sep 1, Groundbreaking ceremonies were held for the boulder Dam Hotel. The Colonial style hotel opened Dec 15.
(SSFC, 5/30/04, p.D5)
1936 Sep 11, President Roosevelt dedicated Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) by pressing a key in Washington to signal the startup of the dam's first hydroelectric generator in Nevada.
(AP, 9/11/97)
1936 Oct 26, At Boulder Dam the first of the five power units to be installed under the initial plan went into operation.
(www.usbr.gov/history/hoover.htm)
1937 Mar 26, The state slogan: "Battle Born," was adopted.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.1B)
1937-1955 Gov. Pat McCarran entered legislation at every session on behalf of Italian American squatters on reservation lands of the Pyramid Paiutes.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.12)
1939 George Whittel Jr. (1881-1969), heir to a SF family wealthy from the gold rush, completed his Thunderbird Lodge at Lake Tahoe. He had acquired some 30,000 acres along the Nevada shore since 1936. It was begun in 1937 and designed Nevada architect Frederick De Longchamps. He deeded most of the land to the US Forest Service.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.C8)(SFC, 7/21/07, p.F1)(www.thunderbirdlodge.org/theman.html)
1941 The El Rancho Vegas opened with 63 rooms. It was the first major resort built on the Las Vegas strip. It was destroyed by fire in 1960.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)
1942 Jan 16, Actress Carole Lombard and her mother were among some 20 people killed when their plane crashed near Las Vegas while returning from a tour to promote war bonds.
(AP, 1/16/00)
1942 Dec 21, The US Supreme Court ruled all states had to recognize divorces granted in Nevada.
(AP, 12/21/05)
1944 In Nevada piano prodigy Walter Liberace (25) performed at the Last Frontier in Las Vegas, starting a relationship with the city that lasted until his death in 1987.
(SSFC, 3/12/17, p.F4)
1944 Singer-comedian Sophie Tucker played the last Frontier, the first legitimate star to feature in fledgling Las Vegas.
(SSFC, 3/12/17, p.F4)
1945 Bill Miller (d.2002 at 98) bought the Las Vegas hotel Riviera. It closed in 1953 to make way for the Palisades Parkway.
(SFC, 12/17/02, p.A23)
1945 Sophie Tucker agreed to entertain at the El Rancho for $15,000 a week.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.T6)
1946 Dec 26, The Flamingo casino opened. Billy Wilkerson designed the Flamingo and sold a controlling interest to Bugsy Siegel when his money ran out. It was the 3rd hotel casino built on the Las Vegas strip.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.T8)
1946 The Nevada Club (d.1997) in downtown Reno opened. It used slot machines made by the Jennings company of Chicago.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.D3)
1947 Dec, In Reno the Mapes Hotel, a 12-story art deco building, was constructed for use as a hotel, casino, restaurant and entertainment facility under one roof. It became vacant in 1982 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Implosion was scheduled for Jan 30, 2000.
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.C4)(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A11)
1947 In Nevada singer-actress Lena Horne opened at the Flamingo. She and other African American performers would not be allowed to dine or stay at hotels in las Vegas until 1955.
(SSFC, 3/12/17, p.F4)
1947 The Las Vegas Vic was unveiled. It was replaced by a newer version in 1951 and its sidekick, Vegas Vicky (aka Sassy Sally), was built in 1980.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)
1947 Kirk Kerkorian (1917-2015), Fresno-born former RAF pilot, bought a tiny charter line and renamed it Trans Int’l. Airlines. Nearly two decades later he took the TIA public and used cash from the stock to build the Int’l. Hotel (later renamed the Westgate Las Vegas). In the 1970s he opened the first MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
(SFC, 6/17/15, p.D5)
1948 Bill Harrah married Scherry Teague (d.2000).
(SFC, 9/21/00, p.C6)
1948 The Pine Lodge was established in Lamoille at the foot of the Ruby Mountains.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.C5)
1949 A.J. Liebling, New York reported, arrived in Nevada for Reno divorce, which required a 6-week residency. He began a series of articles for the New Yorker on the Pyramid Paiutes and their struggle with Italian American squatters over water rights. In 1999 the collected stories were edited by Elmer Rusco and published under the title "A Reporter At Large: Dateline: Pyramid Lake, Nevada."
(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.12)
1950 Sep 23, Congress adopted the Internal Security Act, which provided for registration of communists. The Act was ruled later unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. US Sen. Pat McCarran (Nevada) legislated the Internal Security Act, which included a jumble of restrictions on speech and association. Pres. Truman attempted an unsuccessful veto of the McCarran Act, which gave the government unprecedented powers.
(WSJ, 3/18/99, p.W17)(MC, 9/23/01)(WSJ, 10/13/04, p.D18)
1950 The Desert Inn opened in Las Vegas, Nv., with 300 rooms and a 3rd floor Sky Lounge.
(WSJ, 5/17/05, p.D10)
1950s Howard Hughes bought 25,000 acres around Las Vegas.
(WSJ, 1/16/98, p.A1)
1950s Las Vegas casinos began to require work cards for workers.
(SFC, 1/16/01, p.C3)
1951 Jan 27, Atomic testing began in the Nevada desert as an Air Force B-50D from a base in New Mexico dropped a one-kiloton nuclear bomb on Frenchman Flats, Clark County, 65 miles NW of Las Vegas. Over the next 40 years 928 nuclear devices were exploded at the site.
(AP, 1/27/98)(WSJ, 4/12/05, p.D8)(www.ntshf.org)
1951 Feb 1, The third A-bomb test was completed in the desert of Nevada.
(HN, 2/1/99)
1951 Jun 1, The first self-contained titanium plant opened in Henderson Nevada.
(DT internet 6/1/97)
1951 Oct 24, Dr. Albert W. Bellamy, chief of Radiological Services for the California State Civil Defense, held a press conference to assure state residents that there would be no ill effects from the atomic test explosions near Las Vegas.
(SFC, 10/19/01, WB p.6)
1951 Nov 1, The 1st atomic explosion, witnessed by troops, was at Yucca Flat, Nevada. Members of the 1st Battalion, 188th Airborne Infantry Regiment from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, were the first unwitting test participants to be sent to that facility by the Atomic Energy Commission and The Department of Defense in a series of nuclear tests, code named "Buster-Jangle."
(www.angelfire.com/tx/atomicveteran/exposed.html)
1951 Benny Binion, a former bootlegger and numbers runner from Dallas, went to Las Vegas and bought the El Dorado casino and hotel. He renamed it The Horseshoe and promised to take any bet, no matter how high. In 1953 he was put into prison for income tax evasion and served 3 years and 3 months.
(WSJ, 8/24/98, p.A5)
1951-1962 The US conducted 100 nuclear atmospheric tests at the Nevada Test Site over this period.
(AH, 6/02, p.72)
1951-1992 Some 928 bombs were exploded over this period at the Nevada Test Site. In 1999 the area began to be used as a training ground against terrorism.
(SFC, 10/22/01, p.A1)
1952 Apr 22, An atomic test conducted at Yucca Flat, Nevada, became the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television.
(AP, 4/22/99)(SFC, 4/19/02, p.G3)
1952 May 1, Marines took part in an atomic explosion training in Nevada.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1953 May 25, The first atomic cannon was fired, in Nevada.
(HN, 5/25/98)
1953 May 25, The first atomic cannon was fired at Frenchman Flat, Nevada.
(HN, 5/25/98)(SC, 5/25/02)
1953 Jun 4, An atomic bomb test explosion took place at Yucca Flats, Nevada, equivalent to 50,000 tons of TNT. This was double the 1945 blast over Hiroshima.
(SFC, 5/30/03, p.E7)
1953 The Davis Dam was completed.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, p.T6)
1953 The Algiers Lounge in Las Vegas first opened.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.T6)
1954 Aug 23, A rolling earthquake measuring 6.5 hit northern California and Nevada.
(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.F4)
1954 Sep 28, Patrick McCarran (b.1876), Nevada US Senator since 1932, died in Hawthorne, Nevada. In 2004 Michael J. Ybarra authored “Washington Gone Crazy: Senator Pat McCarran and the Great American Communist Hunt."
(www.aoc.gov/cc/art/nsh/mccarran.htm)
1954 A.J. Liebling, New York reporter, returned to Pyramid Lake and wrote some stories on mustang buzzing, the practice of chasing wild mustangs with small planes into corrals to sell them for pet food.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.12)
1954 The Congo Room of the Sahara Casino gave birth to the lounge show concept. Ragnar Qvale (d.2001), actor turned architect, designed the original Sahara Hotel.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.T7)(SFC, 10/2/01, p.A15)
1954 The 1st major neon sign in Las Vegas was the Young Electric sign Co.’s project for the Boulder Club.
(SSFC, 11/17/02, p.C12)
1955 Mar 6, A US Atomic Energy Spokesman said a cloud from the atomic blast at Nevada’s Yucca Flat passed over the Central California coastline.
(SFC, 3/4/05, p.F3)
1955 Apr, The Riviera Casino opened.
(SSFM, 4/29/01, p.31)
1955 May 5, The US detonated a 29-kiloton nuclear device in Nevada. "Apple 2" was the 2nd of 40 tests of Operation Cue, meant to study the effects of a nuclear explosion on a typical American community.
(AH, 6/02, p.72)
1955 May, The Moulin Rouge opened at a cost of about $2 million under a group of investors led by NY restaurateur Harry Ruben. It was highly successful with an all-black staff except for the card dealers. It closed down after 6 months due to possible skimming and/or pressure from other casinos who lost customers due to the Moulin’s successful late night entertainment. In 1992 it was granted a listing on the National Registry of Historic Places.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.31)
1955 Jun, The Dunes Casino opened.
(SSFM, 4/29/01, p.31)
1955 Noel Coward, British playwright, actor and composer, accepted a $35,000 per week offer to do a cabaret act at the Las Vegas Desert Inn.
(SFC, 12/1/99, p.E1)
1955 The Hotel Nevada in Las Vegas was purchased by 5 investors from SF and renamed the Golden Gate Hotel with a street level casino.
(WSJ, 5/29/98, p.B1)
1955 Union Canyon was designated as the Ichthyosaur Paleontological State Monument and in 1970 became the Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park.
(NH, 6/01, p.24)
1957 Jun 24, A 37-kiloton nuclear fission bomb, code-named Priscilla, was exploded in the Nevada desert at Frenchman Flat. The security of a bank vault was tested in the experiment. At this time the US was manufacturing 10 nuclear bombs a day.
(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.E1)
1957 Sep 19, The United States conducted its first underground nuclear test, code-named "Rainier," in the Nevada desert.
(AP, 9/19/07)
1957 The Dunes casino introduced topless showgirls.
(WSJ, 7/6/01, p.A4)
1957 The Tropicana casino was opened by the Chicago mob.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.T6)
1957 The Berlin Icthyosaur State Park was established in central Nevada to protect North America’s most abundant collection of Icthyosaur fossils.
(http://parks.nv.gov/bi.htm)
1958 Jan 29, Actors Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were married in Las Vegas.
(AP, 1/29/08)
1958 The film "I Want To Live" starred Susan Hayward as the death-row inmate Barbara Graham. It was directed by Robert Wise and based on the Santo gang murder trial in Nevada County.
(TVM, 1975, p.270)(SFEC, 3/1/98, DB p.49)(SFC, 7/15/98, p.A20)
1958 The 1,500 room Stardust casino-hotel opened in Las Vegas, Nv. In 2006 Boyd Gaming Corp. planned to tear it down and build a $4 billion complex.
(SFC, 1/5/06, p.C1)
1959 Sep 12, NBC launched "Bonanza," the first color western on TV. 428 episodes were produced and the show ran to 1973. 431 episodes were filmed at the 570-acre site in Incline Village, Nevada. Michael Landon (d.1991) played Little Joe, Lorne Greene (d.1987) played Ben Cartwright, and Dan Blocker (d.1972) played Hoss. [see Jan 16, 1973]
(SFC, 9/3/98, p.A12)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.A29)(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.D2)
1960 The film "Ocean’s Eleven" starred Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop, the 5 members of the Rat Pack. Sinatra leads an 11-man team to rob 5 Las Vegas casinos simultaneously.
(SFC, 5/16/98, p.E6)(SFEC, 8/16/98, DB p.56)
1960s Chandler Laughlin (aka Travus T. Hipp) and a group of Berkeley friends took over a Virginia City building and began the Red Dog Saloon. They imported music by the Charlatans with Dan Hicks on drums and advertised with a poster later called "The Seed" for its influence on psychedelic art.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T6)
1961 Sep 15, The US resumed underground nuclear testing. Operation Nougat began a series of 45 nuclear tests conducted (with one exception) at the Nevada Test Site.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Operation_Nougat)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F4)
1961 Geologist John Sealy Livermore (1918-2013), along with a Newmont Mining colleague, discovered widely dispersed gold particles near Carlin, Nevada. Their find became known as the Carlin Trend. By 2013 it had produced over 70 million ounces of gold valued at around $85 billion.
(SFC, 3/13/13, p.E5)
1962 Mar 1, US-British nuclear test experiment took place in Nevada.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1962 Apr 25, Operation Dominic began with a test blast on Christmas Island. The operation was a series of 105 nuclear test explosions conducted in 1962 and 1963 by the United States. Those conducted in the Pacific are sometimes called Dominic I. The blasts in Nevada are known as Dominic II.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Operation_Dominic_I_and_II)
1962 Jul 6, The US tested a 104 kiloton nuclear device in Nevada in "Project Sedan" and blew a hole 1,280 feet wide and 320 feet deep. It was one of many "Plowshare" experiments to see if atomic detonations could be used for large scale peaceful purposes.
(SFC,12/23/97, p.A3)
1962 Jul 7-1962 Jul 17, Operation Sunbeam was a series of four nuclear tests conducted at the United States of America's Nevada Test Site.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Operation_Sunbeam)
1962 Dec 7, Great Britain performed a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1962 A fire at the Golden Hotel in Reno, Nev., claimed 6 lives.
(AP, 11/5/06)
1963 Amtrak began offering its weekend Fun Train service from the SF Bay Area to Reno.
(SSFC, 1/22/06, p.E5)
1964 Aug 6, In Eastern Nevada a bristlecone pine tree, Pinus longaeva, near Wheeler Peak was cut down for scientific study of its age. The tree had been named Prometheus (WPN-114) for its age which turned out to be about 4,900 years.
(SFEC, 8/23/98, Z1 p.1,4)
1964 In Nevada the Sahara casino paid the Beatles $25,000 to play two shows in Las Vegas. The show was moved to the convention center when the 600-seat Congo Room was deemed too small.
(SSFC, 3/12/17, p.F4)
1964 Don Laughlin sold his 101 Club in Las Vegas.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, p.T6)
1965 Mar 3, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1966 Jun, Allen and Beatrix Gardner of the Univ. of Nevada began teaching sign language to a 10-month-old female chimpanzee named Washoe (d.2007).
(www.friendsofwashoe.org/timeline_project_begins.shtml)(SFC, 11/1/07, p.A2)
1966 Jul 14, German-born playboy Gunter Sachs (1932-2011) married Brigitte Bardot in Las Vegas. They divorced in 1969.
(AFP, 5/23/12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunter_Sachs)
1966 Jul 28, Operation Latchkey, a series of 38 nuclear test explosions conducted in 1966 and 1967, began with the Saxon blast at the Nevada Test Site. All but one of the tests took place in Nevada.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Operation_Latchkey)
1966 Oct 15, US Congress passed the Endangered Species Preservation Act. It was expanded in 1973 as the Endangered Species Act. The Devils Hole Pupfish of Death Valley were among the first species protected. By 1972 only 124 remained. By 2007 only 42 were left.
(www.fws.gov/endangered/1966listing.html)
1966 Caesars Casino opened with its 1,000 seat Circus Maximus showroom. Andy Williams performed on opening night. Dave Rogers (d.1998) was the sound engineer and made tapes of many of the live shows.
(WSJ, 3/19/00, p.A1)
1966 Don Laughlin opened his Riverside Hotel and Casino in South Pointe, Nevada. The town was renamed Laughlin in 1968. In 2006 it was reported that Laughlin planned have his body frozen upon death and had created a personal revival trust to guarantee an income should he be revived in the future.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, p.T6)(WSJ, 1/21/06, p.A1)
1967 Feb 10, The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, went into effect as Minnesota and Nevada adopted it.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 2/10/08)
1967 Mar 2, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1967 Mar 3, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. [see Mar 2]
(SC, 3/3/02)
1967 May 1, Elvis Presley (32) married Priscilla Beaulieu (20) in Las Vegas at the Aladdin Hotel. They divorced in 1973. They had met when she was 14 in West Germany.
(AP, 5/1/97)(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.66)
1967 Dec 31, Evel Knievel (1938-2007) failed in his attempt to jump Caesar's Palace Fountain.
(www.evelknievel.com/ek-timeline.html)
1967 The Mustang Ranch brothel opened in Storey County. Joe Conforte, a one-time cab driver in San Francisco who used to deliver his passengers to prostitutes in the 1960s, took over the 104-room brothel when prostitution was illegal in Nevada. The government closed it in 1990 following bankruptcy for IRS taxes. It reopened in 1992. [see 1971]
(SFC, 8/10/99, p.A3)(AP, 7/1/05)
1967 In Incline Village, Nevada, the Ponderosa Ranch Western Studio and Theme Park opened to the public. "Bonanza," the first color western on TV had begun filing there in 1959. In 2004 it was sold to PeopleSoft founder David Duffield.
(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.D2)
1968 Apr 26, The United States exploded a 1.3 megaton nuclear device called "Boxcar" beneath the Nevada desert.
(AP, 4/26/08)
1968 Jun 7, Michael Robert Smith (25) escaped from California’s Soledad prison while serving time for a robbery conviction. He headed to Nevada, then New Jersey and into a marriage that didn't work out. In 2001 Smith moved to a tiny trailer in a heavily wooded area of Creek County, Okla., where he was recaptured in 2006.
(AP, 5/20/06)
1969 Jul 2, Kirk Kerkorian (1917-2015) opened his International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, the largest hotel in the world. It later became the Las Vegas Hilton. He built the world's largest hotel in Las Vegas three times: the International Hotel, the MGM Grand Hotel (1973) and the MGM Grand (1993).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westgate_Las_Vegas_Resort_%26_Casino)(WSJ, 4/21/07, p.A6)(Econ, 6/27/15, p.57)
1969 Jul 2, Barbra Streisand (b.1942) opened for a 4-week engagement at the Las Vegas International Hotel.
(www.barbrafile.com/6169.htm)
1970 Jan 14, Diana Ross and the Supremes performed their last concert together, at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas.
(AP, 1/14/00)
1970 Mar 23, US performed the Shaper nuclear test in Nevada.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mandrel)
1970 Apr 29, Andre Agassi, tennis star and winner of an Olympic gold medal in 1996, was born in Las Vegas, Nev.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Agassi)
1970 Dec 18, An atomic leak in Nevada forced hundreds to flee the test site.
(HN, 12/18/98)
1970 California and Nevada approved The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A10)
1970 Lester "Benny" Binion, owner of the Horseshoe Casino, founded the annual World Series of Poker.
(WSJ, 1/14/04, p.B3)
1970 Kirk Kerkorian opened his International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, the largest hotel in the world. It later became the Las Vegas Hilton.
(WSJ, 4/21/07, p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Hotel_%28Las_Vegas%29)
1971 Jan 5, Sonny Liston (b.1932), World Champion boxer (1962-64), was found dead in his Las Vegas home.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Liston)
1971 Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005, "gonzo journalist," wrote "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." It was made into a film in 1998. The term gonzo was 1st applied to Thompson by his journalist friend Bill Cardoso (d.1006 at 68). The term had kicked around Boston for some time and was used by youth in the 1950s to describe something as over the top.
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.C1)(SSFC, 3/5/06, p.B7)
1971 The Mustang Ranch became the state's first legal bordello.
(AP, 7/1/05)
1971 Michael Oliver, a Las Vegas-based libertarian activist, created the Republic of Minerva by dumping sand on the Minerva Reefs 310 miles southwest of Tonga. He proclaimed independence in 1972, but Tonga annexed the place and it soon sank.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.84)
1971 The Lake Tahoe State Park in Nevada was officially dedicated.
(SFC, 6/6/06, p.B5)
1972 Artist Michael Heizer (b.1944) began work in Nevada on his monumental earth art titled City, one of the largest sculptures ever created.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_%28artwork%29)(SFC, 6/12/15, p.A12)
1973 Mar 23, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Toggle)
1973 Dec 24, The MGM Grand in Las Vegas opened to the public.
(www.vegas4visitors.com/museum/mgmgrand.htm)
1974 May, William Bennett (d.2002 at 78) and William Pennington bought Circus Circus Enterprises. They took the company public in 1983.
(SFC, 12/24/02, p.A13)(www.answers.com/topic/mandalay-resort-group-1?cat=biz-fin)
1974 Gladys Mapes, aka "Mrs. Reno," died. The Mapes Hotel went to her son Charles Jr. who lost the property in 1980 to foreclosure following some unwise investments.
(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A11)
1975 The Salt Wells and the Lazy B Ranch brothels opened in Churchill County, Nevada.
(WSJ, 10/20/04, p.A12)
1976 Feb 26, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/tests/USA-ntests3.html)
1976 Nov 22, Phillip Garrido kidnapped Katie Hall in South Lake Tahoe and drove her to Reno, where he raped her at a storage unit. Garrido was convicted in 1977 and sentenced to 50 years in prison. He was paroled in 1988. In 1991 He kidnapped Jaycee Lee Dugard (11) in South Lake Tahoe and kept her in Antioch, Ca., until his arrest in 2009.
(SFC, 9/2/09, p.A15)(SFC, 9/23/11, p.C3)
1976 Argentinean boxer Oscar Bonavena was killed at the front gate of the Mustang Ranch. Ross Brymer (d.2000 at 55), a ranch bodyguard, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
(SFC, 6/30/00, p.D7)
1977 May 25, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1977 Sep 3, Lisa Marie Bonham (6) of Martinez, Ca., was abducted from Idlewild Park in Reno. Her body was found by hikers after 2 months. In 2000 Stephen Robert Smith, a convicted sex offender, was charged with the murder following a DNA match.
(SFC, 7/27/00, p.A18)
1978 Mar 23, US performed nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1978 Jun 8, A jury in Clark County, Nev., ruled the so-called "Mormon will," purportedly written by the late billionaire Howard Hughes, was a forgery.
(AP, 6/8/97)
1978 Oct 9, Larry Singleton (1927-2001), rapist, was arrested in Sparks, Nev. He was later convicted of raping and mutilating Mary Vincent (15) of Las Vegas.
(SFC, 1/1/02, p.A13)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Singleton)
1978 New Jersey legalized gambling and ended the Nevada monopoly on casino gaming.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)
1979 Feb 1, Julia Woodward (21) left her family's California home to go job hunting in Nevada. Two months later her body was found in a canyon in Hungry Valley, about 20 miles north of Reno.
(ABC News, 11/17/19)
1979 Apr 15, The Liberace Museum opened in Las Vegas at 1775 E. Tropicana Ave.
(SSFM, 4/29/01, p.22)
1979 Jun 24, Brenda Lynn Judd and Sandra Colley were kidnapped in Reno, Nevada, by Gerald Gallego (b.1946) and Charlene Williams. The bodies of Judd (14) and Colley (13) were found in Dec 1999 in Lassen Ct., Ca. Gallego died in 2002 at age 56.
(www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/serialkillers/gallego.htm)(SFC,10/28/97, p.A17)(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A3)(SFC, 7/20/02, p.A15)
1979 Nov, The first annual COMDEX trade show opened in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand. It was a trade show for business related computer hardware and software. The acronym used to stand for Computer Dealer Expo, but since 1984, the D has stood for Distribution.
(Hem, Nov.'95, p.138)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COMDEX)
1979 The Nevada Supreme Court ruled to uphold a May vote to move the Lander County seat to Battle Mountain.
(ACC, 2004)
1979 Ralph Engelstad (d.2002 at 72) opened the Imperial Palace on the site of the old Flamingo Capri.
(SFC, 11/28/02, p.A30)
1979-1983 Robert List served as governor of the state.
(WSJ, 10/24/97, p.B18)
1980 Nov 21, In Las Vegas 87 people died in a fire at the MGM Grand Hotel-Casino.
(AP, 11/21/97)
1980-1990 The US Dept. of Defense allowed the open pit burning of highly toxic classified materials at a top secret Air Force base called Area 51, 125 northwest of Las Vegas. Workers later complained of strange skin diseases and other health problems and file suit against the DoD. Government lawyers use the "mosaic theory" argument in defense and claim that they can't acknowledge seemingly innocuous facts without creating a mosaic that an enemy could use to figure out military secrets.
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-1)
1981 Feb 10, Eight people were killed, 198 injured, when fire broke out at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino.
(AP, 2/10/97)
1981 May 30, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(http://tinyurl.com/32s5h3)
1981 The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency put a moratorium on new housing around the Lake Tahoe to maintain water quality.
(SFC, 1/8/02, p.A3)
1982 Jan 18, Four Thunderbird USAF pilots died when their T-38 Talon jets crashed at Indian Springs Auxiliary Airfield, Nv. Mechanical failure was cited as the cause. Shortly after, the precision flying team began flying F-16 fighter jets. It was the worst accident in the Thunderbirds' history. In all, 18 pilots and one crew member have died in Thunderbird crashes.
(www.reviewjournal.com)(SFC, 8/30/03, p.A22)
1982 Jul, In Nevada the body of Mary Edith Silvani was found on a hiking trail near Incline Village, Lake Tahoe. In 2019 forensic genealogists identified her killer as James Richard Curry, an inmate who had hanged himself and died on Jan. 7, 1983. Curry had recently confessed to shooting a San Jose couple to death on Jan. 2.
(SFC, 5/9/19, p.C2)
1982 Oct 4, Frank Rosenthal (1929-2008), Las Vegas casino operator, survived a car bomb when his Cadillac exploded as he turned the key. He ran the mob-owned Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda and Marina casinos. In 1995 Martin Scorsese made his film “Casino," based on the life of Frank Rosenthal.
(SFC, 10/17/08, p.B8)(Econ, 11/1/08, p.99)
1982 Dec, The Mapes Hotel and Casino was closed.
(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A11)
1983 Mar 26, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/tests/USA-ntests3.html)
1984 Jun, In Nevada Gerald Gallego was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to death. Charlene Williams, his former accomplice and mother of his child, testified against Gallego. They were involved in sex-slave murders in the late 1970s. Charlene was released from prison in 1997.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A17)(SFC, 1/21/02, p.B2)
1984 Art Bell began broadcasting a late-night radio talk show from Pahrump. In 1998 it was the 4th most listened to show in the US.
(WSJ, 12/3/98, p.W17)
1985 The 1st Cowboy Poetry Gathering was held in Elko, Nevada. Baxter Black and Waddie Mitchell were among the performing poets. It became an annual event held in the last week of January.
(WSJ, 3/5/00, p.A1)(SSFC, 5/5/02, p.M2)
1985 Gov. Richard Bryan honored Ben Dasher (d.2004), Reno benefactor, with a Benedict J. Dasher Day. Dasher helped open the National Automobile Museum in Reno (1989).
(SFC, 1/10/04, p.B4)
1985 Las Vegas began hosting the National Finals Rodeo (NFR), which began around 1959.
(WSJ, 1/4/00, p.A20)
1986 The Hot August Nights festival was begun in Reno to earn money for the Easter Seal Society. It became an annual festival touted as the world’s largest nostalgia fest.
(SFEC, 6/14/98, p.T10)
1986 The bodies of Tony (48) and Michael (41) Spilotro were found buried in an Indiana cornfield. Tony “The Ant" Spilotro was a top mob figure in Las Vegas. In 2005 prosecutors indicted 11 Chicago mob figures for at least 18 murders, including the Spilotros.
(SFC, 4/26/05, p.A5)
1986 Nevada’s 77,000-acre Great Basin National Park was dedicated.
(SSFC, 7/18/04, p.D7)
1987 Feb 1, Terry Williams of Los Gatos, CA, won the largest slot machine payoff to that time. He put $4.9 million in his pockets after getting four lucky "7s" on a machine in Reno, NV.
(www.igt.com/Content/base.asp?pid=8.17.37.19)
1987 Mar 2, Two sets of quintuplets were born on the same day in the USA as Rosalind Helms delivered a basketball team of bouncing babies in Peoria, IL and Robin Jenkins became the mother of five in Las Vegas, NV,- beating the odds there, to be sure.
(HC, Internet, 2/3/98)
1987 Jul 15, Izzatullah Wasifi (29) was arrested at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for selling 650 grams (23 ounces) of heroin. Prosecutors said the drugs were worth $2 million on the street. Wasifi served three years and eight months in prison before winning parole. In 2007 Wasifi, a long time friend of Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai, was appointed as general-director of Afghanistan’s General Independent Administration of Anti-Corruption and Bribery.
(AP, 3/9/07)
1987 US Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and directed DOE to study only Yucca Mountain, Nevada, located within a former nuclear test site.
(www.nei.org/keyissues/nuclearwastedisposal/yuccamountain/)
1987 Nevada opened a maximum-security prison 10 miles from Ely.
(SFC, 8/21/02, p.A12)
1987 The Texas Bass family bought an undeveloped property 17 miles from Las Vegas and began the $500 million Lake Las Vegas development.
(WSJ, 6/21/00, p.B12)
1989 Steve Wynn opened his 3,000-room “The Mirage" casino resort in Las Vegas.
(Econ, 10/8/16, p.57)
1989 The Mormons dedicated a new temple in Las Vegas.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A23)
1989 Benedict J. Dasher helped open the National Automobile Museum in Reno.
(SFC, 1/10/04, p.B4)
1989 Lester "Benny" Binion, founder of the Horseshoe Casino, died.
(WSJ, 8/24/98, p.A1)
1990 Apr 2, The University of Nevada at Las Vegas won the NCAA college basketball championship, defeating Duke 103-73.
(AP, 4/2/00)
1990 Pahrump, Nevada, had 7,600 residents. The town had no police, no income tax, 5 brothels and no need for building permits. By 1998 it grew to 24,000.
(SFEC, 7/20/98, p.A3)
1990 Arthur Goldberg, head of an East Coast trucking business, bought a 5.6% share of Bally Entertainment and began a 10 year creation of the world’s largest casino conglomerate.
(SFC, 10/24/00, p.A26)
1991 Mar 18, In Nevada Irish boxer Pat Lawler (27) defeated Roberto Duran in a 6th round technical knockout in Las Vegas. Lawler, a resident of San Francisco, was an 8-1 underdog for the fight.
(SSFC, 3/113/16, DB p.50)
1991 Sep 1, The Burning Man Festival came to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada from Baker’s Beach in San Francisco.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A15)
1991 Sep 21, Union members of the Frontier Hotel-Casino went out on strike. The strike ended in 1998 under new owner, Phillip Ruffin.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A5)
1991 Sep, A scandal arose from the US Navy Tailhook convention in Las Vegas. Navy officers were accused of sexually assaulting female officers. The incident was documented by Gregory Vistica in his book "Fall from Glory, the Men Who Sank the US Navy." Paula Coughlin, a Navy lieutenant, pressed the initial charges and more than 80 women made similar claims.
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A19)(WSJ, 10/14/96, p.A14)(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A6)
1992 Oct 28, The US Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) was enacted. It banned betting on sports with exemptions to Delaware, Nevada, Oregon and Montana.
(Econ, 9/26/09, p.42)(http://tinyurl.com/yenf89a)
1993 Jan 6, Authorities rescued Jennifer Stolpa and infant son after her husband found help after an eight-day ordeal in the snow-covered Nevada desert.
(AP, 1/6/98)
1993 Oct, Heather Catherine Tallchief (21) drove away from the Circus Circus hotel casino in Las Vegas in an armored car with $2.5 million. In 2005 she surrendered and said she had been influenced by her boyfriend Roberto Solis, who remained a fugitive. The 2 had fled to Amsterdam after the heist.
(SFC, 9/16/05, p.A3)
1993 The Roman Catholic Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer opened in Las Vegas with seating for 2,500.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A23)
1993 In Cactus Springs a small shrine, dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet, opened. It was built be a female construction crew sponsored by Genevieve Vaughan of Texas and cared for by Patricia Pearlman, a Crone Witch from New Jersey.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/17/00, p.A1,6)
1993 Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy quit paying grazing fees on government land after the government designated the Gold Butte area as protected habitat for the endangered desert tortoise and cut his allotment of cows. The BLM cancelled his grazing permit and ordered him to remove his cows. Federal judges later upheld the action.
(SSFC, 4/20/14, p.A11)
1994 Jan, Alvaro Calambro, a Philippine native, used a hammer and crowbar to murder 2 U-Haul employees in Reno. Calambro was executed in 1999.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A3)
1994 Dec, Ron Rudin (64), a millionaire real estate developer, disappeared.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A3)
1994 In Cactus Springs, Nv., a small shrine to the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet was built. It was cared for by Patricia Pearlman, a Crone Witch from New Jersey.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A3)
c1994 Robert T. Bigelow donated $3.7 million to the Univ. of Nevada, LV, to establish the Bigelow Chair in Consciousness Studies. Bigelow established his fortune building extended stay hotels and later set up Bigelow Aerospace for a hotel in space circling the moon.
(WSJ, 8/23/99, p.A1,8)
1995 Jan, The charred body of Ron Rudin (64), a millionaire real estate developer, was found in the desert. His 5th wife, Margaret, was suspect but there was insufficient evidence to arrest her.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A3)
1995 Dec 18, A powerful fertilizer bomb was found outside an Internal Revenue Service office in Reno, Nevada, but fizzled before its lit fuse could do much damage.
(AP, 12/18/00)
1995 Pope John Paul II created a separate diocese in Las Vegas under Bishop Daniel F. Walsh.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A23)
1995 James Chic-Cheng Chen built America's 1st "master-planned Chinatown" in Las Vegas.
(WSJ, 4/28/04, p.A1)
1995 Harold’s Club in downtown Reno, owned by the Fitzgerald Gaming Corp., was closed down. It was known for a large gun collection.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.D3)
1995 Golden West Sports Tours opened a shooting gallery in Las Vegas.
(WSJ, 6/16/99, p.A24)
1996 Jul, Bruce Weinstein, a professional gambler, was killed in his bed. His decomposed body was found a month later in the desert. His girlfriend, Amy DeChant, was charged in the crime. She was found in Florida in 1998 hiding at the Sunnier Days nudist camp.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A3,5)
1996 Sep 7, Rapper Tupac Shakur was shot on the Las Vegas Strip; he died six days later.
(AP, 9/7/97)
1996 Sep 13, Rap star Tupac Shakur (b.1971) died of gun shot wounds in Las Vegas after he was wounded Sep 7 in a drive-by shooting as he was leaving a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas. He had just finished filming "Gang Related" later retitled "Criminal Intent." He was buried at Stone Mountain, Georgia.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/13/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac_Shakur)
1996 Jack Lee Harelson was convicted for stealing Native American artifacts from a cave in the Nevada desert. In 2004 Harelson faced a trial in Oregon over charges that he tried to hire a hit man to murder 4 people involved in his conviction.
(Arch, 1/05, p.10)
1996 The Neon Museum was established in Las Vegas.
(Sm, 3/06, p.26)
1997 Jan 2, In the US Northwest a week of heavy rain and melting snow caused many rivers to overflow. Downtown Reno was under water and casinos closed. More than 2,000 visitors were trapped in Yosemite National Park for more than two days as a rockslide swept away a section of Highway 140. The park was closed until March. Highway 50 to Lake Tahoe was closed and expected to be out for a month. The Feather River between Marysville and Yuba City crested at just over 78 feet and 50,000 Californians were forced to evacuate the area.
(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A13)(AP, 1/2/98)(SFC, 1/7/17, p.A10)
1997 Jan 3, Las Vegas had a total of 101,106 hotel rooms as of this date.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)
1997 May 25, In Las Vegas Jeremy Strohmeyer (20) raped and killed 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in the Primadonna Casino. Strohmeyer’s friend, David Cash, saw the initial struggle, but failed to stop it. Cash was later plagued by fellow students in Berkeley for his non-action. Strohmeyer admitted his guilt in 1998 in exchange for life in prison. He was sentenced to life in prison in Oct, 1998.
(SFC, 8/26/98, p.A14)(SFC, 8/27/98, p.A17)(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A1)(SFC, 10/15/98, p.A3)
1997 Jul 1, Nevada Athletic Commission suspended Mike Tyson for biting Holyfield.
(www.lasvegassun.com/sports/boxing/htfight/)
1997 Jul 26, Pres. Clinton visited Lake Tahoe and announced that the Forest Service would allot 350 acres to the Washoe Indian tribe for a cultural center and give tribal members access to the edge of Lake Tahoe. He also made an executive order for $50 million over 2 years and 25 initiatives to improve the water quality of Lake Tahoe. He brought with him $26 million worth of natural gas postal trucks and sewage pipes to help preserve the lake.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.A1,14)(AP, 7/26/98)
1997 Aug 27, The annual Burning Man Festival began near Gerlach, Nevada, on a private ranch on the Hualapai Playa, a prehistoric lakebed. Some 20,000 people came to the instantly created "Black Rock City" for the torching of the 50-foot effigy.
(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.A3)(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A1, 15)
1997 Oct 13, A British jet car, Thrust SSC, driven by Andy Green of the Royal Air Force set a land speed record of 764.168 mph in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. The record was not recorded as official because turn around time went over an hour due to braking problems. Green officially broke the record two days later.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A1,7)(AP, 10/13/98)
1997 Oct 15, A British jet-powered car driven by pilot Andy Green broke the land speed record with an average run of 763.035 mph at Gerlach, Nevada. The Thrust SSC was powered by two 110,000-horse-power Rolls-Royce Spey 205 engines. The vehicle was 54 feet long, 12 feet wide, and weighed 10.2 tons.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A3)(AP, 10/15/98)
1997 Oct, In Nevada a US district court convicted Jose B. Uribe for attempting to swap world famous paintings for 110 pounds of cocaine. At least some of the paintings, that included work by Matisse, Renoir and Dali, were said to be owned by entertainer Wayne Newton. Newton, embroiled in a bankruptcy suit, initially denied ownership but later changed his mind and claimed ownership.
(SFC,11/17/97, p.A2)
1997 Dec 28, The Nevada Club owned by the Fitzgerald Gaming Corp. in Reno closed down after being sold to a private party. Everything inside was auctioned including 200 old mechanical slot machines that sold for $600 when new.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.D3)
1997 Louise Driggs, a descendant of John Piper, sold the Piper Opera House of Virginia City to the nonprofit Piper's Opera House Historic Programs.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, Z1 p.4)
1997 The streets of Reno flooded as the Truckee River overflowed.
(SSFC, 8/3/03, p.C7)
1998 Jan 7, In Mustang, Nevada, two blasts at the Sierra Chemical Co. plant left 4 workers feared killed.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A3)
1998 Feb 11, KVBC-FM (Las Vegas) offered Monica Lewinsky $5M for an interview.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1998 Feb 19, Federal officials in Henderson, Nevada, arrested Larry Wayne Harris and William Job Leavitt for possession of suspected anthrax bacterium. Harris had earlier published the 131-page book: "Bacteriological Warfare: A Major Threat to North America." The substance turned out to be a harmless veterinary vaccine. Harris was later sentenced to 6 months probation.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A1,8)(SFEC, 2/22/98, p.A11)(SFC, 3/25/98, p.A3)
1998 Aug 8, A riot broke out in Reno during the annual "Hot Autumn Nights" festival. There was some property damage and a few minor injuries. 130 people were arrested.
(SFC, 8/10/98, p.A2)
1998 Sep 4, In Nevada two Air Force helicopters crashed during training and all 12 people aboard were killed.
(SFC, 9/5/98, p.A3)
1998 Sep 6, In Gerlach, Nevada, 15,000 people gathered at Black Rock City to watch the 13th Burning Man go up in flames and end the 8 day arts festival.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep, Lonnie "Ted" Binion (55), son of Benny Binion, died from a suspected drug overdose. 6 months later the coroner declared that his death was a homicide. Sandy Murphy (26), Binion's girl friend and her lover, Rick Tabish, were considered prime suspects. 36 hours after Binion's death police arrested Tabish digging up Binion's buried vault in Pahrump that contained $4 million in silver bars and was built by Tabish. Murphy and Tabish were arrested in 1999 and convicted of 1st degree murder in 2000.
(SFC, 5/24/99, p.A3)(SFC, 6/26/99, p.A4)(SFC, 5/20/00, p.A3)
1998 Oct 18, The new Steve Wynn $1.6 billion, 3,000 room Bellagio Casino opened in Las Vegas. It was built over the site of the old Dunes casino. It was named after the Italian town of Bellagio whose name means place of relaxation.
(SFC, 10/19/98, p.A1)(SFEM, 11/29/98, p.13)
1998 Oct 19, Mike Tyson got his boxing license back after pleading with the Nevada Athletic Commission not to "torture" him anymore for biting Evander Holyfield's ears in the ring 15 months earlier.
(AP, 10/19/08)
1998 Nov, Voters approved the medical use of marijuana with a 59% margin.
(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.A20)
1998 Dec 29, In Nevada 31 wild horses were found shot to death by rifle fire at close range at Devil's Flat near Washoe Valley.
(SFC, 12/30/98, p.A3)
1998 Bart Maybie, Canadian entrepreneur, bought the defunct Moulin Rouge for a reported $3 million. A re-opening was scheduled for 2003.
(SSFM, 4/29/01, p.34)
1998 The Nevada nuclear dump site at Yucca Mountain was originally scheduled to open this year. In 2006 the US Dept. of Energy announced that it would not open until 2017.
(SFC, 7/24/06, p.A1)
1999 Jan 4, A sniper hit at least 4 vehicles on I-80 between Reno and the California border. Police arrested Christopher Lee Merritt (20) of Mankato, Minn., who hoped to rob the drivers after they crashed. Merritt pleaded guilty in 1999 and was sentenced to at least 20 years in prison in 2000.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A3)(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A2)(SFC, 11/6/99, p.A6)(SFC, 1/12/00, p.A7)
1999 Jan 12, A Reno construction worker, Anthony John Merlino (21) was arrested for the slaughter of 34 wild horses. Two marines were also charged, William Brendle (22) and Darien Thomas (21).
(SFC, 1/13/99, p.A3)
1999 Feb 8, Nevada lawmakers voted to oppose federal plans for a nuclear storage dump northwest of Las Vegas.
(SFC, 2/9/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 4, A medical helicopter crashed about 35 miles northwest of Las Vegas and the pilot, James Bond Jr., and 2 nurses, Kathy Batterman and Leroy Shelton, were killed.
(SFC, 4/5/99, p.A4)
1999 May 3, The new $1.4 billion Venetian Resort Hotel and Casino opened at the former site of the Sands Hotel. It was developed by Las Vegas Sands, Inc.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, DB p.70)
1999 May 4, The Las Vegas primary mayoral election were scheduled. Lawyer Oscar Goodman (59) led a 9 person filed with 49% of the vote.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, p.C5)(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A3)
1999 Jun 3, Zane Floyd (23), a former Marine, killed 4 employees at an Albertsons supermarket in Las Vegas before being arrested by police.
(SFC, 6/4/99, p.A4)
1999 Jun 8, A general election was scheduled.
(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A3)
1999 Jun 4, Senators Diane Feinstein of California and Harry Reid of Nevada announced the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act. The bill authorized $300 million over 10 years to restore clarity and health to Lake Tahoe.
(SFC, 6/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jun 8, Oscar Goodman was elected mayor of Las Vegas with 63.8% of the vote over Arnie Adamsen.
(SFC, 6/9/99, p.A3)
1999 Jul 8, Heavy rains poured 3 inches onto Las Vegas and caused the worst flooding in 15 years.
(SFC, 7/9/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 5, Lightning sparked over 75 fires and blackened some 500 sq. miles of Nevada range.
(SFC, 8/6/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 9, The US government took over the Mustang Ranch brothel following successful fraud and racketeering charges.
(SFC, 8/10/99, p.A3)
1999 Sep 3, An estimated 18,000 people were in attendance at Black Rock Desert for the Burning Man festival. Local veterans complained that spontaneous art projects started giving way to carefully laid plans and agendas.
(SFC, 9/4/99, p.B1)(SSFC, 1/2/05, p.A20)
1999 Sep 4, The 14th Burning Man festival drew 23,500 people.
(SFEC, 9/5/99, p.C10)
1999 Sep 1, The $760 million Paris-Las Vegas Hotel Casino, owned by Park Place Entertainment, held its grand opening. Arthur Goldberg (d.2000 at 58) delivered the hotel on time and on budget at $785 million.
(SFEC, 10/24/99, p.T10)(SFC, 10/24/00, p.A26)
1999 Nov 22, Raymond Edward Wong called Pinole, Ca., police to report that Alice Sin (21) of Pinole, Ca., had not come home. Sin’s decomposed and bullet-riddled body was found Jan 25, 2000, in Churchill County, Nevada. In 2011 police in Pinole, citing new evidence, arrested Raymond Wong, the father of her child. Wong’s 2nd girlfriend, Jessica Tang, later testified that all three had driven into the desert and she and Wong shot and killed Alice Sin, who was reportedly pregnant at the time.
(SFC, 1/28/00, p.A1)(SFC, 12/31/11, p.C2)(SFC, 1/4/13, p.A1)
1999 Nov 30, Five white supremacists attempted to firebomb the Emanu-El synagogue in Reno. They pleaded guilty at their 7/14/00 trial.
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.A3)
1999 Dec, The $70 million Cirque du Soleil show called "O" began playing at the 1,800 seat Bellagio Theater.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.AA2)
1999 David Littlejohn edited "The Real Las Vegas: Life Beyond the Strip," a collection of 13 essays by journalism graduates of the master's program at UC Berkeley.
(SFEC, 10/17/99, BR p.5)
1999 David Thompson published "In Nevada: The Land, The People, God and Chance."
(SFEC, 10/31/99, BR p.10)
1999 Arthur Goldberg of Park Place Entertainment acquired Caesar’s World for $3 billion.
(SFC, 10/24/00, p.A26)
2000 Jan 30, The Mapes Hotel and Casino, listed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's as one of the most endangered landmarks, was blown up at 8 a.m. as 10,000 people watched.
(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A1)(SFC, 1/31/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 6, MGM Grand Inc. led by Kirk Kerkorian acquired Mirage Resorts, founded by Stephen A. Wynn, for $4.4 billion in cash.
(SFC, 3/7/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 8, In Nevada a van crashed on I-15 at jean and 8 people were killed with 5 injured.
(SFC, 3/9/00, p.A3)
2000 Mar 19, In Nevada 5 youths on a juvenile offenders cleanup crew were killed by a speeding minivan on I-15 in Las Vegas.
(SFC, 3/20/00, p.A11)
2000 Mar 19, Krystal Steadman (5) disappeared from a playground at Stateline. Her body was found the next day off US 50 and Thomas Robert Soria (19) was arrested.
(SFC, 3/21/00, p.A5)
2000 Mar 30, In Reno there was an arson fire at a construction site. By the end of May a serial arsonist was suspected in setting 12 fires with damages over $2 billion.
(SFC, 5/31/00, p.A6)
2000 Jun, Jose Manuel Vigoa Perez robbed the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, continued a string of robberies that began in 1998. He was soon caught and imprisoned. In 2008 John Huddy authored “Storming Las Vegas: How a Cuban-Born, Soviet-Trained Commando Took Down the Strip to the Tune of Five World-Class Hotels, Three Armored Cars, and Millions of Dollars."
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.W7)
2000 Jul 4, In Jarbridge the Jarbridge Shovel Brigade reopened access to South Canyon Road, which had been closed by the US Forest Service to protect endangered bull trout in the Jarbridge River.
(SFC, 7/5/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 15, The new $97 million Las Vegas federal courthouse opened.
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.A10)
2000 Sep 2, Some 28,000 people gathered for the finale of the Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert.
(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.A1)
2000 Oct 12, Syl Cheney-Coker (55), a poet from Sierra Leone, was named as the Las Vegas resident writer-in-asylum.
(SFC, 10/12/00, p.A10)
2000 Oct 19, Arthur Goldberg, head of Park Place Entertainment, died at age 58. In 1999 Park Place generated $4.6 billion in revenue.
(SFC, 10/24/00, p.A26)
2000 Dec 15, US Congressional compromise included federal protection for the Black Rock Desert-High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area, 1.2 million acres in northwest Nevada.
(SFC, 12/16/00, p.C2)
2000 Dec, Harper's magazine ran an article by Jim McManus, a "rank amateur," who had made a successful run in the 2000 World Series of Poker. In 2003 the article was expanded into the book "Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs and Binion's World Series of Poker.
(SSFC, 5/4/03, p.M1)
2000 Gregory Martin authored "Mountain City," a personal look at the northern Nevada mining town.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, BR p.8)
2000 Switch began building a series of colocation centers in Las Vegas. Its business got a boost in December 2002, when it acquired a former Enron broadband services facility out of bankruptcy. In 2010 the SWITCH SuperNAP, a huge data center, opened near the Las Vegas airport.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.28)(http://tinyurl.com/7r3deaq)
2000 In Nevada mine operator Arimetco abandoned a WW II-era mine and left behind a stew of uranium, arsenic and other chemicals. In 1994 the EPA determined that the site qualified for priority Superfund status but did not formally propose the listing until 2016. State regulators had first accused the Anaconda Mining Co. of discharging pollutants there in 1985. In 2018 the local Yerington Paiute Tribe fought against efforts to put the state and current owner Atlantic Richfield in charge of the cleanup, instead of the EPA.
(SSFC, 4/29/18, p.C11)
2001 April 5, Michelle Curran (16) was reported missing in Las Vegas. She was kidnapped as she hitchhiked, sexually abused for three weeks, and then shot in the head. In 2006 Michael Thorton (50) and Janeen Snyder (26) were both found guilty of murder, rape with a foreign object, and burglary. The pair were sentenced to death.
(http://tinyurl.com/fww93)(SFC, 9/9/06, p.B2)
2001 Apr 14, It was reported that 8 cases of childhood leukemia were recorded in 2000 in the area of Fallon, Nevada. 12 children were diagnosed with leukemia since 1997 and high levels of arsenic in the drinking water was suspected. Jet fuel at a nearby air base and a nuclear detonation in 1963, and pesticides were also cited as possible causes. In 2002 a 16th case was reported.
(SFC, 4/14/01, p.A6)(SFC, 7/29/02, p.A4)
2001 Apr 21, Stephanus Bridges (37), a South African national, was executed for the shooting Hunter Blatchford and leaving him to bleed to death in the desert outside Las Vegas. Bridges denied the killing.
(SFC, 4/23/01, p.A7)
2001 Jun 4, Nevada lawmakers approved a bill to legalize Internet gambling and passed a medical marijuana measure.
(WSJ, 6/5/01, p.A1)
2001 Jun 18, Thousands of firefighters fought the Martis fire at Floriston near Truckee that covered 12,300 acres since Jun 17. The fire on the California-Nevada border reached 14,500 acres with 2/3 in Nevada.
(SFC, 6/19/01, p.A1)(SFC, 6/20/01, p.A3)(SFC, 6/23/01, p.A3)
2001 Jul 28, Martin Stern Jr., architect of much of the Las Vegas skyline, died at age 84.
(SFC, 8/2/01, p.C2)
2001 Aug 17, Adam Ezerski (19), wanted for 2 recent murders in Florida, was arrested at the Holiday Inn in Reno as the city kicked off its gay pride celebration.
(SFC, 8/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 27, In Gerlach, Nevada, thousands of people gathered at Black Rock City for the 16th Burning Man arts festival. This year’s theme was the Seven Ages, from the cradle to the mausoleum
(SFC, 9/1/01, p.A1,9)
2001 Sep 2, The Burning Man festival came to a close. Also burned was "The Mausoleum," a plywood temple built over several weeks and dedicated to the dead.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.B3)
2001 Sep 22, Volunteers celebrated the completion of the Tahoe Rim Trail, a 150-mile loop around Lake Tahoe that began with an idea by US Forest Service ranger Glenn Hampton in 1980.
(SFC, 9/29/01, p.A13)(SSFC, 4/14/02, p.C5)
2001 Oct 15, Anthrax in a letter to a Reno Microsoft office was reported to be from Malaysia. 2 anthrax-tainted letters were reported to have been mailed from Trenton, New Jersey and 2 postal employees there showed symptoms.
(SFC, 10/16/01, p.A1)
2001 Sally Denton and Roger Morris authored "The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America 1947-2000."
(WSJ, 3/23/00, p.W12)
2001 Richard L. Orndorff, Robert W. Wieder and Harry F. Filkorn authored "Geology Underfoot in Central Nevada."
(NH, 6/01, p.22)
2001 Dwayne Jackson was arrested on kidnapping and robbery charges in Nevada. He spent 4 years in prison until his release in 2006. In November, 2010, an error regarding DNA evidence indicated that the wrong man had been sent to prison.
(SFC, 7/8/11, p.A6)
2002 Jan 10, US Energy Sec. Spencer Abraham said he found the Nevada site at Yucca Mountain "scientifically sound and suitable" as a nuclear waste repository.
(SFC, 1/11/02, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/11/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan, The 18th annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering was held in Elko.
(SSFC, 5/5/02, p.M2)
2002 Feb 15, Pres. Bush approved the Nevada Yucca Mountain site for nuclear waste. Nevada filed suit to block the decision.
(SFC, 2/16/02, p.A7)
2002 Apr 8, Gov. Kenny Guinn vetoed the Pres. Bush’s endorsement of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste site.
(SFC, 4/9/02, p.A5)
2002 Apr 23, The US Supreme Court ruled that property owners were not entitled to compensation in cases where a temporary freeze stops development. The ruling stemmed from a development freeze around Lake Tahoe.
(SFC, 4/24/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 27, In Laughlin, Nev., members of the Hells Angels clashed with members of the Mongol gang and 3 people were killed in a shootout at Harrah’s. Some 80,000 bikers were in town for the annual Laughlin River Run party. Investigations led to arrests on Dec 3, 2003.
(SSFC, 4/28/02, p.A9)(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A25)
2002 May 7, Lucas John Helder (21) of Pine Island, Minn., was arrested following a car chase near Lovelock, Nevada, and charged for the recent series of mailbox pipe bombs. Helder said he was trying to make a "smiley face" pattern on the map of his bombings. His series of rural mailbox bombings left six people wounded in Illinois and Iowa. Helder has since been found incompetent to stand trial.
(SFC, 5/8/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/10/02, p.A3)(AP, 5/7/07)
2002 May 13, A crash on I-80 east of Reno left 5 members of a Utah family dead. Stephen Scharosch later admitted he was drunk and under the influence of marijuana. In 2003 Scharosch (52) was sentenced to up to 80 years in prison.
(SFC, 1/18/03, p.A15)
2002 Jul 9, The US Senate approved a nuclear waste burial site at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert. The Senate voted to entomb thousands of tons of radioactive waste inside Yucca Mountain, rejecting the state's fervent protests. Gov. Kenny Guinn vowed to continue fighting the plan.
(SFC, 7/10/02, p.A3)(AP, 7/9/03)
2002 Jul 23, Pres. Bush signed legislation designating Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as the nation’s nuclear waste repository.
(WSJ, 7/24/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug 31, The Burning Man was put to flames at Black Rock, Nv. Some 29,000 people attended the event, which featured a 78-foot Temple of Joy, created by David Best, that was burned down Sep 1.
(SFC, 8/31/02, p.A3)(SFC, 9/2/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug, In Gerlach, Nevada, the 17th Burning Man arts festival was scheduled. Founder Larry Harvey summarized the event as an example of a gift economy, where "value is transmitted through people, from heart to heart."
(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.E6)
2002 Oct 5, In Nevada the partially clad body of Jay R. Smith (87), a former star in “The Little Rascals," was found wrapped in a sheet near Interstate 15. Charles Wayne Crombie (d.2014), a homeless man befriended by Smith, was later convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to 20 years to life.
(AP, 7/18/14)
2002 Dec 1, The US federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) began rounding up over 2,650 wild horses in Nevada to prevent starving and rangeland destruction.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.J7)
2002 Dec 4, John Weaver, historian, died in Las Vegas. His books included "Los Angeles: The Enormous Village" (1980).
(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A25)
2002 In Nevada Jeremiah Miller was robbed, killed and dismembered at a Las Vegas hotel. In 2007 Scott Raymond Dozier was sentenced to death for killing Miller, who had come to Nevada to buy ingredients for making meth.
(SFC, 7/12/18, p.A14)
2003 Mar 21, A young man from LA visiting Las Vegas hit pay dirt, a world record $39 million on a slot machine.
(AP, 3/22/03)
2003 Mar 25, Celine Dion opened a three-year gig in the new $95 million Colosseum theater at Caesars Palace.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 May 24, The $16 million Nevada Museum of Art opened in Reno.
(SFC, 5/27/03, p.D2)
2003 May 24, In Las Vegas Chris Moneymaker (27), an accountant, walked away with $2.5 million and the title of champion in the 34th annual World Series of Poker.
(AP, 5/25/03)
2003 May 29, A fire destroyed the Moulin Rouge casino in downtown Las Vegas.
(SFC, 5/30/03, p.A18)
2003 Jun 22, It was reported that Elko, Nevada, besieged by Mormon crickets (shield-backed katydids), had spent $56,000 for 18 tons of the pesticide carbaryl to stop the infestation. The 4-year Nevada plague, the worst in 5 decades, had missed Elko until this year.
(SSFC, 6/22/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 20, Floodwaters receded in Las Vegas following the worst flood since 1999.
(SFC, 8/21/03, p.A2)
2003 Aug 30, In Gerlach, Nevada, a woman riding an "art car" at the counterculture Burning Man festival died when she accidentally fell under the vehicle's wheels. The weeklong festival, theme name "Beyond Belief," peaked Saturday night with the torching of a 70-foot-high wooden effigy of a man.
(AP, 8/31/03)(SFC, 9/1/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 31, In Gerlach, Nevada, the "Temple of Honor" by David Best went up in flames. Some 30,500 people attended the weeklong "Burning Man" event.
(SFC, 9/1/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 3, In Las Vegas a tiger attacked magician Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy during a performance. It was Horn's 59th birthday.
(SFC, 10/4/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 25, A small plane crashed after takeoff at the North Las Vegas and 6 family members were killed.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A3)
2003 The US Bureau of Land Management auctioned off the assets of Mustang Ranch on eBay. Lance Gilman paid $145,000 for the brothel’s trademark and pink stucco building, which he airlifted to his Wild Horse bordello in Storey County, Nevada.
(Econ, 1/29/05, p.33)
2004 Jan 13, Harrah's agreed to buy Binion's Horseshoe casino. It had just been shut down by federal agents for failure to pay pension and health benefits to its employees.
(WSJ, 1/14/04, p.B3)
2004 Jul 9, An appeals court rejected Nevada’s claim against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, but ordered leak plans beyond 10,000 years.
(WSJ, 7/12/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 14, Harrah’s reached a deal to acquire Caesars for about $17 a share.
(SFC, 7/15/04, p.C1)
2004 Jul 15, The new $650 million, 4.4-mile Las Vegas Monorail began operations with stops at 7 stations between Sahara and Tropicana avenues.
(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.D2)
2004 Jul 16, The Waterfall Fire in Carson City, Nev., consumed over 7,600 acres and threatened some 1,000 homes. 14 homes were already destroyed.
(SFC, 7/17/04, p.B1)
2004 Aug 30, In Gerlach, Nevada, the annual Burning Man Festival began.
(SFC, 8/30/04, p.B1)
2004 Sep 5, The 19th Burning Man went up in flames in Gerlach, Nevada, where some 35, 664 people had gathered for the annual festival.
(SSFC, 9/5/04, p.B1)
2004 Nov 16, US Senate Democrats selected Harry Reid of Nevada as party whip for the 109th Congress.
(SFC, 11/17/04, p.A3)
2005 Feb 21, The new Atomic Testing Museum opened in Las Vegas.
(www.ntshf.org/)
2005 Mar 9, In Las Vegas 2 retired NYC police detectives, Louis Eppolito (56) and Stephen Caracappa (63), were arrested on federal charges of taking part in 8 murders on behalf of the Mafia. In 2009 both men were sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 3/11/05, p.A3)(SFC, 3/7/09, p.A5)
2005 Apr 28, The new 2,700 room Wynn Las Vegas was scheduled to open.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F10)
2005 Apr 21, Anna Ayala, the woman who claimed she found a finger in her bowl of Wendy's chili last month in San Jose, Ca., was arrested at her home in Las Vegas.
(AP, 4/22/05)(SFC, 4/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 26, The 160-acre 1870 ghost town of Palisade, Nevada, was auctioned off in SF for $150,000.
(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A2)
2005 Apr 28, Steve Wynn opened the new $2.7 billion Wynn Las Vegas casino-resort. It was built on the site of the historic Desert Inn.
(SFC, 4/29/05, p.A3)(WSJ, 5/17/05, p.D10)
2005 May 23, Kansas City rapper Anthony “Fat Tone" Watkins (24) and another man were found shot dead in the Southern Highlands area of Las Vegas. Police later said that a SF rap promoter named Andre Dow, aka “Mac Minister," and Jason Mathis killed the 2 men to avenge the Nov, 2004, killing of Andre “Mac Dre" Hicks in Kansas. Mathis was arrested in 2005 in SF. Dow was arrested in 2006 in SF.
(SFC, 5/26/05, p.B5)(SFC, 11/29/05, p.A1)(SFC, 3/3/06, p.B7)
2005 Aug 22, Harrah’s said it has agreed to buy the Imperial Palace Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas for $370 million.
(WSJ, 8/23/05, p.D6)
2005 Aug 29-2005 Sep 5, The annual Burning Man Festival in Nevada planned to introduce BORG2, an event within the main event concentrating on art projects.
(SSFC, 1/2/05, p.A20)
2005 Sep 3, In Nevada over 35,000 people gathered in the Black Rock Desert for the 20th burning of the Burning Man.
(SFC, 9/3/05, p.A25)
2005 Sep 21, Stephen M. Ressa (27) of Rialto, Ca., drove a stolen car into a crowd on the Las Vegas Strip killing 2 people and injuring dozens.
(SFC, 9/23/05, p.A6)
2005 Sep 22, Boxer Leavander Johnson (35) died from injuries suffered in a Sep 17 Los Vegas boxing match with Jesus Chavez. The match was telecast on HBO.
(WSJ, 9/29/05, p.D10)
2005 Oct 8, In Nevada 23 robotic vehicles competed over a 150-mile course for a $2 million prize sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Darpa. 4 robotic vehicles finished the race across the Mojave desert over a rugged 132-mile course without a single human command. Stanford University's Sebastian Thrun, a customized Volkswagen, crossed first in 6 hours and 59 minutes. Race officials planned to resume the race Oct 9 so the sole remaining vehicle, a mammoth six-wheel truck, could compete in daylight.
(SFC, 10/8/05, p.C1)(AP, 10/9/05)(Econ, 10/15/05, p.88)
2005 Oct 9, A driverless Volkswagen won a $2 million race across the rugged Nevada desert, beating four other robot-guided vehicles that completed a Pentagon-sponsored contest aimed at making warfare safer for humans [see Oct 8].
(AP, 10/9/06)
2005 Nov, The US Bureau of Land Management auctioned 3,000 acres of Nevada land in the Las Vega area for $800 million.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.37)
2005 William L. Fox authored “In the Desert of Desire," a wandering meditation on Las Vegas.
(WSJ, 11/25/05, p.W3)
2006 Jan 21, In Las Vegas Manny Pacquiao avenged his defeat 10 months ago and handed Erik Morales the worst beating of his career before finally stopping him in the 10th round of their 130-pound showdown.
(AP, 1/22/06)
2006 Jan 21, In Las Vegas Jennifer Berry, a 22-year-old ballerina from Oklahoma, was crowned Miss America. The pageant went without coverage from a major television network for the first time since 1954, but aired on Country Music Television.
(AP, 1/22/06)
2006 Feb 7, Nevada’s State Gaming Control Board sent a letter to casinos expressing concern about “gangster rap."
(WSJ, 3/28/06, p.A1)
2006 May 5, A spokesman for Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn said Nevadans will be able to buy prescription drugs from Canada over the Internet starting next week, despite objections by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 Jun 12, Charla Mack was slashed to death in Reno, Nevada. Judge Chuck Weller (53) was shot and wounded the same day by a sniper. Police issued a murder warrant for Charla’s husband, David Mack (45), the next day and declared him a suspect in the shooting of Weller. Mack surrendered to Mexican police on June 23. In 2008 Mack was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 6/16/06, p.B6)(WSJ, 6/24/06, p.A1)(SFC, 2/9/08, p.A4)
2006 Jul 11, Kathy Augustine (50), Nevada state controller, died suddenly. Her husband, Chaz Higgs, said it was a heart attack and chalked it up to the stress of an uphill election battle for state treasurer. But just days after her death, Higgs tried to kill himself by slitting his wrists. On Sep 29 Police arrested Higgs in Hampton, Va., after toxicology tests found a drug in his wife’s system that would have paralyzed her. Higgs was convicted on June 29, 2007, of killing Augustine by injecting her with succinylcholine, a paralyzing drug. He was sentenced to life with a possibility of parole after serving 20 years.
(AP, 7/21/06)(SFC, 9/30/06, p.A3)(www.krnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6762551)
2006 Jul 22, Some 3,000 people gathered at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas for the annual Lifestyles conference, a five-day, $700-per-couple event that offers a mix of seminars, socializing and sex.
(Reuters, 7/22/06)
2006 Aug 11, Jamie Gold (36), a former Hollywood talent agent, won the $12 million grand prize in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, Nv.
(SFC, 8/12/06, p.A2)
2006 Aug 29, Warren Steed Jeffs (50), a fugitive polygamist, was arrested in Nevada. He was on the FBI’s 10 most-wanted list for sex crimes in Utah and Arizona.
(SFC, 8/30/06, p.A11)
2006 Aug 31, The United States carried out a subcritical nuclear experiment successfully at an underground test site in Nevada, the 2nd this year and the 23rd such test since 1997.
(http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/100778)
2006 Oct 31, In Reno, Nev., a fire at the Mizpah Hotel killed 12 people. Valerie Moore (47), a casino cook, was arrested the next day for starting the fire.
(SFC, 11/2/06, p.A4)(AP, 11/5/06)(SFC, 11/6/06, p.A3)(AP, 10/31/07)
2006 Nov 4, Katherine Jefferts Schori (52) took office at Washington National Cathedral as the 1st woman to lead the US Episcopal Church and the 1st female to head an Anglican province. The former bishop of Nevada was elected at the Episcopal convention in June.
(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.A9)
2006 Nov 9, The Nevada Supreme Court upheld a Las Vegas city regulation barring erotic dancers from raunchy physical contact with their customers, in a ruling that runs counter to the gambling city's sinful reputation.
(Reuters, 11/11/06)
2006 Nov 14, US Sen. Harry Reid, a moderate Nevada Democrat, was elected by colleagues as US Senate majority leader for the 110th Congress that will convene in January.
(AP, 11/14/06)
2006 Dec 4, Station Casinos of Las Vegas said it received a $4.7 billion buyout offer from its founding family and affiliate of Colony Capital LLC, a private equity firm.
(SFC, 12/5/06, p.C3)
2006 Dec 21, The US Census Bureau said Arizona had deposed Nevada as the fastest growing US state.
(WSJ, 12/22/06, p.A1)
2007 Jan 2, Jim Gibbons, former Republican Representative in Congress, was sworn in as governor of Nevada. He soon faced FBI investigations over unreported gifts while serving on the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees.
(WSJ, 2/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan, The culinary workers’ union in Nevada numbered some 51,000 members representing hotel and casino workers.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.30)
2007 Apr 11, Joe Francis (b.1973), the creator of the “Girls Gone Wild" video series, was indicted in Reno, Nevada, on federal tax charges. In September 2009, Francis pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns and bribing Nevada jail workers. On November 5, 2009, US District Judge S. James Otero accepted Francis’ deal on the grounds that a key witness withheld information from prosecutors.
(SFC, 1/29/10, p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Francis)
2007 Apr 21, Police in Las Vegas raided illegal brothels as part of “Operation Dollhouse," a sting aimed at prostitution and human trafficking with suspected links to Asia. Prostitution is legal in most counties of Nevada, but not in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas.
(SFC, 4/25/07, p.B5)
2007 May 5, In Las Vegas Floyd Mayweather Jr. won his boxing match against Oscar De La Hoya in a 12-round split decision. A sellout crowd of 16,200 paid a record $19 million gate.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 Jun 27, Nevada Solar One, the first large CSP (concentrating solar power) plant built since the 1980s, went online with a capacity to generate 64 megawatts.
(Econ, 9/15/07, p.42)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One)
2007 Jul 6, In Las Vegas Steven Zegrean (51) opened fire on gamblers at the New York-New York casino and wounded 4 people before he was tackled by off-duty military reservists. On Oct 19, 2009, Zegrean was sentenced to 26-90 years in prison.
(SFC, 7/7/07, p.A5)(SFC, 10/20/09, p.A5)
2007 Jul 7, Wildfires in California consumed 17,000 acres in Inyo National Forest and 7,500 acres in Los Padres National Forest. An 8,000-acre wildfire forced hundreds of people in the town of Winnemucca to leave their homes, one of more than a dozen blazes that charred a combined 55 square miles in northern Nevada. In Utah a 160,000-acre wildfire forced evacuations at Cove Fort and the Blundell Geothermal Power Plant. Wildfires also burned in Colorado, Arizona, Oregon and Washington states.
(AP, 7/8/07)(SSFC, 7/8/07, p.A5)
2007 Aug 21, The board of MGM Mirage approved a deal with Dubai World in which the holding company for the Persian Gulf state will eventually acquire a 9.5% stake and 50% ownership in the Las Vegas CityCenter project.
(WSJ, 8/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Aug 28, Burning Man became Burnt Man four days early, and a San Francisco performance artist was arrested on suspicion of igniting the signature figure of the counterculture festival in the remote Nevada desert.
(AP, 8/28/07)
2007 Sep 3, Steve Fossett (b.1944), tycoon turned record seeker, disappeared in Nevada after flying from the Flying M Ranch, owned by billionaire Baron Hilton. In 2002 Fosset became the 1st person to fly around the world in a balloon. In 2006 Fossett authored his autobiography “Chasing the Wind." A search was formally suspended on Oct 2. On Feb 15, 2008, an Illinois court declared him legally dead. In 2008 wreckage of his plane was found on Oct 1 in the rugged eastern mountains of California.
(SFC, 9/5/07, p.A8)(SFC, 9/15/07, p.A1)(SFC, 2/16/08, p.B5)(Econ, 2/23/08, p.106)(Reuters, 10/2/08)
2007 Sep 8, In Nevada Darrin Tuck (26) handed in a videotape to Nevada authorities. The graphic video depicted a 2003 sexual assault on a 2-year-old girl. Chester Arthur Stiles was tracked down following a nationwide manhunt. In 2009 Stiles was sentenced to 21 terms of life in prison.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.A4)(www.amw.com/fugitives/case.cfm?id=49286)
2007 Sep 11, Douglas Eugene "Gene" Savoy, explorer, died at age 80 in Reno, Nev. He discovered more than 40 lost cities in Peru and led long-distance sailing adventures to learn more about ancient cultures. Savoy wrote dozens of books, including "Antisuyo: The Search for the Lost Cities of the Amazon" (1970) about his early discoveries in Peru, and "On the Trail of the Feathered Serpent" (1974) about some of his sea journeys.
(AP, 9/16/07)
2007 Sep 14, Two airplanes collided at the Reno National Championship Air Races, killing one pilot and injuring another in the third fatal crash at the event in four days.
(AP, 9/15/07)
2007 Sep 16, Police in Las Vegas arrested O.J. Simpson saying he was part of an armed group that broke into a hotel room on Sep 13 and snatched memorabilia that documented his sports career. Simpson (60) was booked on five felony counts, including suspicion of assault and robbery with a deadly weapon. On Sep 18 DA David Roger filed the felony charges and added five other felonies, including kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping.
(SFC, 9/17/07, p.A1)(AP, 9/18/07)
2007 Nov 13, In Las Vegas the New Frontier casino, opened in 1942, was imploded to make way for a $5 billion megaresort. It earned historical notations by becoming the Strip's first theme casino and hosting Elvis Presley's debut in the city. Phil Ruffin sold the 34.5-acre site to Elad, owned by Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva, for $1.24 billion in May. Ruffin had bought the Frontier in 1997 for $165 million and quickly settled a nearly 6 1/2-year strike by 550 hotel workers, one of the longest job actions in US history.
(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 15, During a feisty Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Hillary Rodham Clinton accused her closest rivals, Barack Obama and John Edwards, of slinging mud "right out of the Republican playbook" and sharply criticized their records.
(AP, 11/15/08)
2007 Nov 25, Kevin Dubrow (52), lead singer for the 1980s heavy metal band Quiet Riot, died in Las Vegas from an accidental cocaine overdose.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Nov 28, O.J. Simpson pleaded not guilty in Las Vegas to charges of kidnapping and armed robbery stemming from a confrontation with sports memorabilia dealers. Simpson and a co-defendant were convicted in October, 2008.
(AP, 11/28/08)
2007 Dec 7, US federal officials outlined a new plan on how to allocate water to California, Arizona and Nevada from the Colorado River in case of shortages.
(SFC, 12/10/07, p.A9)
2008 Jan 5, A levee break flooded hundreds of homes In Nevada as a storm that has pummeled the West Coast with high wind and heavy rain dropped a thick blanket of snow on the Sierra Nevada.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 19, In Nevada Hillary Clinton defeated rival Barack Obama 51-45% in a tight Democratic contest. Her delegate count increased to 236 followed by Obama with 136 and 50 for Sen. John Edwards. Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor, cruised to victory in the little-contested GOP Nevada caucuses.
(AP, 1/20/08)(SSFC, 1/20/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 20, Brianna Denison (19) last was seen at the edge of the University of Nevada, Reno. Her body was found Feb 15, 8 miles away near a business park and an autopsy confirmed that she died of strangulation. DNA evidence linked her kidnapping to two other attacks on women near the university late last year.
(AP, 2/17/08)
2008 Feb 28, In Las Vegas two vials of ricin were found a manager at the Extended Stay America motel. 2 days earlier police had found firearms and an “anarchist type textbook" there. Roger Von Bergendorff (57) was the last to stay in the room, and has been in critical condition since calling an ambulance on Feb. 14 complaining of respiratory distress. In April Bergendorff was indicted on federal charges that included possession of a biological toxin. Bergendorff was convicted and sentenced in November to 3½ years in federal prison.
(AP, 3/1/08)(SFC, 3/3/08, p.A4)(SFC, 4/23/08, p.A3)(SFC, 11/18/08, p.A8)
2008 Mar 6, In Nevada letters began arriving this week to patients who received injected anesthesia at the endoscopy center from March 2004 to mid-January were urged to get tested for hepatitis B and C, and HIV. The Las Vegas clinic was found to be reusing syringes and vials of medication for nearly four years.
(AP, 3/6/08)
2008 Apr 11, Crystle Stewart (26), of Missouri City, Texas, was named Miss USA, besting 50 other beauty queens for the coveted crown in Las Vegas.
(AP, 4/12/08)
2008 May 12, Oakley Hall (b.1920), prolific author and writing teacher, died in Nevada City. His books included “Warlock" (1958) and “The Art and Craft of Novel Writing" (1994).
(SFC, 5/14/08, p.A1)
2008 May 28, In Reno, Nevada, 30 monkeys were found essentially cooked alive after a repair technician left a heater on at a lab owned by Charles River Laboratories. Two other monkeys had to be euthanized. The company was fined $14,000.
(SFC, 3/18/10, p.A7)(http://tinyurl.com/yab2maj)
2008 Jun 6, Pres. Bush signed a transportation bill that freed $45 million for environmental studies for a levitating train planned to run from Disneyland to Las Vegas.
(SFC, 6/7/08, p.C2)
2008 Jun 28, A small plane crashed outside Las Vegas killing 4 residents of Oakley, Ca.
(SFC, 6/30/08, p.B1)
2008 Jul 25, US regulators took over two banks and sold them to Mutual of Omaha Bank, the sixth and seventh bank failures this year as financial institutions struggle with a housing bust and credit crunch. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said it closed First National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank NA of California.
(Reuters, 7/26/08)
2008 Aug 22, In North Las Vegas, Nevada, an experimental aircraft crashed into a house killing the pilot of the Velocity 173 RG and 2 people in the home.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 30, In Black Rock City, Nevada, the 40-foot Burning Man was set aflame. This year’s festival, themed the American Dream, was marked by a 10-story steel frame tower built by union workers of recycled materials. The annual guidebook reached 77 pages.
(SSFC, 8/31/08, p.B2)
2008 Sep 1, In Nevada an air tanker being used to drop retardant on a wildfire in the Sierra Nevada crashed after taking off for its last flight of the day, killing all three crew members.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 5, US bank regulators shut down Silver State Bank, saying the Nevada bank failed because of losses on soured loans, mainly in commercial real estate and land development. It was the 11th failure this year of a federally insured bank.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Oct 3, O.J. Simpson was found guilty of robbing two sports-memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Las Vegas hotel room on Sep 13, 2007. This was 13 years to the day after being acquitted of killing his wife and her friend in Los Angeles. Four other men charged in the case struck plea bargains that saved them from potential prison sentences in return for their testimony.
(AP, 10/4/08)
2008 Nov 4, Voters in Nevada favored Barack Obama and ousted 2 Republicans to give Democrats a majority in the state senate.
(WSJ, 11/10/08, p.A10)
2008 Dec 5, O.J. Simpson was sentenced in Las Vegas from 9 to 33 years in prison for kidnapping and assaulting two sports memorabilia dealers with a deadly weapon.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 9, Nevada state and federal authorities said they arrested nearly two dozen people, many with ties to Eastern Europe, in a credit card fraud and identity theft scheme that cost Las Vegas businesses and consumers about $1.5 million.
(AP, 12/9/08)
2008 Dec 22, In Nevada the Encore, Steve Wynn’s vaguely Chinese-themed hotel, opened.
(Econ, 2/7/09, p.29)(http://tinyurl.com/byf3qk)
2008 Dec 27, In northern Nevada a 13 rail cars containing grain were involved in a derailment along the Humboldt River. The derailment triggered the collapse of a 102-year-old bridge spanning the river.
(SSFC, 12/28/08, p.B2)
2009 Jan 24, In Las Vegas Miss Indiana Katie Stam was crowned Miss America 2009 by Miss America 2008 Kirsten Haglund.
(AP, 1/25/09)
2009 Apr 17, Great Basin Bank of Elko, Nevada, became the 25th US bank to fail this year.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.79)(www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/greatbasin.html)
2009 May 1, Danny Gans (52), one of the most popular entertainers on the Las Vegas Strip for the last decade, died in his sleep at his home in Henderson, Nev. A coroner later said Gans' death was accidental, caused by a prescription painkiller.
(AP, 5/2/09)(AP, 6/9/09)
2009 May 13, RealtyTrac Inc. said new data indicated that the number of US households faced with losing their homes to foreclosure jumped 32 percent in April compared with the same month last year, with Nevada, Florida and California showing the highest rates.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May, Dr. Conrad Murray (56), a Las Vegas cardiologist, signed on as Michael Jackson's personal physician at $150,000 a month. He was in dire financial shape at the time and owed a total of at least $780,000 in judgments against him and his medical practice, outstanding mortgage payments on his house, delinquent student loans, child support and credit cards.
(AP, 8/1/09)
2009 Aug 14, Real estate lender Colonial BancGroup Inc. was shut down by federal officials in the biggest US bank failure this year. The FDIC, which was appointed receiver of the Montgomery, Ala.-based Colonial and its about $25 billion in assets, said the failed bank's 346 branches in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Texas will reopen at the normal times starting on Aug 15 as offices of Winston-Salem, N.C.-based BB&T. Regulators also closed four other banks: Community Bank of Arizona, based in Phoenix; Union Bank, based in Gilbert, Ariz.; Community Bank of Nevada, based in Las Vegas; and Dwelling House Savings and Loan Association, located in Pittsburgh. The closures boosted to 77 the number of federally insured banks that have failed in 2009.
(AP, 8/15/09)
2009 Sep 30, In Nevada Karamjit Kaur (16), a high school sophomore, disappeared in Reno. Police suspected foul play. She was found with her brother-in-law on Oct 5 at a hotel in Merrillville, Ind.
(SSFC, 10/4/09, p.A10)(SFC, 10/5/09, p.A5)
2009 Nov 19, In Las Vegas Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines demolished Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto to become the only man in history to win seven titles in as many weight classes.
(AFP, 11/20/09)
2009 Dec 16, In Las Vegas, Nevada, the 76-acre CityCenter opened at a cost of around $8.5 billion. It was the largest privately funded construction project in America.
(Econ, 7/10/10, SR p.5)(http://tinyurl.com/y8f6659)
2009 Dec 28, In northern Nevada federal officials began a 2-month roundup of some 2,500 wild horses due to overpopulation. Federal managers on Feb 5 said the roundup was completed with 1,922 mustangs removed from the Calico Mountains Complex. 86 horses died in the government roundup, mostly from stress and trauma.
(SFC, 12/29/09, p.A8)(SFC, 2/6/10, p.A6)(SFC, 4/20/10, p.A6)
2009 Nevada, with a population of about 2.6 million, touted its limited reporting and disclosure requirements for corporations incorporated there. Over 400,000 companies were registered in the state with some 80,000 new firms added per year.
(Econ, 3/28/09, p.87)
2010 Jan 4, In Nevada Las Vegas Johnny Lee Wicks (66), disgruntled over cuts in his Social Security benefits, opened fire in the lobby of the federal court house in Las Vegas killing a court security officer and wounding a deputy. Police officers returned fire and Wicks was killed as he fled across the street.
(SFC, 1/5/10, p.A6)
2010 Jan 9, A company called TrueCompanion premiered the "lifelike" sex robot, Roxxxy on the floor of the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.
(http://tinyurl.com/yb7w8gr)(Econ, 4/2/11, p.65)
2010 Jan 30, In Las Vegas Caressa Cameron (22) of Virginia became the nation's newest Miss America, emerging from a field of 53 contestants picked for their beauty, compassion and interview savvy. Cameron, the first black Miss America since Ericka Dunlap in 2005, said she wants to get a master's degree and eventually become a news anchor.
(AP, 1/31/10)
2010 Feb 19, Pres. Obama, speaking in Nevada targeted Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada in a $1.5 billion “innovation fund" to assist homeowners struggling against foreclosure.
(SFC, 2/20/10, p.A1)
2010 Mar 19, In Las Vegas a fire at the private Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary killed over 250 exotic birds and a dog.
(SFC, 3/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Mar 31, The CalNeva casino on the north shore of Lake Tahoe closed due to declining gambling revenues.
(SFC, 4/1/10, p.C5)
2010 May 16, Rima Fakih (b.1986), a Lebanese-born immigrant and crowned as Miss Michigan, became the first Arab-American woman to win the Miss USA pageant at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rima_Fakih)
2010 May 28, US Regulators shut down three banks in Florida and one each in Nevada and California, bringing the number of US bank failures this year to 78.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 Aug 12, In Nevada 2 gold miners were killed in an accident at the Meikle mine.
(SFC, 8/13/10, p.A6)(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.A9)
2010 Aug 23, In Las Vegas Mexico's Jimena Navarrete (22) was crowned Miss Universe in an upset victory that stunned a pageant world which had predicted a winner to emerge from Ireland, Venezuela or the United States.
(AFP, 8/24/10)
2010 Oct 8, The remains of Lexis Roberts (12) from Nevada were found in Louisiana. A warrant was later issued for Thomas Steven Sanders (53). In 1994 family members had declared Sanders dead, seven years after he vanished. In November the remains of a woman, believed to be her mother, Suellen Roberts (31) were found in Arizona.
(http://tinyurl.com/2dwr8pa)(SFC, 11/5/10, p.A8)(SFC, 11/16/10, p.A18)
2010 Oct 9, It was reported that Madeleine Pickens, the wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, has acquired a Nevada ranch for use as a wild horse sanctuary, the Mustang Monument Preserve. The 14,000 acre property included grazing rights to 540,000 acres of public land. She was also said to be negotiating for and adjoining 4,000-acre ranch with grazing rights to 24,000 acres. She hoped to return all 34,000 in government funded holding facilities and pastures to their natural habitat.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A7)
2010 Oct 14, On the Arizona and Nevada border a soaring bypass bridge high above the Colorado River near Hoover Dam was dedicated after nearly eight years and $240 million worth of work. The bridge, which officially opens next week, is named for former Nevada Gov. Mike O'Callaghan and Pat Tillman.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Nov 3, A federal judge in Reno ordered 6 months of prison time for 2 men who admitted to shooting wild horses while drinking and leaving them to die.
(SFC, 11/4/10, p.A9)
2010 Nov 3, In Colorado Richard Paul (34) was arrested and federal agents seized five pounds of C-4 military explosives from his home in Durango. In Las Vegas Andrew Kaufman (36) was arrested. In San Diego Navy SEAL Nicholas Bickle (33) was arrested. They were accused of conspiring to smuggle and sell weapons to an undercover federal agent in Nevada and Colorado. Bickle, his close friend Paul, and their associate Kaufman allegedly sold machine guns for $1,300 to $2,400 each, and handguns for $300 to an undercover federal agent who told them they would be shipped to Mexico.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, A Nevada panel voted to establish the state’s first-ever bear hunting season. Some 200-300 lived along Nevada’s eastern Sierra.
(SSFC, 12/5/10, p.A14)
2010 Dec 14, In Nevada an armed bandit escaped on a motorcycle after stealing $1.5 million in casino chips from the Bellagio resort. On Feb 3 police identified suspect Anthony M. Carleo (29) of Las Vegas as the bandit. Carleo was booked under the name Anthony M. Assad. On Aug 23, 2011, Carleo was sentenced to at least 3 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A8)(SFC, 2/4/11, p.A7)(SFC, 8/24/11, p.A5)
2010 Dec 15, In Las Vegas the new $3.9 billion Cosmopolitan resort opened with 2,995 rooms and 100,000 square feet of casino.
(SFC, 12/13/10, p.D4)
2010 Dec 17, The states of Arizona and Nevada sued Bank of America Corp., accusing the largest US bank of routinely misleading consumers about home loan modifications.
(Reuters, 12/17/10)
2011 Jan 7, In Nevada a tip led police to the body of dancer Deborah Flores-Narvaez (31) in downtown Las Vegas. Police booked her boyfriend, Jason Griffith (32), on suspicion of murder. Griffith told police he had killed Flores-Narvaez at his home on Dec 12. He chopped off her legs and encased her naked body in concrete.
(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A10)(SFC, 1/11/11, p.A6)
2011 Feb 9, US federal prosecutors announced charges against 41 alleged gang members for activities ranging from racketeering conspiracy to drug and gun trafficking and murder in four states and Washington D.C. Some 29 defendants were arrested and more arrests are expected in connection with the separate cases from Los Angeles; McAllen, Texas; Kansas City; Washington D.C.; and Las Vegas.
(Reuters, 2/9/11)
2011 Mar 3, In Nevada Micaela "Mickey" Costanzo (16), disappeared after track practice at West Wendover High School. Her body was found March 5 in a shallow grave in a remote desert area about five miles west of West Wendover, near the Utah border.
(AP, 3/7/11)
2011 Apr 9, In Las Vegas Elena Caro (42) died after a botched buttocks enhancement surgery in the back room of a tile business. Two Colombia nationals, Ruben Dario Matallana-Galvas (55) and Carmen Olfidia Torres-Sanchez (47), were soon arrested as they tried to board a plane to return home.
(SFC, 4/12/11, p.A4)
2011 Apr 21, Nevada Sen. John Ensign (52) announced that he will resign amid an ethics investigation revolving around and extramarital affair with Cynthia Hampton, a member of his campaign staff and providing lobbying work to her husband. In April, 2008, Ensign’s parents had paid Douglas and Cynthia Hampton $96,000. In 2009 Douglas Hampton said it was severance pay.
(SFC, 4/22/11, p.A6)(SFC, 4/23/11, p.A4)
2011 May 16, Las Vegas marked the end of an era as one of the US gambling mecca's last original "Rat Pack" casino-hotels, the Sahara, closed its doors.
(AFP, 5/16/11)
2011 Jun 8, In Nevada, Carolyn Goodman, wife of popular Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman, succeeded him in office. She was easily elected, receiving 61% of the vote.
(Las Vegas Sun, 6/811)(AP, 6/8/11)
2011 Jun 24, In Nevada a tractor-trailer slammed into an Amtrak’s California Zephyr train on Highway 95 killing at least 6 people including rig driver Lawrence Valli II and a train conductor.
(SFC, 6/25/11, p.A1)(SFC, 6/27/11, p.A1)(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A1)
2011 Jun, In Elko, Nevada, Stephanie Gonzalez was killed in her home. An Elko justice of the peace issued a warrant the arrest of Eduardo Puentes Estrada for murder four days after her death. On Oct 26, 2014, Estrada (32) was taken into custody after he apparently was involved in a fight in Puerto Vallarta.
(AP, 10/28/14)
2011 Jul 14, Nevada authorities said federal and Las Vegas police seized 212 pounds of drugs, $280,000 in cash, 6 guns and 9 vehicles after searching homes in Las Vegas and Henderson. 8 illegal immigrants from Mexico were arrested on drug trafficking charges.
(SFC, 7/15/11, p.A7)
2011 Aug 16, California Gov. Jerry Brown and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval signed a pact with the federal government to increase the clarity of Lake Tahoe by half a foot per year for the next 65 years.
(SFC, 8/17/11, p.C1)
2011 Sep 4, In Nevada the annual burning Man festival in Black Rock Desert drew nearly 54,000 people, more than the 50,000 allowed under its permit.
(SFC, 9/5/11, p.A6)
2011 Sep 6, In Nevada Eduardo Sencion (32), armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, shot an entire group of five uniformed National Guard members eating breakfast at an IHOP, killing 3 of them and another person in a hail of gunfire. Sencion of Carson City, also shot himself and later died at a hospital.
(AP, 9/7/11)(SFC, 9/12/11, p.A4)
2011 Sep 16, In Reno, Nevada, a World War II-era P-51 Mustang fighter plane competing in an event described as a car race in the sky suddenly pitched upward, rolled and did a nose-dive toward a crowded grandstand. 9 people were killed and more than 60 injured. Pilot Jimmy Leeward (74) was among those killed. A 10th victim died on Sep 19.
(AP, 9/17/11)(AP, 9/18/11)(SFC, 9/20/11, p.A6)
2011 Sep 23, In Nevada Jeffrey Pettigrew, president of the San Jose chapter of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club, was shot and killed by Ernesto Manuel Gonzalez (53), an alleged member of the rival Vagos motorcycle gang, at John Ascuaga’s Nugget casino. Gonzalez was arrested 6 days later in San Francisco. On Oct 15 Steve Tausan was shot and killed in San Jose, Ca., at the funeral of Pettigrew. Police sought Steve Ruiz (38) for the killing of Tausan. On Feb 25, 2012, police arrested Tausan at a motel in Fremont, Ca.
(AP, 9/24/11)(SSFC, 10/16/11, p.A15)(SSFC, 10/23/11, p.A11)(SFC, 2/27/12, p.C1)
2011 Sep 23, In Nevada Cesar Villagrana, a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, shot a Vagos motorcycle gang member in the leg at John Ascuaga’s Nugget casino. In 2013 Villagrana (38) pleaded guilty to the shooting and faced 15 years in years.
(SFC, 7/23/13, p.A5)
2011 Sep 26, In Nevada Arthur Gerald Jones (73), a former Chicago commodities trader arrested in July, pleaded guilty to fraud. He had disappeared over three decades ago from Highland Park, Illinois, and was discovered living in Las Vegas under the assumed name of Joseph Richard Sandelli.
(Reuters, 9/26/11)
2011 Oct 7, A federal jury in Las Vegas convicted Navy SEAL Nicholas Bickle on charges that he led a scheme to sell machine guns and explosives from Iraq and Afghanistan in the US. On July 17, 2012, Bickle was sentenced to 17½ years in prison.
(SFC, 10/8/11, p.A5)(SFC, 7/18/12, p.A8)
2011 Oct 7, Wired magazine reported that a computer virus has infected networks used by pilots who control US Air Force drones in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. The spyware resisted efforts to remove it from computers at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.
(SSFC, 10/9/11, p.A12)
2011 Oct 24, President Barack Obama, speaking in Las Vegas, offered mortgage relief to hundreds of thousands of Americans, his latest attempt to ease the economic and political fallout of a housing crisis that has bedeviled him as he seeks a second term.
(AP, 10/24/11)
2011 Nov 18, In Nevada a fire swept throught an upscale community in the sierra foothills in southwest Reno destroying 32 homes. Nearly 10,000 people were forced to evacuate the area.
(SSFC, 11/20/11, p.A16)
2011 Dec 7, In Nevada 5 people were killed when a helicopter flying tourists over the Hoover Dam crashed into a mountain range bordering Lake Mead.
(SFC, 12/9/11, p.A11)
2012 Jan 13, In Nevada a Monsignor Kevin McAuliffe (59) was sentenced to 3 years and one month in prison and ordered to repay $650,000 he acknowledged siphoning from his Las Vegas parish to support a gambling habit.
(SFC, 1/13/12, p.A6)\
2012 Jan 14, Laura Kaeppeler (23), a beauty queen from Wisconsin, won the Miss America pageant in Las Vegas after singing opera and strutting in a white bikini and black beaded evening gown.
(AP, 1/14/12)
2012 Jan 17, Grant Korgan (33), of Incline Village, arrived at the South Pole on the 100-year anniversary of the Terra Nova Expedition. Korgan, paralyzed in a 2010 snowmobiling accident, used a device called a Sitski to get there. The expedition party included paralympian John Davis, two guides and cinematographers who were shooting for a documentary called "The Push: A South Pole Adventure." The film is expected to be released later this year.
(AP, 1/18/12)
2012 Feb 4, Mitt Romney won Nevada's Republican caucuses, grabbing the largest chunk of the state's 28 delegates in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Romney won 48% of the vote; Gingrich won 23%, Ron Paul 19% and Rick Santorum 11%.
(SSFC, 2/5/12, p.A1)
2012 Feb 8, John Fairfax (74), a self-proclaimed "professional adventurer," died near Las Vegas. He became famous in 1969 as the first person to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. He also rowed across the Pacific with his then-girlfriend Sylvia Cook, an ocean crossing that took him a full year to complete, from April 1971 to April 1972. His exploits inspired two memoirs: "Britannia: Rowing Alone Across the Atlantic" and "Oars Across the Pacific," both published in the early 1970s.
(AFP, 2/19/12)
2012 Jan 8, The Consumer Electronics Show opened in Las Vegas. South Korea-based Samsung and LG introduced their new 55-inch organic light emitting diode (OLED) HDTVs.
(SFC, 3/15/12, p.D2)
2012 Apr 4, It was reported that Wang Yusuo, founder of China’s ENN Group, has teemed with Nevada Senator Harry Reid to develop a solar plant in Laughlin, Nevada. ENN offered $4.5 million for land assessed at $38.6 million.
(SFC, 4/4/12, p.D5)
2012 Apr 15, In Las Vegas Ignacia Martinez (38) and her daughter Karla (10) were raped and bludgeoned to death. Arturo Martinez, the husband and father, was critically injured with head injuries. On April 27 police arrested Bryan Clay (22) for the attacks.
(SSFC, 4/29/12, p.A9)
2012 Jun 3, A Lockheed P2V aerial firefighter crashed in Utah killing 2 pilots. Another P2V, fighting a wildfire south of Reno, crash-landed at Minden-Tahoe Airport.
(SFC, 6/4/12, p.A8)
2012 Jun 22, North Las Vegas, after five years of declining property taxes, massive layoffs and questionable spending, declared a state of emergency, invoking a rarely used state law crafted for unforeseen disasters.
(AP, 6/22/12)
2012 Aug 25, In Nevada a single-engine Piper PA32 crashed in South Lake Tahoe killing all 5 people onboard.
(SFC, 8/28/12, p.C2)
2012 Oct 12, UC Berkeley law students Justin Teixeira and Eric Cuellar were seen laughing and throwing around the body of a dead helmeted guinea fowl at the Flamingo casino in Las Vegas. On Dec 28 prosecutors filed animal cruelty charges against both men. In 2013 Cuellar pleaded guilty and was fined $200 and sentenced to 48 hours of community service. A 3rd defendant Hazhir Kargaran (26) pleaded no contest to 3 misdemeanors and was sentenced to 2 days in jail and 48 hours of community service. Teixeira pleaded guilty to a felony animal killing was sentenced to 6 months in boot camp and then probation. On may 13, 2014, Teixeira was sentenced to 4 years’ probation and monthly work at an animal shelter.
(SFC, 12/28/12, p.A5)(SFC, 6/14/13, p.C8)(SFC, 5/13/14, p.A5)
2012 Oct 24, Police in southern California arrested Akingide Cole of Palmdale for the theft of $1.6 million in casino chips from the Venetian resort in Las Vegas. Detectives recovered $396,000 in chips.
(SFC, 10/31/12, p.A4)
2012 Dec 19, In Las Vegas Olivia Culpo (20), a student at Boston University, became the new Miss Universe, defeating dozens of contestants from six continents. An American had not won the Miss Universe title since Brook Lee won in 1997.
(AP, 12/20/12)
2012 Dec 21, Brenda Stokes Wilson (50) slashed a co-worker at the Bellagio casino in las Vegas. It was later learned that she had stabbed to death Jade Morris (10), her ex-boyfriend’s daughter, whom she was supposed to take Christmas shopping.
(SFC, 1/3/13, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/bznkswf)
2013 Jan 12, In Las Vegas Mallory Hagan, a 23-year-old blonde from Brooklyn, N.Y., won the Miss America crown after deftly dealing with a question about armed guards in schools and raising the issue of child sexual abuse in her contestant platform.
(AP, 1/13/13)
2013 Feb 21, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval signed legislation legalizing online gambling.
SFC, 2/22/13, p.A7)
2013 Feb 21, In Las Vegas a Maserati ran a red light at one of the Strip's busiest intersections and smashed into a taxi that exploded into flames, killing taxi driver Michael Boldon (62) and passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund (48), of Maple Valley, Wash. Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr., the driver of the Maserati, was killed. Bullets had flown from a black Range Rover at the Maserati as the vehicles raced toward a red light on the Strip. The black SUV was found on Feb 23 as police named Ammar Harris (26) in connection with the shooting and six-vehicle chain-reaction carnage. Ammar Harris was arrested in Los Angeles on Feb 28.
(AP, 2/21/13)(AP, 2/24/13)(AP, 2/28/13)
2013 Mar 5, In Las Vegas Xiao Ye Bai (26), convicted of being an enforcer for a Taiwan-based criminal gang, was sentenced to life in a Nevada prison without parole for murder in a bloody stabbing and slashing that left Wen Jun Li dead and two people wounded in a Las Vegas karaoke bar in July 2009.
(AP, 3/5/13)(SFC, 3/6/13, p.A4)
2013 Mar 18, In Nevada 7 Marines were killed when a mortar round exploded during a live-fire training exercise at the Hawthorne Army Depot.
(SFC, 3/20/13, p.A8)
2013 Mar 30, In Nevada a freeway crash on I-15 killed five Southern California family members and injured two others. On April 10 Jean Ervin Soriano (18), a juvenile detention escapee, was charged with seven felony charges of driving under the influence. He had a blood-alcohol percentage of 0.12, well above the Nevada legal limit of 0.08 percent.
(AP, 4/10/13)
2013 Apr 6, In Nevada the body of William McCune (62), the state’s chief insurance inspector, was found in the Carson River in Carson City. McCune was reported missing on April 4. Four suspects, believed to have stolen property, were arrested in the case.
(SSFC, 4/7/13, p.A13)(SFC, 4/8/13, p.A5)
2013 Apr 22, As Nevada legislators emotionally debated a move toward same-sex marriage, Sen. Kelvin Atkinson rose to his feet and declared, "I'm gay." Atkinson says that he quickly picked up hundreds of new friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter.
(AP, 4/24/13)
2013 Apr 27, British anti-war protesters demonstrated outside a Royal Air Force base used to control drone flights over Afghanistan. Until this week, British drones were operated only from a US Air Force base in Nevada.
(AP, 4/27/13)
2013 Apr 30, A Las Vegas casino subsidiary launched Ultimate Gaming, the first fully legal poker website in the US.
(SFC, 5/1/13, p.A8)
2013 May 29, Nevada powerbroker Harvey Whittemore (59) was convicted by a federal jury in Reno on three counts tied to almost $150,000 illegally funneled to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev) in 2007.
(SFC, 5/30/13, p.A5)
2013 May 31, Nevada's Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval signed a bill to authorize driving privilege cards for illegal immigrants in an action that is likely to win favor in the state's large and growing Hispanic community.
(Reuters, 5/31/13)
2013 Jun 8, In Nevada officials of Lake Mead urged people to avoid the Overton Arm of the lake following the appearance of a mysterious brown foam over an 8-mile area.
(SFC, 6/12/13, p.A5)
2013 Jun 11, Psychiatric patient James Flavey Coy Brown filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in Nevada accusing state officials of giving him a one-way ticket to northern California, where he arrived without money and identification. The complaint sought class-action status for as many as 1,500 people that lawyers claim were bused since 2008 from Nevada to almost every US state.
(SFC, 6/13/13, p.A8)
2013 Jun 16, In Las Vegas Erin Brady (25) of South Glastonbury, Conn., won the Miss America beauty pageant.
(AP, 6/17/13)
2013 Jun 28, It was reported that a pneumonia outbreak has killed at least 20 bighorn sheep on Old Dad Mountain in California’s Mohave National Preserve. Nevada numbered some 10,000 adult animals in at least 60 mountain ranges.
(SFC, 6/28/13, p.D5)
2013 Jun 29, In Nevada Sarah Guillot-Guyard (31), an acrobat and mother of two with Cirque du Soleil, died in las Vegas after falling some 50 feet from a production of “Ka" at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
(SFC, 7/2/13, p.A12)
2013 Aug 13, A US federal appeals court ruled that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been violating federal law by delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada.
(SFC, 8/14/13, p.A6)
2013 Aug 15, A CIA history was released that referred to Area 51 in Nevada by name and described some of the activities that took place there.
(SFC, 8/17/13, p.A5)
2013 Aug 20, Police in Las Vegas, Nevada, arrested David Allen Brutsche (42) and Devon Campbell Newman (67), members of the “sovereign citizens" movement, for plotting to abduct, torture and kill police officers.
(SFC, 8/24/13, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/mt5ctzl)
2013 Sep 10, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the state of Nevada accusing it of deliberately giving almost 500 psychiatric patients one-way bus tickets to California.
(SFC, 9/11/13, p.D1)
2013 Oct 21, In Nevada a boy (12) opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic Ruger handgun at Sparks Middle School killing math teacher Michael Landsberry (45) and critically wounding two students before killing himself.
(AFP, 10/21/13)(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A6)(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 23, A Nevada jury found Saudi Arabian air force Sgt. Mazen Alotaibi guilty of sexually assaulting a boy (13) at the Circu Circus hotel in las Vegas on New Year’s Eve.
(SFC, 10/24/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 1, In Nevada Lee Hosey Jr. (25) was sentenced to 24-80 years in prison for a drunken driving crash in Las Vegas on Sep 13, 2012, that left 4 people dead and several injured.
(SFC, 11/2/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 17, In Reno, Nevada, a gunman opened fire at the Center for Advanced Medicine killing one person and wounding two others before killing himself.
(SFC, 12/18/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 30, The US FAA selected six states (Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas and Virginia) to test how drones can be more widely used in US airspace. 24 states had competed for selection.
(SFC, 12/31/13, p.A6)
2014 Jan 27, In Las Vegas the Prince and Princess pet store was torched. Firefighters rescued 27 puppies alive. Videos showed Gloria Eun Hye Lee, a US citizen originally from South Korea, and a man torching the store. Lee was arrested on Feb 7 and accomplice Kirk Bills was arrested in Indiana.
(AP, 2/8/14)
2014 Feb 11, The websites of casinos owned by Las Vegas Sands Corp. were hacked. These included sites for a Sands casino in Bethlehem, Pa., as well as casinos in Nevada and Macao.
(SFC, 2/12/14, p.A4)
2014 Feb 13, In Nevada Wayne Burgarello shot and killed Cody Devine (34) and wounded Janai Wilson (29) after confronting them sleeping at his vacant duplex in Sparks. On May 29, 2015, Burgarello (74) was found not guilty after insisting he was acting in self-defense.
(http://tinyurl.com/pks2m5o)(SSFC, 5/31/15, p.A6)
2014 Mar 1, In Nevada a US fighter jet crashed during a training exercise because of a snow storm in mountainous terrain. The pilot was later identified as Marine Capt. Reid Nannen (32).
(SFC, 3/3/14, p.A6)(SFC, 3/10/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 12, US officials ended a stand-off with hundreds of armed protesters in the Nevada desert, calling off the government's roundup of cattle it said were illegally grazing on federal land and giving about 300 animals back to the rancher who owned them.
(Reuters, 4/13/14)
2014 May 15, A federal judge in Las Vegas imposed a 20-year sentence on David Camez (22) for his role in what authorities say is an unprecedented criminal case involving an international cybercrime syndicate with hundreds of thousands of US victims. He was already is serving a seven-year term in Arizona for similar crimes. He also was ordered to share in restitution of nearly $51 million.
(AP, 5/16/14)
2014 Jun 9, In Nevada Jerad (31) and Amanda Miller (22) ambushed police officers Alyn Beck (41) and Igor Soldo eating lunch at a Las Vegas restaurant fatally shooting them at point-blank range before fleeing to a nearby Walmart where they killed Joseph Wilcox (31), who tried to stop them with his legal handgun, and then themselves.
(SFC, 6/9/14, p.A6)(SFC, 6/10/14, p.A6)(SSFC, 6/15/14, p.A10)(SFC, 6/23/14, p.A6)
2014 Jul 8, Federal water managers said drought in the southwestern US will deplete Nevada’s vast Lake Mead this week to levels not seen since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
(Reuters, 7/9/14)
2014 Jul 22, In Nevada Nathan Stoliar (64) of Australia pleaded guilty to charges in federal court for his role in a scheme to bilk a US biodiesel fuel program out of more than $41 million. Federal prosecutors said Stoliar and a Las Vegas man, James Jariv, used firms in Canada and Las Vegas to fraudulently generate millions of dollars' worth of federally-funded credits known as renewable identification numbers.
(AP, 7/23/14)
2014 Jul 31, Tesla said that it broke ground in June at a site outside Reno for a potential 6,500-employee battery factory.
(SFC, 8/1/14, p.A1)
2014 Aug 25, In Nevada the Burning Man festival in the desert north of Reno, scheduled to open at 10am, was closed to new arrivals due to rain.
(SFC, 8/26/14, p.C2)
2014 Aug 28, In Nevada a woman (29) died after falling under a large vehicle at the Burning Man counter-cultural festival.
(AFP, 8/28/14)
2014 Sep 4, Tesla Motors announced plans to build its new $5 billion battery factory in Nevada.
(SFC, 9/4/14, p.A1)
2014 Sep 8, In Nevada an experimental plane crashed killing pilot Lee Behel (64) as he attempted to qualify for the Reno National Championship Air Races.
(SFC, 9/16/14, p.A6)
2014 Oct 7, A US federal appeals court in San Francisco struck down Nevada and Idaho’s bans on same-sex marriage. The ruling also applies to all nine states in the court’s territory and will overturn marriage bans in Montana, Alaska and Arizona.
(SFC, 10/8/14, p.A6)
2014 Nov 6, A Guam jury convicted three people of mailing drugs from Las Vegas to Guam. Nine other defendants signed plea deals in the case.
(AP, 11/6/14)
2014 Nov, SF-based Uber suspended ride services in Nevada after a state judge banned its unlicensed operations statewide. Uber had refused to seek licensing claiming it was a technology company, not a motor carrier.
(SSFC, 11/30/14, p.D2)
2014 Dec 9, In Nevada a woman and two men from China pleaded guilty in federal court in Las Vegas to reduced charges in what prosecutors say amounted to a $13 million illegal Internet gambling operation broken up by an FBI raid at high-roller suites at Caesars Palace.
(AP, 12/10/14)
2015 Jan 6, The Intl’. Consumer Electronics Show opened in Las Vegas.
(Econ, 1/3/15, p.48)
2015 Feb 12, In Las Vegas Tammy Meyers (44) was shot in the head outside her home in a Las Vegas cul-de-sac shortly before midnight after confrontations that began when she was giving her daughter (15) an after-hours driving lesson and the girl honked at a driver she felt was speeding. The mother's life-support was disconnected on Valentine's Day. On Feb 19 police arrested Erich Nowsch (19) on suspicion of murder.
(http://tinyurl.com/odzz2sf)(SFC, 2/20/15, p.A7)
2015 Mar, A judge in Las Vegas ruled that Panama-based Mossack Fonseca and MF Nevada were one and the same. Under American law this allowed any investigator anywhere in the world to subpoena Mossack through the Nevada subsidiary for information relevant to cases in any country.
(Econ, 4/16/15, p.61)
2015 May 2, In Las Vegas boxer Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines lost by unanimous decision to American Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a 12-round fight.
(AP, 5/3/15)
2015 May 4, In Las Vegas the 2,075-room Riviera Hotel and Casino closed. The 26-acre site was purchased last February by the Los Vegas Convention and Visitor Authority.
(SFC, 5/5/15, p.D4)
2015 Dec 10, Nevada’s Gov. Brian Sandoval announced plans to offer $335 million in state tax incentives and infrastructure upgrades to an upstart, Chinese investor-backed electric carmaker that wants to build $1 billion production plant in a Las Vegas suburb.
(AP, 12/11/15)
2015 Dec 20, In Nevada Lakeisha Holloway, with a toddler in her car, swerved multiple times onto a busy sidewalk on the Las Vegas Strip, leaving one dead and 30 injured.
(AFP, 12/21/15)
2015 Dec 20, In Nevada Colombian contestant Ariadna Gutierrez Arevalo was already wearing this year's Miss Universe crown when host Steve Harvey returned to announce on live television that he had mistakenly read from a cue card, and that Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach, the contestant from the Philippines, was actually this year's winner.
(AP, 12/21/15)(SFC, 12/22/15, p.E6)
2015 Dec, In Nevada the family of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson acquired control of the Las Vegas Review Journal, the state’s largest newspaper. Adelson was a major benefactor of the Republican Party.
(SFC, 12/30/15, p.C3)
2016 Feb 20, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump grabbed a big win in the South Carolina primary, while Democrat Hillary Clinton breathed life into her sluggish campaign with a victory over Bernie Sanders in Nevada.
(AFP, 2/21/16)
2016 Mar 10, In Nevada a drone made by Flirtey successfully delivered a package to a residential location in Hawthorne in what was reportedly the first fully autonomous urban drone delivery in the US.
(AP, 3/26/16)
2016 May 7, In Nevada Airbus completed a test flight of a glider set to eventually travel to the edge of space, in a pioneering step into the stratosphere.
(AFP, 5/7/16)
2016 Jun 14, In Nevada the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas was imploded. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Center expected to spend $42 million to level the 13-building campus with plans for expansion.
(SFC, 6/14/16, p.A4)
2016 Jul 10, In northwestern Nevada 2 federal firefighters were killed when their vehicle crashed while returning from a patrol for lightning-sparked wildfires.
(SFC, 7/12/16, p.A5)
2016 Aug 31, President Barack Obama opened a two-day environmental tour aimed at showcasing conservation efforts before traveling to Asia. Obama visited Lake Tahoe to speak at a summit dedicated to the iconic lake's preservation. He then headed to Honolulu, for a speech to a gathering of leaders of island nations in the Pacific Ocean.
(AP, 8/31/16)
2016 Aug, Steve Wynn opened his $4.2 billion Wynn Palace in Las Vegas.
(Econ, 10/8/16, p.57)
2016 Nov 8, Former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto defeated Rep. Joseph J. Heck (R) in a narrow fight, becoming the first woman of Hispanic descent to take a place in the Senate.
(CSM, 11/9/16)
2016 Nov 8, Voters rendered a split decision on gun control measures in the election, approving universal background checks for private firearms sales in Nevada while narrowly rejecting them in Maine.
(Reuters, 11/9/16)
2016 Dec 28, Pres. Obama designated two new national monuments. The Bears Ears National Monument in Utah encompassed 300,000 acres. Gold Butte National Monument in Nevada protected 1.35 million acres.
(SFC, 12/29/16, p.A5)(Econ, 1/14/17, p.27)
2017 Jan 4, In Nevada Faraday Future’s FF91 was unveiled during a press event for CES17 in las Vegas. The company was backed by Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting. Production was scheduled to start in Nevada this year with first deliveries in 2018.
(SFC, 1/5/17, p.C2)
2017 Jan 20, Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp. agreed to pay $6.96 million to US authorities to end a more than five year corrupt practices investigation of the firms former relationship with a consultant in China and Macao. This was in addition to a $9 million payment made in April to settle a US SEC investigation that found some payments to the consultant were not properly authorized or documented.
(SFC, 1/21/17, p.A8)
2017 Mar 22, An estimated 17,000 AT&T workers in California and Nevada went on strike to protest the handling of work assignments. Technicians and call center workers returned to work the next day following an agreement on work assignments.
(SFC, 3/23/17, p.C1)(SFC, 3/24/17, p.C1)
2017 Mar 25, In Nevada a gunman, later identified as Rolando Cardenas (55), opened fire on a double-decker bus on the Las Vegas Strip, killing one person and wounding another before finally surrendering.
(AFP, 3/26/17)(SSFC, 3/26/17, p.A8)(SFC, 3/27/17, p.A4)
2017 Mar 27, National Football League (NFL) owners voted 37-1 to approve the Oakland Raiders’ move to Las Vegas.
(SFC, 3/28/17, p.A1)
2017 Apr 24, A jury in Las Vegas found Gregory Burleson of Arizona guilty of eight charges related to the armed standoff near Clive Bundy’s Nevada ranch in 2014. Todd Engel of Idaho was found guilty of obstruction and extortion. The jury deadlocked on charges against four other men
(SFC, 4/25/17, p.A6)
2017 May 14, A Las Vegas police Officer Kenneth Lopera used a stun gun seven times and an unapproved neck hold on Toshii Brown (40), an unarmed black man in a deadly foot chase. The officer reported that Toshii was trying to carjack a pickup truck.
(SFC, 5/18/17, p.A4)(SFC, 5/19/17, p.A5)
2017 Jul 1, Nevada became the 5th US state to let marijuana shops sell recreational pot.
(SSFC, 7/2/17, p.C1)
2017 Jul 20, In Nevada O.J. Simpson (70) was granted parole after more than eight years in prison for a Las Vegas hotel-room heist, successfully making his case for freedom in a nationally televised hearing that reflected America's enduring fascination with the former football star. Simpson was due to be freed on October 1.
(AP, 7/21/17)(SFC, 7/21/17, p.D1)
2017 Aug 2, Marcus Hutchins (23), a British cybersecurity researcher, was arrested at McCarran Int’l. Airport in Las Vegas as he prepared to fly home following a cybersecurity convention. On August 14 he faced charges in Wisconsin for committing computer fraud. Four months earlier he had identified a “kill switch" to slow the outbreak of the WannaCry virus that crippled computer worldwide. In 2019 Hutchins pleaded guilty to writing malware in 2015, before changing to a career in cybersecurity. He was sentenced to time served.
(SFC, 8/1517, p.A7)(SFC, 4/22/19, p.A7)(SFC, 7/27/19, p.A6)
2017 Aug 20, Jerry Lewis (b.1926), American actor and comedian born as Joseph Levitch, died in Las Vegas. His many films included “The Nutty Professor" (1963) and “The King of Comedy" (1982). For years he hosted telethons for muscular dystrophy.
(SFC, 8/21/17, p.A1)
2017 Aug 26, In Las Vegas Conor McGregor lost his match against Floyd Mayweather Jr. as referee Robert Byrd stopped the bout in the 10th round. Mayweather secured his place in boxing history to head into retirement with a record 50th straight victory.
(AP, 8/27/17)(AFP, 8/27/17)
2017 Sep 3, In California Aaron Joel Mitchell (41) died at UC Davis after he ran through two layers of security the previous evening and into flames of the Burning Man in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.
(SFC, 9/4/17, p.A5)
2017 Sep 30, In Nevada three boys were killed after they were struck on an east Las Vegas sidewalk by a driver who may have been trying to pass another vehicle at a high rate of speed. Driver Joseph Eskandarian (28) was arrested early the next day.
(SFC, 10/2/17, p.A4)
2017 Oct 1, In Nevada Stephen Craig Paddock (64) opened fire from inside the 32-floor Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino unleashing a hail of bullets on the outdoor Route 91 Harvest Festival below. 58 people were killed in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. Paddock had at least 23 guns in his hotel suite and investigators found at least 19 additional firearms at his home in Mesquite. Paddock had stockpiled 47 guns since 1982. His father Benjamin Hoskins Paddock (d.1998) had tried to run down an FBI agent in 1960 and escaped from federal prison in Texas in 1968. Investigators found him in 1978 after he attracted publicity for opening Oregon’s first licensed bingo parlor.
(AP, 10/2/17)(SFC, 10/2/17, p.A6)(SFC, 10/3/17, p.A6)(SFC, 10/5/17, p.A9)
2017 Oct 1, In Nevada O.J. Simpson (70) was released from Lovelock Correctional Center after serving nine years for a botched hotel room heist.
(SFC, 10/2/17, p.A4)
2017 Oct 27, US Pres. Donald Trump said he is approving the recommendation of Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments in Utah along with Nevada’s Gold Butte and Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou.
(SFC, 10/28/17, p.A4)
2017 Dec 20, A US judge in Nevada declared a mistrial in the case against Nevada rancher Clive Bundy, accused of leading a 2014 armed standoff with federal agents in a cattle grazing dispute.
(SFC, 12/21/17, p.A6)
2017 Dec 30, In Las Vegas two security guards were fatally shot Arizona Charlie’ Hotel and Casino on Decatur Blvd. Gunman Christopher Olague fled the seen but was soon found at a residence with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
(SSFC, 12/31/17, p.A7)
2017 In Nevada the 82-year-old Culinary Workers Union Local 216 included some 57,000 members and represented employees at most of the casinos on the Vegas Strip and downtown.
(Econ, 8/12/17, p.21)
2018 Jan 8, A federal judge in Nevada dismissed charges against Cliven Bundy and his sons. They had been accused of leading an armed standoff against federal land managers at the Bundy ranch in 2014.
(SFC, 1/9/18, p.A10)
2018 Jan 18, Allan 'Gut' Terk (78), psychedelic artist and one of Ken Kesey's Marry Pranksters of the 1960s, died in Nevada.
(SFC, 2/15/18, p.D3)
2018 Feb 6, In Nevada the board of directors of Wynn Resorts accepted the resignation of billionaire casino mogul Steve Wynn. The announcement came less than two weeks after the Wall Street Journal reported that a number of women said Wynn harassed or assaulted them and that one case led to a $7.5 million settlement.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 25, In Nevada a British tourist who was pulled from the wreckage of a fiery helicopter crash in the Grand Canyon died from her injuries, bringing the total number of deaths from the Feb. 10 crash up to five.
(AP, 2/26/18)
2018 Apr 4, In Nevada a US Air Force pilot was killed in the crash of his F-16 Fighting Falcon jet during training near Nellis Air Force Base.
(SFC, 4/6/18, p.A5)
2018 Apr 15, In Nevada Anthony Wrobel (42), opened fire on a picnic for employees of the Las Vegas Venetian resort killing a woman and critically injuring a man. Wrobel fled the scene and his vehicle was found at a local airport.
(SFC, 4/17/18, p.A8)
2018 Jun 1, In Las Vegas Vietnamese tourists Sang Boi Nghia and Khoung Ba Le Nguyen were found fatally stabbed at their Circus Circus hotel room. Suspect Julius Trotter (31) was arrested On June 7 following a car chase in Chino, Ca.
(SSFC, 6/3/18, p.A8)(SFC, 6/9/18, p.A6)
2018 Jun 9, In Las Vegas Terence Crawford of Nebraska dropped Jeff Horn of Australia with 50 seconds left in the ninth and sent him into the ropes with a slew of punches, ending the fight and winning the WBO welterweight title.
(AP, 6/10/18)
2018 Jul 11, A Nevada judge put the execution of two-time killer Scott Raymond Dozier on hold after pharmaceutical company Alvogen urged the judge to block the use of its sedative midazolam, saying the state had illegally secured the product.
(SFC, 7/12/18, p.A14)
2018 Jul 22, In Nevada John Kelley O'Connor (48) walked into his Mormon church in Fallon and opened fire killing one man and wounding another. O'Connor was charged with murder and battery.
(SFC, 7/24/18, p.A5)
2018 Jul, The US federal Bureau of land management began rounding up wild horses in Nevada and Utah as drought threatened their livelihood. Volunteers in Arizona and Colorado were said to be hauling food and water to dried up grazing grounds. The region was home to some 67,000 wild horses.
(SFC, 7/24/18, p.A10)
2018 Aug 6, Paul Laxalt (96), former Nevada governor (1967-1971) and US Senator (1974-1987), died in Virginia.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Laxalt)(SFC, 8/7/18, p.A7)
2018 Oct 16, In Nevada Dennis Hof (72), Republican nominee to the state Assembly, died overnight at his Love Branch Brothel, just outside Pahrump. On Nov. 6 voters chose Hoff over Lesia Romanov for the 36th Assembly District. Officials planned to appoint a Republican to take his place.
(SFC, 10/17/18, p.A5)(SFC, 11/8/18, p.A8)
2018 Dec 29, In Nevada a woman skipped out on a $35 manicure and used a stolen car to run over and kill manicurist Ngoc Nguyen (51) in Las Vegas. Krystal Whipple (21) was arrested on Jan. 11, 2019, in Glendale, Arizona, by a team of fugitive hunters.
(SFC, 1/12/19, p.A6)
2019 Jan 16, In Nevada Wilber Ernesto Martinez-Guzman (20), an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, fatally shot a Reno couple with it at their home with a gun stolen from the couple two weeks earlier. The couple had employed him as a landscaper. His DNA was found on the revolver also used to kill Connie Koontz and Sophia Renken in their homes in Gardnerville. Koontz was found dead Jan. 10. Renken's body was found Jan. 13. Martinez-Guzman was arrested Jan. 19 in Carson City.
(SFC, 1/29/19, p.A5)(AP, 2/8/19)
2019 Jan 19, In Las Vegas Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines showed flashes of his old speed in winning a unanimous 12-round decision over Adrien Broner to easily defend his piece of the welterweight title.
(AP, 1/20/19)
2019 Mar 16, In Nevada a robbery suspect died following a shootout the previous evening outside the Bellagio hotel-casino in Las Vegas.
(SSFC, 3/17/19, p.A8)
2019 Sep 1, It was reported that scientists have detected microplastics at several locations around Lake Tahoe for this first time this year and they're working to understand what that means for human health and the environment of the Tahoe Basin.
(AP, 9/1/19)
2019 Sep 3, It was reported that authorities have arrested at least 58 people at this year's Burning Man festival in the northern Nevada desert, 14 more than last year. The counter-culture gathering wrapped up on Sept. 2 after attracting more than 70,000 people about 100 miles (160 km) north of Reno.
(AP, 9/4/19)
2019 Sep 7, In Nevada two people were killed and three others injured late today in the crash of a small private plane near Henderson Executive Airport.
(AP, 9/8/19)
2019 Oct 3, It was reported that survivors and family of 58 people who were slain in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, 2017, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, have reached a settlement of at least $735 million with MGM Resorts.
(AP, 10/3/19)
2019 Oct 6, It was reported that Nevada Officials are testing dead animals and monitoring migratory elk and deer at the state line with Utah for signs of chronic wasting disease, a highly contagious and terminal disorder that causes symptoms such as lack of fear of humans, lethargy and emaciation.
(AP, 10/6/19)
2019 Oct 16, Las Vegas police said the body of a woman missing for five months has been found encased in concrete in the desert and that a suspect has been arrested. Christopher Prestipino (45) was arrested on Oct. 11 on suspicion of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder. Lisa Mort (31) was also arrested for allegedly helping to conceal the killing.
(AP, 10/16/19)
2019 Oct 30, A woman in her 40s was kidnapped in North Las Vegas. Shed was dragged to, Palmdale, California, by father-and-daughter kidnappers. She was found by military personnel on Oct. 6 cold but alive after a harrowing, weeklong kidnapping where she was raped, robbed and left for dead in the desert. Stanley Alfred Lawton (54) and his daughter Shaniya Nicole Poche-Lawton (22) were soon arrested.
(AP, 11/9/19)
2019 Nov 15, Charles Gary Sullivan (73) of Arizona was charged with open murder of Julia Woodward (21) of San Rafael, California. In 1979 the woman's bludgeoned body was discovered in a shallow grave near Reno, Nevada.
(ABC News, 11/17/19)
2019 Dec 14, Federal officials said two programmers in Las Vegas recently admitted to running two of the largest illegal television and movie streaming services in the country. An FBI investigation led officials to Darryl Polo (36) and Luis Villarino (40) who have pleaded guilty to copyright infringement charges for operating iStreamItAll, a subscription-based streaming site, and Jetflix, a large illegal TV streaming service.
(USA Today, 12/16/19)
2019 Dec 21, In Nevada six people were killed and 13 injured after a fire this morning in a three-story apartment complex in downtown Las Vegas.
(AP, 12/21/19)(SFC, 12/24/19, p.A4)
2020 Jan 10, In Nevada Margaret Rudin (76), a socialite antiques shop owner dubbed the “black widow" while she was a fugitive ahead of her 2001 trial, left a women’s prison after winning parole from her 20-years-to-life sentence for the killing of real estate mogul Ron Rudin. The 64-year-old prominent Las Vegas real estate developer had disappeared in December 1994. Fishermen stumbled across his skull and some charred bones a month later near the shoreline of a Colorado River reservoir about 45 miles (72 kilometers) outside Las Vegas.
(AP, 1/10/20)
2020 Jan 29, Illinois, Nevada and Virginia, the last three states to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, sued the archivist of the US government, demanding that an amendment to the US Constitution guaranteeing equal rights for women be declared valid.
(Reuters, 1/30/20)
2020 Feb 15, It was reported that the Bureau of Land Management has announced plans to fund 11,000 miles (17,703 km) of strategic fuel breaks in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada and Utah in an effort to help control wildfires.
(AP, 2/15/20)
2020 Feb 18, It was announced that billionaire Mike Bloomberg has qualified for the Feb 19 Democratic presidential debate in Nevada, marking the first time he’ll stand alongside the rivals he has so far avoided by bypassing the early voting states and using his personal fortune to define himself through television ads.
(AP, 2/18/20)
2020 Feb 19, In Nevada Democrats savaged New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg and raised pointed questions about Bernie Sanders' take-no-prisoners politics during a contentious debate that threatened to further muddy the party's urgent quest to defeat President Donald Trump.
(AP, 2/19/20)
2020 Feb 22, Nevada Democrats hosted hundreds of caucuses, the third contest in the state-by-state presidential nominating process. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won his second straight contest with a convincing 47% victory in Nevada. Former VP Joe Biden finished a distant second with 19%.
(Reuters, 2/22/20)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Nevada
End of file.
Return to home
Facts & Links: http://www.50states.com/nevada.htm
Nevada means "snow-capped" in Spanish. The Mountain Bluebird (Sialia Artica, also commonly known as the "Arctic Blue-bird") is the official state bird and the Sagebrush is the official flower. The state motto is "All for our country," and the state slogan is "Battle Born." Its size is 110,561 square miles.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E3)(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.1B)
Before whites arrived the Indians around Pyramid lake called the lake Cyui-ui Pah and called themselves Kuiyuidokado (eaters of the Cui-ui fish).
(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A20)
The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) owned about 85% of Nevada.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.37)
230Mil BC The Panthalassa Ocean covered much of what later became the western United States. Sediments later called the Luning Formation were deposited in what later became the mountain ranges of central Nevada. Fossil ichthyosaurs included Shonisaurus popularis.
(NH, 6/01, p.22)(www.shgresources.com/nv/symbols/fossil/)
225Mil BC Icthyosaur fossils first found in 1928 by Prof. Seimon W. Muller of Stanford 150 miles SE of Reno, dated to this time. An inland sea linked to the Pacific and submerged California and Nevada during the Triassic.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.T10)(www.factmonster.com/ce6/sci/A0849392.html)
145Mil BC The seas over Nevada receded.
(SFC, 12/2/06, p.A6)
112Mil BC-99Mil BC Most of Nevada was a flood plain and supported dinosaurs including the raptor dromaesaur, sauropods, tyrannosauroids and iguanodonts.
(SFC, 12/2/06, p.A6)
50Mil BC The collision of the North American and Pacific Farallon plate, began lifting the Sierra Nevada about this time. The Clear Lake basin of California rose above sea level. The rise of the Sierra Nevada continued for another 20 million years.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.C8)(SSFC, 1/16/11, p.C2)
23-5 Million BP Mastadons, mammoths and rhinos roved Nevada during the Miocene.
(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.C5)
15590 BC Saber tooth cats roamed the hills north of Las Vegas about this time. Fossils of the front legs of such a cat were identified in 2012.
(SFC, 12/17/12, p.A5)
c10,000BCE Petroglyphs dating to this time were later discovered in the Big Smokey Valley of Nevada, where Lake Tolyabe and Lake Tonopah provided for human habitation.
(USDI, 2004)
8000 BC In Nevada about this time the Lathrop Wells Cone erupted. It is less than a mile from Yucca Mountain, a site later proposed for the long-term storage of radioactive waste.
(Smith., 5/95, p.44)
c0AD The last small lake disappeared from the Death Valley basin about this time. At least 4 lakes covered the valley floor in Earth's history.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, p.T5)
1843-1844 John C. Fremont discovered that Nevada lies within the Great Basin, where all waters run inward without outlet to an ocean.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, BR p.10)
1844 John Fremont discovered Pyramid Lake in Nevada. For a number of reasons the lake’s native trout went extinct in the 1940s. Federal officials in 2006 began restocking the lake with the native Lahontan cutthroat found near Pilot Peak and the trout fluorished.
(SFC, 5/1/13, p.E8)
1845 John C. Fremont led his 3rd surveying expedition through the central Great Basin of Nevada. He was accompanied by Thomas E. Breckenridge, a Missouri fur trapper.
(BLM, 2001)(ON, 12/06, p.5)
1846 Oct 31, Heavy snows trapped the Donner party in the eastern Sierras near what is now Truckee.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.C1)(www.utahcrossroads.org/DonnerParty/Chronology.htm)
1846 Dec 16, In desperation 10 men and 5 women of the Donner Party left on snowshoes to cross the Sierra Nevada. The 5 women and 2 men survived. All but one of the dead were eaten. Of the 89 members in the whole group 42 died.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.C1)
1846 The Applegate Trail across northwest Nevada and northeast California was blazed as a southern approach to Oregon's Willamette Valley.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, p.T7)
1849 The first white settlement was by Mormons at Genoa near Carson City, then called Mormon Station.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.1B)
1849 Peter Lassen pioneered a new route to California that bypassed the 40 Mile Desert in Nevada. The trail led from Nevada to Oregon and was combined with another trail that led past his ranch and trading post near Chico. The trail however led across more desert and came to be called "The Death Route."
(SFC, 8/22/98, p.A13)(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A1,9)
c1850 Peter Lassen pioneered a new route to California that bypassed the 40 Mile Desert in Nevada.
(SFC, 8/22/98, p.A13)
1851 A Mormon trading post in Carson Valley, later called Genoa, became the 1st permanent white settlement of Nevada.
(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)(SSFC, 6/22/14, p.N22)
1853 Kit Carson herded some 7,000 sheep through Eagle Valley, where Carson City was later founded.
(SFEC, 7/25/99, p.T7)
1856 Jan 3, John Thompson (1827-1876), Norway-born immigrant, departed Placerville, Ca., with skies and snow shoes on his first mail run to Carson City, Nevada. By the spring of 1857 he made 31 crossings of the Sierra to deliver mail.
(ON, 4/10, p.7)
1859 May 26, Captain James Simpson and his party, looking for the shortest route across Nevada, crossed the Hickison Summit into Big Smoky Valley. Their path was later followed by the Pony Express (1860) and the Overland Mail and Stage (1861).
(BLM, 2001)
1859 Jun 11, The Comstock silver load was discovered near Virginia City, Nevada. Prospector James Finney stumbled across thick, bluish clay in western Nevada. A fellow minor, Henry Comstock, gave his name to the lode, the most lucrative silver ore mine in history. Ott’s Assay Office in Nevada City, Ca., first assayed samples of the rich Comstock Lode of Nevada. Four Irishmen known as the Bonanza Kings bought up shares in the Comstock mines and became rich. They were John Mackay (1831-1902), James Fair, James Flood, and William O’Brian. Ore from the Comstock lode was hauled by horse-drawn wagon over Donner Pass to SF. In 2018 Gregory Crouch authored "The Bonanza King: John Mackay and the Battle Over the Greatest Riches in the American West."
(SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T6)(SFC, 4/14/96, T-3)(SFC, 5/19/96, City Guide, p.17)(RFH-MDHP, 1969, p.107)(SC, 6/11/02)(SFC, 6/26/18, p.E1)
1859 Colonel Frederick W. Lander led an expedition to the West to survey a railroad route across Nevada to California. Artist Alfred Bierstadt accompanied the expedition.
(www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/sherman2.html)
1859-1860 The International Hotel was built in Virginia City. In 1863 it was taken down to make room for a larger version. The original was moved to Austin, Nevada.
(ACC, 2004)
1860 Aug 11, The first US successful silver mill began operation near Virginia City, Nev.
(AP, 8/11/97)
1860 John Wagner established Nevada's longest-operating brewery in Carson City during the rush to Virginia City. The Carson Brewing Co. built a new two-story brewery in 1865 in the commercial form of Classical Revival, on the corner of Division and King streets, where it was later turned into an arts and performance center.
(www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/nevada/bre.htm)(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)
1861 Mar 2, The Territory of Nevada was created by an act of Congress. The first elected governor of the state was Henry G. Blasdel
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.1B)(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)
1861 Orion Clemens was appointed Secretary of the Territory of Nevada. He took along his young brother, Sam Clemens (Mark Twain).
(SFEC, 9/17/00, Z1 p.2)
1862 Jan, In California an extensive flood caused when warm rain melted a heavy snowpack. Marysville, Yuba City, Colusa and Stockton were all flooded along with all the other towns of the state's Central Valley. One-quarter of California's estimated 800,000 cattle were killed by the flood, accelerating the end of the cattle-based ranchero society. The Great Flood of 1862 was the largest flood in the recorded history of Oregon, Nevada, and California, occurring from December 1861 to January 1862.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862)(SFC, 5/27/98, p.A13)(SFC, 4/24/18, p.A1)
1862 Mar 2, Gen’l. Frederick W. Lander (b.1821), transcontinental engineer and Union General, died of “congestion of the brain" at Paw Paw, Virginia. He was the chief engineer of the Central Overland route. In 2000 Gary L. Ecalbarger authored “Frederick W. Lander: The Great Natural American Soldier."
(www.picturehistory.com/find/p/16832/mcms.html)(ACC, 2004)
1862 Dec 19, Lander County, Nevada, was formed and took in the eastern third of the state with the 1st county seat at Jacobsville. It was later broken up into Lander, Eureka, White Pine and Elko.
(ACC, 2004)
1862 Austin, Nevada, was born when a horse kicked loose a rock revealing rich silver ore.
(ACC, 2004)
1862 David Walley of New York discovered natural hot springs about 90 miles south of Carson City.
(SSFC, 12/18/05, p.F4)
1863 Feb 3, Samuel Clemens became Mark Twain for 1st time. In Nevada the Territorial Enterprise in Comstock printed some humorous letters from a reader named “Josh." The editor hired the man, who was Samuel Clemens, for $25 a week. Clemens accepted and changed his pen name to Mark Twain. Sam had dropped the penname "Josh" and first signed himself "Mark Twain" in a letter written on January 31, 1863. The Territorial Enterprise published the letter in its Tuesday, February 3, 1863 issue.
(http://www.twainquotes.com/18630203t.html) (SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)
1863 Mar 3, Congress authorized a US mint at Carson City, NV, and Gold certificates as currency.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1863 May 16, The Reese River Reveille, Nevada’s oldest newspaper, began publishing and continued until June, 1993.
(ACC, 2004)
1863 The Sears-Ferris House was built in Carson City, Nev. It was the boyhood home of Gale Ferris (1859-1896), the inventor of the Ferris Wheel.
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)
1863 Austin, Nevada, got itself declared the official Lander County seat.
(ACC, 2004)
1863 In Virginia City, Nevada, a 3-story brick mansion was built as the office and residence for the owners of the Chollor-Potosi mining company.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T6)
1863 The Kingston silver mine was discovered in central Nevada.
(ACC, 2004)
1863 In Nevada the Livingston Exchange, a saloon, opened in Genoa. It later became known as the Genoa Bar and Saloon.
(SSFC, 6/22/14, p.N22)
1864 Oct 31, Nevada became the 36th state under a proclamation signed by Pres. Lincoln.
(AP, 10/31/97)(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.1B)(HN, 10/31/98)
1864 The Clemens House was built in Carson City, Nev., by Orion Clemens, brother of author Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. Orion served as the first and only Territorial Secretary (1861-1864), and at times, acting governor of the Nevada Territory.
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)(www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/nevada/ori.htm)
1864 William Sharon (44) was sent from SF to Virginia City as manager of the Nevada branch of the Bank of California.
(Ind, 7/1/00, p.5A)
1864 Ruel C. Gridley (d.1870), owner of the Gridley Store in Austin, Nevada, lost an election bet and had to carry a 50 lb. sack of flour the length of Austin to the tune of “John Brown’s Body." The sack was auctioned and the proceeds went to the Sanitary Fund, a forerunner to the Red Cross, to help relieve suffering created by the Civil War. The sack was resold many times and soon other towns called for a similar auction. The last auction was at the St. Louis World’s Fair.
(ACC, 2004)
1865 William Brown opened the Boston Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada, for black patrons. It burned down in an 1876 fire.
(AM, 11/00, p.23)
1865 In Nevada the town of St. Thomas was settled as an agricultural center and way station on the Arrowhead Trail between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. In 1936 the town was submerged under Lake Mead following the completion of the Hoover Dam.
(SSFC, 5/6/18, p.F7)
1868 Jan 15, The Masonic-Odd Fellows Hall in Austin, Nevada, formally opened with a ball.
(ACC, 2004)
1868 The Central Pacific Railroad came through Reno. The town had been founded on the banks of the Truckee River by Myron Lake and was named after a Civil War general. Lake's land was bought up by Charles Crocker, who had surveyors lay out streets and a town for which he sold lots. The Crocker land eventually came under the control of the Pacific Improvement Co., controlled by Crocker, Huntington, Hopkins and Stanford.
(SFC, 2/16/00, p.A12)
1868 The Virginia and Truckee railroad line was built to serve Virginia City, Nv., site of the richest silver strike in history. Ted Wurm (d.2004) later co-authored with Harre W. Demoro "Silver Short Line," a history of the line.
(SSFC, 2/29/04, p.A25)
1868 St. Peter’s Episcopal Church was built in Carson City, Nev.
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)
1869 The courthouse in Austin, Nevada, was built.
(ACC, 2004)
1869 Gambling in Nevada was legalized.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)
1869 The first assay report from Berlin Canyon was filed.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.T10)
1869 A fire at Yellow Jacket Mine near Virginia City killed 45 people.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T7)
1870 Nov 4, Reuel Gridley, supporter of the Civil War Sanitary Commission, died in poverty. He had been a co-partner of the Gridley, Robert and Jacob Store in Austin, Nevada.
(AHS, brochure)
1870 Palisade, Nevada, was established and became a railroad transfer point for ore from nearby mines.
(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A2)
1870 A US Mint began operations in Carson City, Nev., and continued to 1893, after which it was turned into the Nevada State Museum.
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)
1870s George Hearst (d.1891) built the Charcoal Kilns in Death Valley.
(CHA, 1/2001)
c
1871 Sep 9, A cornerstone was laid for the Lander County Courthouse in Austin, Nevada.
(ACC, 2004)
1871 The silver-domed state capital in Carson City was completed. It was completely rebuilt between 1977-1981.
(SFEC, 7/25/99, p.T7)
1871 In Reno, Nevada, Jacob W. Davis (born as Jacob Youphes), a Jewish tailor from Latvia, custom made a pair of work pants using rivets to reinforce the pockets.
(ON, 4/05, p.11)
1872 Jul 2, Jacob W. Davis of Reno, Nevada, sent Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco a sample of his work pants and a business proposal for Strauss to apply for a patent in exchange for a half share in the patent. Davis soon sold his half share to Strauss and moved to San Francisco to supervise the manufacture of the work pants.
(ON, 4/05, p.11)
1872 Mark Twain wrote "Roughing It." It chronicles the night he and 2 friends spent in a blizzard only 15 steps from the Desert Wells Trading Station in Nevada.
(SFEM, 9/15/96, p.24)(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.19)
1872 In Nevada Francis Marion "Borax" Smith (d.1931) found borax in Peel’s Marsh. In 1890 he developed the Pacific Coast Borax Company to transport the borax on a 1-day, 169-mile trip from Death Valley to a railhead at Mohave with the famed 20-mule team. He later consolidated the SF Bay Area trolley lines into the Key System.
(SFC, 11/6/98, p.D5)(SSFC, 10/20/02, p.A19)
1873 The "Big Bonanza," a huge silver deposit, was found by miners working for the Comstock Kings in Virginia City. The 1999 book "The Roar and the Silence" by Ronald James described the silver boom in Virginia City.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, Z1 p.4)
1874 Trinity Church in Nevada City was established.
(SFC, 7/15/98, p.A20)
1874 The Nevada state legislature overrode the Governor’s veto and approved a railroad from Austin to Battle Mountain. Construction only began 4 ½ years later.
(ACC, 2004)
1875 William Sharon of SF was elected to a 6-year term as Senator. It is believed that he spent some $1 million to get elected.
(Ind, 7/1/00,5A)
1876 The Fourth Ward School in Virginia City, a gem of Second Empire architecture, was built on C Street.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, Z1 p.4)
1878 A tunnel to drain and ventilate the silver mines at the Comstock Lode was completed by Adolph Sutro.
(G, Winter 98/99, p.1)
1879 The Bliss Mansion was built in Carson City for Duane Bliss, a lumber magnate. He supplied lumber to the Comstock mines.
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)
1879 Adolph Sutro returned to SF after becoming a millionaire from building a tunnel at the silver mines of the Nevada Comstock Lode.
(G, Winter 98/99, p.1)
1879 In Nevada the "Great Fire of Reno" claimed six lives.
(AP, 11/5/06)
1880 Feb 9, Austin, Nevada, extended its city limits in order to obtain a railroad subsidy that required the completion of a road by midnight.
(ACC, 2004)
1880 Jacob Bressman left Pennsylvania with his family and homesteaded in the what later became Ruby Lake National Wildlife Refuge.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.C5)
1885 Dec, A Nevada Circuit court reversed the 1884 SF ruling against William Sharon and ruled that the marriage certificate and letters of Sarah Althea Hill were forgeries. Hill later married one of her attorneys, David Terry.
(Ind, 7/1/00,5A)
1885 Piper's Opera House in Virginia City was rebuilt a third time. It had been founded by John Piper.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, Z1 p.4)
1885 Emma Nevada (d.1940), opera singer born in Austin, Nevada, as Emma Wixom, returned to America and her home town for a triumphal tour.
(ACC, 2004)
1887 Ely, Nevada, was incorporated.
(SFC, 8/21/02, p.A12)
1887 Charles Lux died. His firm, Miller and Lux, by this time owned some 700,000 head of cattle in Arizona, Nevada and Oregon. Over 700 miles of private telegraph lines connected their ranches.
(SSF, 1976, p.2)
c1890s In the late 1800s soldiers found garnets in the mountains of eastern Nevada and named the area the Ruby Mountains.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.C4)
1894 A fireball was seen streaking across the skies of southern Nevada. 14 years alter a prospector found a 1.45 kg meteorite that was named the Quinn Canyon meteorite.
(www.viamagazine.com/top_stories/articles/treasures_rock_jan10.asp)
1895 The Berlin Mine was established.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.T10)
1897 Anson Phelps Stokes, an eccentric business man in the Reese River Valley, built his 3-story Stokes Castle in Austin, Nevada. He built the 92-mile Nevada Central Railroad from Battle Mountain to Austin.
(SFCM, 3/28/04, p.43)(ACC, 2004)(SSFC, 6/22/14, p.N13)
1900 Robert LeRoy Parker and Harry Alonzo Longabaugh (aka Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and their Wild Bunch went to Fort Worth after their last holdup of the First National Bank at Winnemucca, Nevada. They posed for pictures at John Swartz’s photo studio.
(HT, 4/97, p.45)(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)
1900 Major silver and gold deposits were found at Tonopah.
(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)
1902 Aug 23, Gold was discovered in Goldfield, Nv., near Tonopah. By 1907 Goldfield grew to 20,000 residents.
(SFC, 8/31/02, p.A2)
1902 The US Newlands Act established the Bureau of Reclamation and began to enact some of the ideas of John Wesley Powell concerning control of water resources in 17 western states. Results included the Newlands Irrigation Project in Nevada’s Fallon area that diverted water from the Carson and Truckee Rivers to new farmland.
(HFA, ‘96, p.128)(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)(SFC, 12/28/02, p.A20)
1903 Major silver and gold deposits were found at Goldfield.
(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)
1904 California’s Wells Fargo merged with the Nevada Bank, owned by Isaias Hellman, making it one of the West’s largest financial institutions.
(SSFC, 11/30/08, Books p.3)
1905 Las Vegas, a Mormon outpost, railroad burg and silver mining camp, rose to township status.
(SFEM, 4/30/00, p.19)(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.T8)
1905 In Nevada the Virginia Street Bridge was built over the Truckee River in Reno. In 2014 it was set for demolition and reconstruction as part of the Truckee River flood project.
(SFC, 5/28/14, p.E2)
1906 Jan 13, The Golden Gate Hotel opened on Fremont Street in Las Vegas, Nev..
(SSFC, 11/13/05, p.F4)
1906 Sep 3, Joe Gans (1874-1910), born as Joseph Gant, defended his lightweight boxing title against Battling Nelson in Goldfield, Nevada. He was the first African-American World Boxing Champion, reigning continuously as World Lightweight Champion from 1902 to 1908. In 2012 William Gildea authored “The Longest Fight: In the Ring with Joe Gans, Boxing’s First African-American Champion."
(Econ, 7/14/12, p.75)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Gans)
1906 The Hotel Nevada opened in Las Vegas shortly after the rail lines from Los Angeles and Salt Lake City met nearby.
(WSJ, 5/29/98, p.B1)
1908 The Goldfield Hotel was completed in Goldfield, Nevada, to accommodate a gold-mining frenzy. In 2004 the hamlet had shrunk to 356 people from 25,000 at its peak.
(WSJ, 12/7/04, p.A1)
1909 The governor's mansion in Carson City, built in Southern Colonial style, was completed.
(SFEC, 7/25/99, p.T7)
1910 Jul 4, African-American Jack Johnson knocked out Jim Jeffries in the 15th round of a heavyweight boxing match in Reno, Nevada. As Johnson entered the ring a band played “All Coons Look Alike to Me." Johnson’s victory prompted race riots in major cities across the United States leaving as many as 26 people dead. Jack London covered the match and coined the phrase "The great white hope" in his story.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.B10)(Econ, 6/21/08, p.104)(ON, 4/09, p.7)
1910 Oct 1, At midnight a strict anti-gambling law became effective in Nevada. It even forbid the western custom of flipping a coin for the price of a drink. Illegal but accepted gambling flourished until 1931 when the Nevada Legislature approved a legalized gambling bill authored by Phil Tobin, a Northern Nevada rancher.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)(http://www.lvol.com/lvoleg/hist/lvhist.html)
1911 Nevada, in an effort to raise revenue, began offering divorces in 6 weeks, the quickest in the US.
(Econ, 7/10/10, SR p.11)
1911-1931 The Nevada state ban on gambling went largely ignored.
(SSFC, 5/8/05, p.F4)
1912 Mar 16, Thelma Catherine Patricia Ryan Nixon, first lady (1968-75) to Richard Nixon, was born in Ely, Nevada.
(HN, 3/16/01)(MC, 3/16/02)
1913 In Goodsprings, Nevada, the Pioneer Saloon opened. In 2006 Noel Scheckells, a Las Vegas entrepreneur, purchased it. In 2007 Nevada added the saloon to its Register of Historic Places.
(SFC, 4/26/08, p.A6)
1914 The Krebs-Peterson House was built in Carson City, Nev. It was featured in actor John Wayne's last movie, “The Shootist" (1976).
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)
1916 Drillers on the 30,000 acre Fly Ranch in the Hualapai Flat struck geothermal water and gave birth to the Fly Geyser. It transformed the area into a desert wetland.
(NH, 7/98, p.83)
1919 Jul 4, In Mountain City the grand old Overland Hotel was torn down.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, BR p.8)
1920 Pat McCarran represented Mary Pickford in a divorce that freed her to marry Douglas Fairbanks.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.12)
1922 The Mizpah Hotel was built in Reno, Nev. In 1984 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
(AP, 11/5/06)
1922 The Colorado River Compact allocated 7.5 million acre-feet of water from the upper basin states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico) to be delivered to the lower basin sates (California, Arizona and Nevada) plus the rights to divert another 1 million acre-feet from the river’s lower tributaries.
(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.A10)(SFCM, 7/17/05, p.6)
1923 Mar 5, Montana and Nevada passed the U.S.'s first old age pension grants, giving $25 per month.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1924 Feb 8, The gas chamber was used for the first time to execute a murderer. Major D.A. Turner of the US Medical Corps used hydrocyanic gas on an alleged Chinese Tong member named Gee Jon at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City, Nev.
(HN, 2/8/98)(SFC, 6/27/98, p.E4)(AP, 2/8/99)
1924 Four school boys discovered Hidden Cave near Fallon, Nevada.
(SFCM, 3/28/04, p.41)
1925 Dat So La Lee, famous Carson City Washoe weaver, died at age 90.
(SSFC, 2/4/01, p.T5)
1927 The Pacific Borax Co. opened the Furnace Creek Inn as a luxury resort in Death Valley.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, p.T5)
1927 Las Vegas instituted the 90-day divorce to attract more visitors. The residential requirement was later reduced by half.
(WSJ, 3/23/00, p.W12)
1928 Ichthyosaurs fossils were first found by Prof. Seimon W. Muller of Stanford near Berlin, 150 miles SE of Reno.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.T10)
1929 Lora Knight, eccentric heiress, built a teahouse on Lake Tahoe’s Fanette Island. Her 1929 home was named Vikingsholm and later became a part of Emerald Bay State Park.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.C8)
1929 Neon lights first came to Las Vegas.
(SSFC, 11/17/02, p.C12)
1930 Jul 7, Construction began on Boulder Dam on the Colorado River. It is now known as Hoover Dam.
(AP, 7/7/97)
1931 Mar 19, Nevada legalized gambling a 2nd time to raise tax revenues and stabilize the state’s economy. Gov. Fred B. Balzar signed a measure legalizing casino gambling. The Northern Club on 15 E. Fremont was soon issued the 1st gaming license.
(HN, 3/19/98)(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)(AP, 3/19/07)
1931 The Vatican assigned the first Catholic bishop in Nevada to Reno.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A23)
1932 Nov 8, Patrick McCarran of Nevada won a US Senate seat.
(SSFC, 10/3/04, p.M3)
1933 Feb 11, Pres. Hoover declared Death Valley a national monument.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, p.T5)
1933 Mar 10, Nevada became the first U.S. state to regulate narcotics.
(HN, 3/10/98)(MC, 3/10/02)
1933 Sep 1, Groundbreaking ceremonies were held for the boulder Dam Hotel. The Colonial style hotel opened Dec 15.
(SSFC, 5/30/04, p.D5)
1936 Sep 11, President Roosevelt dedicated Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) by pressing a key in Washington to signal the startup of the dam's first hydroelectric generator in Nevada.
(AP, 9/11/97)
1936 Oct 26, At Boulder Dam the first of the five power units to be installed under the initial plan went into operation.
(www.usbr.gov/history/hoover.htm)
1937 Mar 26, The state slogan: "Battle Born," was adopted.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.1B)
1937-1955 Gov. Pat McCarran entered legislation at every session on behalf of Italian American squatters on reservation lands of the Pyramid Paiutes.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.12)
1939 George Whittel Jr. (1881-1969), heir to a SF family wealthy from the gold rush, completed his Thunderbird Lodge at Lake Tahoe. He had acquired some 30,000 acres along the Nevada shore since 1936. It was begun in 1937 and designed Nevada architect Frederick De Longchamps. He deeded most of the land to the US Forest Service.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.C8)(SFC, 7/21/07, p.F1)(www.thunderbirdlodge.org/theman.html)
1941 The El Rancho Vegas opened with 63 rooms. It was the first major resort built on the Las Vegas strip. It was destroyed by fire in 1960.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)
1942 Jan 16, Actress Carole Lombard and her mother were among some 20 people killed when their plane crashed near Las Vegas while returning from a tour to promote war bonds.
(AP, 1/16/00)
1942 Dec 21, The US Supreme Court ruled all states had to recognize divorces granted in Nevada.
(AP, 12/21/05)
1944 In Nevada piano prodigy Walter Liberace (25) performed at the Last Frontier in Las Vegas, starting a relationship with the city that lasted until his death in 1987.
(SSFC, 3/12/17, p.F4)
1944 Singer-comedian Sophie Tucker played the last Frontier, the first legitimate star to feature in fledgling Las Vegas.
(SSFC, 3/12/17, p.F4)
1945 Bill Miller (d.2002 at 98) bought the Las Vegas hotel Riviera. It closed in 1953 to make way for the Palisades Parkway.
(SFC, 12/17/02, p.A23)
1945 Sophie Tucker agreed to entertain at the El Rancho for $15,000 a week.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.T6)
1946 Dec 26, The Flamingo casino opened. Billy Wilkerson designed the Flamingo and sold a controlling interest to Bugsy Siegel when his money ran out. It was the 3rd hotel casino built on the Las Vegas strip.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.T8)
1946 The Nevada Club (d.1997) in downtown Reno opened. It used slot machines made by the Jennings company of Chicago.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.D3)
1947 Dec, In Reno the Mapes Hotel, a 12-story art deco building, was constructed for use as a hotel, casino, restaurant and entertainment facility under one roof. It became vacant in 1982 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Implosion was scheduled for Jan 30, 2000.
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.C4)(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A11)
1947 In Nevada singer-actress Lena Horne opened at the Flamingo. She and other African American performers would not be allowed to dine or stay at hotels in las Vegas until 1955.
(SSFC, 3/12/17, p.F4)
1947 The Las Vegas Vic was unveiled. It was replaced by a newer version in 1951 and its sidekick, Vegas Vicky (aka Sassy Sally), was built in 1980.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)
1947 Kirk Kerkorian (1917-2015), Fresno-born former RAF pilot, bought a tiny charter line and renamed it Trans Int’l. Airlines. Nearly two decades later he took the TIA public and used cash from the stock to build the Int’l. Hotel (later renamed the Westgate Las Vegas). In the 1970s he opened the first MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
(SFC, 6/17/15, p.D5)
1948 Bill Harrah married Scherry Teague (d.2000).
(SFC, 9/21/00, p.C6)
1948 The Pine Lodge was established in Lamoille at the foot of the Ruby Mountains.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.C5)
1949 A.J. Liebling, New York reported, arrived in Nevada for Reno divorce, which required a 6-week residency. He began a series of articles for the New Yorker on the Pyramid Paiutes and their struggle with Italian American squatters over water rights. In 1999 the collected stories were edited by Elmer Rusco and published under the title "A Reporter At Large: Dateline: Pyramid Lake, Nevada."
(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.12)
1950 Sep 23, Congress adopted the Internal Security Act, which provided for registration of communists. The Act was ruled later unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. US Sen. Pat McCarran (Nevada) legislated the Internal Security Act, which included a jumble of restrictions on speech and association. Pres. Truman attempted an unsuccessful veto of the McCarran Act, which gave the government unprecedented powers.
(WSJ, 3/18/99, p.W17)(MC, 9/23/01)(WSJ, 10/13/04, p.D18)
1950 The Desert Inn opened in Las Vegas, Nv., with 300 rooms and a 3rd floor Sky Lounge.
(WSJ, 5/17/05, p.D10)
1950s Howard Hughes bought 25,000 acres around Las Vegas.
(WSJ, 1/16/98, p.A1)
1950s Las Vegas casinos began to require work cards for workers.
(SFC, 1/16/01, p.C3)
1951 Jan 27, Atomic testing began in the Nevada desert as an Air Force B-50D from a base in New Mexico dropped a one-kiloton nuclear bomb on Frenchman Flats, Clark County, 65 miles NW of Las Vegas. Over the next 40 years 928 nuclear devices were exploded at the site.
(AP, 1/27/98)(WSJ, 4/12/05, p.D8)(www.ntshf.org)
1951 Feb 1, The third A-bomb test was completed in the desert of Nevada.
(HN, 2/1/99)
1951 Jun 1, The first self-contained titanium plant opened in Henderson Nevada.
(DT internet 6/1/97)
1951 Oct 24, Dr. Albert W. Bellamy, chief of Radiological Services for the California State Civil Defense, held a press conference to assure state residents that there would be no ill effects from the atomic test explosions near Las Vegas.
(SFC, 10/19/01, WB p.6)
1951 Nov 1, The 1st atomic explosion, witnessed by troops, was at Yucca Flat, Nevada. Members of the 1st Battalion, 188th Airborne Infantry Regiment from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, were the first unwitting test participants to be sent to that facility by the Atomic Energy Commission and The Department of Defense in a series of nuclear tests, code named "Buster-Jangle."
(www.angelfire.com/tx/atomicveteran/exposed.html)
1951 Benny Binion, a former bootlegger and numbers runner from Dallas, went to Las Vegas and bought the El Dorado casino and hotel. He renamed it The Horseshoe and promised to take any bet, no matter how high. In 1953 he was put into prison for income tax evasion and served 3 years and 3 months.
(WSJ, 8/24/98, p.A5)
1951-1962 The US conducted 100 nuclear atmospheric tests at the Nevada Test Site over this period.
(AH, 6/02, p.72)
1951-1992 Some 928 bombs were exploded over this period at the Nevada Test Site. In 1999 the area began to be used as a training ground against terrorism.
(SFC, 10/22/01, p.A1)
1952 Apr 22, An atomic test conducted at Yucca Flat, Nevada, became the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television.
(AP, 4/22/99)(SFC, 4/19/02, p.G3)
1952 May 1, Marines took part in an atomic explosion training in Nevada.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1953 May 25, The first atomic cannon was fired, in Nevada.
(HN, 5/25/98)
1953 May 25, The first atomic cannon was fired at Frenchman Flat, Nevada.
(HN, 5/25/98)(SC, 5/25/02)
1953 Jun 4, An atomic bomb test explosion took place at Yucca Flats, Nevada, equivalent to 50,000 tons of TNT. This was double the 1945 blast over Hiroshima.
(SFC, 5/30/03, p.E7)
1953 The Davis Dam was completed.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, p.T6)
1953 The Algiers Lounge in Las Vegas first opened.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.T6)
1954 Aug 23, A rolling earthquake measuring 6.5 hit northern California and Nevada.
(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.F4)
1954 Sep 28, Patrick McCarran (b.1876), Nevada US Senator since 1932, died in Hawthorne, Nevada. In 2004 Michael J. Ybarra authored “Washington Gone Crazy: Senator Pat McCarran and the Great American Communist Hunt."
(www.aoc.gov/cc/art/nsh/mccarran.htm)
1954 A.J. Liebling, New York reporter, returned to Pyramid Lake and wrote some stories on mustang buzzing, the practice of chasing wild mustangs with small planes into corrals to sell them for pet food.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.12)
1954 The Congo Room of the Sahara Casino gave birth to the lounge show concept. Ragnar Qvale (d.2001), actor turned architect, designed the original Sahara Hotel.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.T7)(SFC, 10/2/01, p.A15)
1954 The 1st major neon sign in Las Vegas was the Young Electric sign Co.’s project for the Boulder Club.
(SSFC, 11/17/02, p.C12)
1955 Mar 6, A US Atomic Energy Spokesman said a cloud from the atomic blast at Nevada’s Yucca Flat passed over the Central California coastline.
(SFC, 3/4/05, p.F3)
1955 Apr, The Riviera Casino opened.
(SSFM, 4/29/01, p.31)
1955 May 5, The US detonated a 29-kiloton nuclear device in Nevada. "Apple 2" was the 2nd of 40 tests of Operation Cue, meant to study the effects of a nuclear explosion on a typical American community.
(AH, 6/02, p.72)
1955 May, The Moulin Rouge opened at a cost of about $2 million under a group of investors led by NY restaurateur Harry Ruben. It was highly successful with an all-black staff except for the card dealers. It closed down after 6 months due to possible skimming and/or pressure from other casinos who lost customers due to the Moulin’s successful late night entertainment. In 1992 it was granted a listing on the National Registry of Historic Places.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.31)
1955 Jun, The Dunes Casino opened.
(SSFM, 4/29/01, p.31)
1955 Noel Coward, British playwright, actor and composer, accepted a $35,000 per week offer to do a cabaret act at the Las Vegas Desert Inn.
(SFC, 12/1/99, p.E1)
1955 The Hotel Nevada in Las Vegas was purchased by 5 investors from SF and renamed the Golden Gate Hotel with a street level casino.
(WSJ, 5/29/98, p.B1)
1955 Union Canyon was designated as the Ichthyosaur Paleontological State Monument and in 1970 became the Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park.
(NH, 6/01, p.24)
1957 Jun 24, A 37-kiloton nuclear fission bomb, code-named Priscilla, was exploded in the Nevada desert at Frenchman Flat. The security of a bank vault was tested in the experiment. At this time the US was manufacturing 10 nuclear bombs a day.
(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.E1)
1957 Sep 19, The United States conducted its first underground nuclear test, code-named "Rainier," in the Nevada desert.
(AP, 9/19/07)
1957 The Dunes casino introduced topless showgirls.
(WSJ, 7/6/01, p.A4)
1957 The Tropicana casino was opened by the Chicago mob.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.T6)
1957 The Berlin Icthyosaur State Park was established in central Nevada to protect North America’s most abundant collection of Icthyosaur fossils.
(http://parks.nv.gov/bi.htm)
1958 Jan 29, Actors Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were married in Las Vegas.
(AP, 1/29/08)
1958 The film "I Want To Live" starred Susan Hayward as the death-row inmate Barbara Graham. It was directed by Robert Wise and based on the Santo gang murder trial in Nevada County.
(TVM, 1975, p.270)(SFEC, 3/1/98, DB p.49)(SFC, 7/15/98, p.A20)
1958 The 1,500 room Stardust casino-hotel opened in Las Vegas, Nv. In 2006 Boyd Gaming Corp. planned to tear it down and build a $4 billion complex.
(SFC, 1/5/06, p.C1)
1959 Sep 12, NBC launched "Bonanza," the first color western on TV. 428 episodes were produced and the show ran to 1973. 431 episodes were filmed at the 570-acre site in Incline Village, Nevada. Michael Landon (d.1991) played Little Joe, Lorne Greene (d.1987) played Ben Cartwright, and Dan Blocker (d.1972) played Hoss. [see Jan 16, 1973]
(SFC, 9/3/98, p.A12)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.A29)(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.D2)
1960 The film "Ocean’s Eleven" starred Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop, the 5 members of the Rat Pack. Sinatra leads an 11-man team to rob 5 Las Vegas casinos simultaneously.
(SFC, 5/16/98, p.E6)(SFEC, 8/16/98, DB p.56)
1960s Chandler Laughlin (aka Travus T. Hipp) and a group of Berkeley friends took over a Virginia City building and began the Red Dog Saloon. They imported music by the Charlatans with Dan Hicks on drums and advertised with a poster later called "The Seed" for its influence on psychedelic art.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T6)
1961 Sep 15, The US resumed underground nuclear testing. Operation Nougat began a series of 45 nuclear tests conducted (with one exception) at the Nevada Test Site.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Operation_Nougat)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F4)
1961 Geologist John Sealy Livermore (1918-2013), along with a Newmont Mining colleague, discovered widely dispersed gold particles near Carlin, Nevada. Their find became known as the Carlin Trend. By 2013 it had produced over 70 million ounces of gold valued at around $85 billion.
(SFC, 3/13/13, p.E5)
1962 Mar 1, US-British nuclear test experiment took place in Nevada.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1962 Apr 25, Operation Dominic began with a test blast on Christmas Island. The operation was a series of 105 nuclear test explosions conducted in 1962 and 1963 by the United States. Those conducted in the Pacific are sometimes called Dominic I. The blasts in Nevada are known as Dominic II.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Operation_Dominic_I_and_II)
1962 Jul 6, The US tested a 104 kiloton nuclear device in Nevada in "Project Sedan" and blew a hole 1,280 feet wide and 320 feet deep. It was one of many "Plowshare" experiments to see if atomic detonations could be used for large scale peaceful purposes.
(SFC,12/23/97, p.A3)
1962 Jul 7-1962 Jul 17, Operation Sunbeam was a series of four nuclear tests conducted at the United States of America's Nevada Test Site.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Operation_Sunbeam)
1962 Dec 7, Great Britain performed a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1962 A fire at the Golden Hotel in Reno, Nev., claimed 6 lives.
(AP, 11/5/06)
1963 Amtrak began offering its weekend Fun Train service from the SF Bay Area to Reno.
(SSFC, 1/22/06, p.E5)
1964 Aug 6, In Eastern Nevada a bristlecone pine tree, Pinus longaeva, near Wheeler Peak was cut down for scientific study of its age. The tree had been named Prometheus (WPN-114) for its age which turned out to be about 4,900 years.
(SFEC, 8/23/98, Z1 p.1,4)
1964 In Nevada the Sahara casino paid the Beatles $25,000 to play two shows in Las Vegas. The show was moved to the convention center when the 600-seat Congo Room was deemed too small.
(SSFC, 3/12/17, p.F4)
1964 Don Laughlin sold his 101 Club in Las Vegas.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, p.T6)
1965 Mar 3, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1966 Jun, Allen and Beatrix Gardner of the Univ. of Nevada began teaching sign language to a 10-month-old female chimpanzee named Washoe (d.2007).
(www.friendsofwashoe.org/timeline_project_begins.shtml)(SFC, 11/1/07, p.A2)
1966 Jul 14, German-born playboy Gunter Sachs (1932-2011) married Brigitte Bardot in Las Vegas. They divorced in 1969.
(AFP, 5/23/12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunter_Sachs)
1966 Jul 28, Operation Latchkey, a series of 38 nuclear test explosions conducted in 1966 and 1967, began with the Saxon blast at the Nevada Test Site. All but one of the tests took place in Nevada.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Operation_Latchkey)
1966 Oct 15, US Congress passed the Endangered Species Preservation Act. It was expanded in 1973 as the Endangered Species Act. The Devils Hole Pupfish of Death Valley were among the first species protected. By 1972 only 124 remained. By 2007 only 42 were left.
(www.fws.gov/endangered/1966listing.html)
1966 Caesars Casino opened with its 1,000 seat Circus Maximus showroom. Andy Williams performed on opening night. Dave Rogers (d.1998) was the sound engineer and made tapes of many of the live shows.
(WSJ, 3/19/00, p.A1)
1966 Don Laughlin opened his Riverside Hotel and Casino in South Pointe, Nevada. The town was renamed Laughlin in 1968. In 2006 it was reported that Laughlin planned have his body frozen upon death and had created a personal revival trust to guarantee an income should he be revived in the future.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, p.T6)(WSJ, 1/21/06, p.A1)
1967 Feb 10, The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, went into effect as Minnesota and Nevada adopted it.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 2/10/08)
1967 Mar 2, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1967 Mar 3, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. [see Mar 2]
(SC, 3/3/02)
1967 May 1, Elvis Presley (32) married Priscilla Beaulieu (20) in Las Vegas at the Aladdin Hotel. They divorced in 1973. They had met when she was 14 in West Germany.
(AP, 5/1/97)(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.66)
1967 Dec 31, Evel Knievel (1938-2007) failed in his attempt to jump Caesar's Palace Fountain.
(www.evelknievel.com/ek-timeline.html)
1967 The Mustang Ranch brothel opened in Storey County. Joe Conforte, a one-time cab driver in San Francisco who used to deliver his passengers to prostitutes in the 1960s, took over the 104-room brothel when prostitution was illegal in Nevada. The government closed it in 1990 following bankruptcy for IRS taxes. It reopened in 1992. [see 1971]
(SFC, 8/10/99, p.A3)(AP, 7/1/05)
1967 In Incline Village, Nevada, the Ponderosa Ranch Western Studio and Theme Park opened to the public. "Bonanza," the first color western on TV had begun filing there in 1959. In 2004 it was sold to PeopleSoft founder David Duffield.
(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.D2)
1968 Apr 26, The United States exploded a 1.3 megaton nuclear device called "Boxcar" beneath the Nevada desert.
(AP, 4/26/08)
1968 Jun 7, Michael Robert Smith (25) escaped from California’s Soledad prison while serving time for a robbery conviction. He headed to Nevada, then New Jersey and into a marriage that didn't work out. In 2001 Smith moved to a tiny trailer in a heavily wooded area of Creek County, Okla., where he was recaptured in 2006.
(AP, 5/20/06)
1969 Jul 2, Kirk Kerkorian (1917-2015) opened his International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, the largest hotel in the world. It later became the Las Vegas Hilton. He built the world's largest hotel in Las Vegas three times: the International Hotel, the MGM Grand Hotel (1973) and the MGM Grand (1993).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westgate_Las_Vegas_Resort_%26_Casino)(WSJ, 4/21/07, p.A6)(Econ, 6/27/15, p.57)
1969 Jul 2, Barbra Streisand (b.1942) opened for a 4-week engagement at the Las Vegas International Hotel.
(www.barbrafile.com/6169.htm)
1970 Jan 14, Diana Ross and the Supremes performed their last concert together, at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas.
(AP, 1/14/00)
1970 Mar 23, US performed the Shaper nuclear test in Nevada.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mandrel)
1970 Apr 29, Andre Agassi, tennis star and winner of an Olympic gold medal in 1996, was born in Las Vegas, Nev.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Agassi)
1970 Dec 18, An atomic leak in Nevada forced hundreds to flee the test site.
(HN, 12/18/98)
1970 California and Nevada approved The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A10)
1970 Lester "Benny" Binion, owner of the Horseshoe Casino, founded the annual World Series of Poker.
(WSJ, 1/14/04, p.B3)
1970 Kirk Kerkorian opened his International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, the largest hotel in the world. It later became the Las Vegas Hilton.
(WSJ, 4/21/07, p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Hotel_%28Las_Vegas%29)
1971 Jan 5, Sonny Liston (b.1932), World Champion boxer (1962-64), was found dead in his Las Vegas home.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Liston)
1971 Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005, "gonzo journalist," wrote "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." It was made into a film in 1998. The term gonzo was 1st applied to Thompson by his journalist friend Bill Cardoso (d.1006 at 68). The term had kicked around Boston for some time and was used by youth in the 1950s to describe something as over the top.
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.C1)(SSFC, 3/5/06, p.B7)
1971 The Mustang Ranch became the state's first legal bordello.
(AP, 7/1/05)
1971 Michael Oliver, a Las Vegas-based libertarian activist, created the Republic of Minerva by dumping sand on the Minerva Reefs 310 miles southwest of Tonga. He proclaimed independence in 1972, but Tonga annexed the place and it soon sank.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.84)
1971 The Lake Tahoe State Park in Nevada was officially dedicated.
(SFC, 6/6/06, p.B5)
1972 Artist Michael Heizer (b.1944) began work in Nevada on his monumental earth art titled City, one of the largest sculptures ever created.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_%28artwork%29)(SFC, 6/12/15, p.A12)
1973 Mar 23, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Toggle)
1973 Dec 24, The MGM Grand in Las Vegas opened to the public.
(www.vegas4visitors.com/museum/mgmgrand.htm)
1974 May, William Bennett (d.2002 at 78) and William Pennington bought Circus Circus Enterprises. They took the company public in 1983.
(SFC, 12/24/02, p.A13)(www.answers.com/topic/mandalay-resort-group-1?cat=biz-fin)
1974 Gladys Mapes, aka "Mrs. Reno," died. The Mapes Hotel went to her son Charles Jr. who lost the property in 1980 to foreclosure following some unwise investments.
(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A11)
1975 The Salt Wells and the Lazy B Ranch brothels opened in Churchill County, Nevada.
(WSJ, 10/20/04, p.A12)
1976 Feb 26, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/tests/USA-ntests3.html)
1976 Nov 22, Phillip Garrido kidnapped Katie Hall in South Lake Tahoe and drove her to Reno, where he raped her at a storage unit. Garrido was convicted in 1977 and sentenced to 50 years in prison. He was paroled in 1988. In 1991 He kidnapped Jaycee Lee Dugard (11) in South Lake Tahoe and kept her in Antioch, Ca., until his arrest in 2009.
(SFC, 9/2/09, p.A15)(SFC, 9/23/11, p.C3)
1976 Argentinean boxer Oscar Bonavena was killed at the front gate of the Mustang Ranch. Ross Brymer (d.2000 at 55), a ranch bodyguard, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
(SFC, 6/30/00, p.D7)
1977 May 25, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1977 Sep 3, Lisa Marie Bonham (6) of Martinez, Ca., was abducted from Idlewild Park in Reno. Her body was found by hikers after 2 months. In 2000 Stephen Robert Smith, a convicted sex offender, was charged with the murder following a DNA match.
(SFC, 7/27/00, p.A18)
1978 Mar 23, US performed nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1978 Jun 8, A jury in Clark County, Nev., ruled the so-called "Mormon will," purportedly written by the late billionaire Howard Hughes, was a forgery.
(AP, 6/8/97)
1978 Oct 9, Larry Singleton (1927-2001), rapist, was arrested in Sparks, Nev. He was later convicted of raping and mutilating Mary Vincent (15) of Las Vegas.
(SFC, 1/1/02, p.A13)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Singleton)
1978 New Jersey legalized gambling and ended the Nevada monopoly on casino gaming.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)
1979 Feb 1, Julia Woodward (21) left her family's California home to go job hunting in Nevada. Two months later her body was found in a canyon in Hungry Valley, about 20 miles north of Reno.
(ABC News, 11/17/19)
1979 Apr 15, The Liberace Museum opened in Las Vegas at 1775 E. Tropicana Ave.
(SSFM, 4/29/01, p.22)
1979 Jun 24, Brenda Lynn Judd and Sandra Colley were kidnapped in Reno, Nevada, by Gerald Gallego (b.1946) and Charlene Williams. The bodies of Judd (14) and Colley (13) were found in Dec 1999 in Lassen Ct., Ca. Gallego died in 2002 at age 56.
(www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/serialkillers/gallego.htm)(SFC,10/28/97, p.A17)(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A3)(SFC, 7/20/02, p.A15)
1979 Nov, The first annual COMDEX trade show opened in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand. It was a trade show for business related computer hardware and software. The acronym used to stand for Computer Dealer Expo, but since 1984, the D has stood for Distribution.
(Hem, Nov.'95, p.138)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COMDEX)
1979 The Nevada Supreme Court ruled to uphold a May vote to move the Lander County seat to Battle Mountain.
(ACC, 2004)
1979 Ralph Engelstad (d.2002 at 72) opened the Imperial Palace on the site of the old Flamingo Capri.
(SFC, 11/28/02, p.A30)
1979-1983 Robert List served as governor of the state.
(WSJ, 10/24/97, p.B18)
1980 Nov 21, In Las Vegas 87 people died in a fire at the MGM Grand Hotel-Casino.
(AP, 11/21/97)
1980-1990 The US Dept. of Defense allowed the open pit burning of highly toxic classified materials at a top secret Air Force base called Area 51, 125 northwest of Las Vegas. Workers later complained of strange skin diseases and other health problems and file suit against the DoD. Government lawyers use the "mosaic theory" argument in defense and claim that they can't acknowledge seemingly innocuous facts without creating a mosaic that an enemy could use to figure out military secrets.
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-1)
1981 Feb 10, Eight people were killed, 198 injured, when fire broke out at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino.
(AP, 2/10/97)
1981 May 30, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(http://tinyurl.com/32s5h3)
1981 The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency put a moratorium on new housing around the Lake Tahoe to maintain water quality.
(SFC, 1/8/02, p.A3)
1982 Jan 18, Four Thunderbird USAF pilots died when their T-38 Talon jets crashed at Indian Springs Auxiliary Airfield, Nv. Mechanical failure was cited as the cause. Shortly after, the precision flying team began flying F-16 fighter jets. It was the worst accident in the Thunderbirds' history. In all, 18 pilots and one crew member have died in Thunderbird crashes.
(www.reviewjournal.com)(SFC, 8/30/03, p.A22)
1982 Jul, In Nevada the body of Mary Edith Silvani was found on a hiking trail near Incline Village, Lake Tahoe. In 2019 forensic genealogists identified her killer as James Richard Curry, an inmate who had hanged himself and died on Jan. 7, 1983. Curry had recently confessed to shooting a San Jose couple to death on Jan. 2.
(SFC, 5/9/19, p.C2)
1982 Oct 4, Frank Rosenthal (1929-2008), Las Vegas casino operator, survived a car bomb when his Cadillac exploded as he turned the key. He ran the mob-owned Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda and Marina casinos. In 1995 Martin Scorsese made his film “Casino," based on the life of Frank Rosenthal.
(SFC, 10/17/08, p.B8)(Econ, 11/1/08, p.99)
1982 Dec, The Mapes Hotel and Casino was closed.
(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A11)
1983 Mar 26, US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
(www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/tests/USA-ntests3.html)
1984 Jun, In Nevada Gerald Gallego was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to death. Charlene Williams, his former accomplice and mother of his child, testified against Gallego. They were involved in sex-slave murders in the late 1970s. Charlene was released from prison in 1997.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A17)(SFC, 1/21/02, p.B2)
1984 Art Bell began broadcasting a late-night radio talk show from Pahrump. In 1998 it was the 4th most listened to show in the US.
(WSJ, 12/3/98, p.W17)
1985 The 1st Cowboy Poetry Gathering was held in Elko, Nevada. Baxter Black and Waddie Mitchell were among the performing poets. It became an annual event held in the last week of January.
(WSJ, 3/5/00, p.A1)(SSFC, 5/5/02, p.M2)
1985 Gov. Richard Bryan honored Ben Dasher (d.2004), Reno benefactor, with a Benedict J. Dasher Day. Dasher helped open the National Automobile Museum in Reno (1989).
(SFC, 1/10/04, p.B4)
1985 Las Vegas began hosting the National Finals Rodeo (NFR), which began around 1959.
(WSJ, 1/4/00, p.A20)
1986 The Hot August Nights festival was begun in Reno to earn money for the Easter Seal Society. It became an annual festival touted as the world’s largest nostalgia fest.
(SFEC, 6/14/98, p.T10)
1986 The bodies of Tony (48) and Michael (41) Spilotro were found buried in an Indiana cornfield. Tony “The Ant" Spilotro was a top mob figure in Las Vegas. In 2005 prosecutors indicted 11 Chicago mob figures for at least 18 murders, including the Spilotros.
(SFC, 4/26/05, p.A5)
1986 Nevada’s 77,000-acre Great Basin National Park was dedicated.
(SSFC, 7/18/04, p.D7)
1987 Feb 1, Terry Williams of Los Gatos, CA, won the largest slot machine payoff to that time. He put $4.9 million in his pockets after getting four lucky "7s" on a machine in Reno, NV.
(www.igt.com/Content/base.asp?pid=8.17.37.19)
1987 Mar 2, Two sets of quintuplets were born on the same day in the USA as Rosalind Helms delivered a basketball team of bouncing babies in Peoria, IL and Robin Jenkins became the mother of five in Las Vegas, NV,- beating the odds there, to be sure.
(HC, Internet, 2/3/98)
1987 Jul 15, Izzatullah Wasifi (29) was arrested at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for selling 650 grams (23 ounces) of heroin. Prosecutors said the drugs were worth $2 million on the street. Wasifi served three years and eight months in prison before winning parole. In 2007 Wasifi, a long time friend of Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai, was appointed as general-director of Afghanistan’s General Independent Administration of Anti-Corruption and Bribery.
(AP, 3/9/07)
1987 US Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and directed DOE to study only Yucca Mountain, Nevada, located within a former nuclear test site.
(www.nei.org/keyissues/nuclearwastedisposal/yuccamountain/)
1987 Nevada opened a maximum-security prison 10 miles from Ely.
(SFC, 8/21/02, p.A12)
1987 The Texas Bass family bought an undeveloped property 17 miles from Las Vegas and began the $500 million Lake Las Vegas development.
(WSJ, 6/21/00, p.B12)
1989 Steve Wynn opened his 3,000-room “The Mirage" casino resort in Las Vegas.
(Econ, 10/8/16, p.57)
1989 The Mormons dedicated a new temple in Las Vegas.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A23)
1989 Benedict J. Dasher helped open the National Automobile Museum in Reno.
(SFC, 1/10/04, p.B4)
1989 Lester "Benny" Binion, founder of the Horseshoe Casino, died.
(WSJ, 8/24/98, p.A1)
1990 Apr 2, The University of Nevada at Las Vegas won the NCAA college basketball championship, defeating Duke 103-73.
(AP, 4/2/00)
1990 Pahrump, Nevada, had 7,600 residents. The town had no police, no income tax, 5 brothels and no need for building permits. By 1998 it grew to 24,000.
(SFEC, 7/20/98, p.A3)
1990 Arthur Goldberg, head of an East Coast trucking business, bought a 5.6% share of Bally Entertainment and began a 10 year creation of the world’s largest casino conglomerate.
(SFC, 10/24/00, p.A26)
1991 Mar 18, In Nevada Irish boxer Pat Lawler (27) defeated Roberto Duran in a 6th round technical knockout in Las Vegas. Lawler, a resident of San Francisco, was an 8-1 underdog for the fight.
(SSFC, 3/113/16, DB p.50)
1991 Sep 1, The Burning Man Festival came to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada from Baker’s Beach in San Francisco.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A15)
1991 Sep 21, Union members of the Frontier Hotel-Casino went out on strike. The strike ended in 1998 under new owner, Phillip Ruffin.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A5)
1991 Sep, A scandal arose from the US Navy Tailhook convention in Las Vegas. Navy officers were accused of sexually assaulting female officers. The incident was documented by Gregory Vistica in his book "Fall from Glory, the Men Who Sank the US Navy." Paula Coughlin, a Navy lieutenant, pressed the initial charges and more than 80 women made similar claims.
(WSJ, 7/10/96, p.A19)(WSJ, 10/14/96, p.A14)(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A6)
1992 Oct 28, The US Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) was enacted. It banned betting on sports with exemptions to Delaware, Nevada, Oregon and Montana.
(Econ, 9/26/09, p.42)(http://tinyurl.com/yenf89a)
1993 Jan 6, Authorities rescued Jennifer Stolpa and infant son after her husband found help after an eight-day ordeal in the snow-covered Nevada desert.
(AP, 1/6/98)
1993 Oct, Heather Catherine Tallchief (21) drove away from the Circus Circus hotel casino in Las Vegas in an armored car with $2.5 million. In 2005 she surrendered and said she had been influenced by her boyfriend Roberto Solis, who remained a fugitive. The 2 had fled to Amsterdam after the heist.
(SFC, 9/16/05, p.A3)
1993 The Roman Catholic Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer opened in Las Vegas with seating for 2,500.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A23)
1993 In Cactus Springs a small shrine, dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet, opened. It was built be a female construction crew sponsored by Genevieve Vaughan of Texas and cared for by Patricia Pearlman, a Crone Witch from New Jersey.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/17/00, p.A1,6)
1993 Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy quit paying grazing fees on government land after the government designated the Gold Butte area as protected habitat for the endangered desert tortoise and cut his allotment of cows. The BLM cancelled his grazing permit and ordered him to remove his cows. Federal judges later upheld the action.
(SSFC, 4/20/14, p.A11)
1994 Jan, Alvaro Calambro, a Philippine native, used a hammer and crowbar to murder 2 U-Haul employees in Reno. Calambro was executed in 1999.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A3)
1994 Dec, Ron Rudin (64), a millionaire real estate developer, disappeared.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A3)
1994 In Cactus Springs, Nv., a small shrine to the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet was built. It was cared for by Patricia Pearlman, a Crone Witch from New Jersey.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A3)
c1994 Robert T. Bigelow donated $3.7 million to the Univ. of Nevada, LV, to establish the Bigelow Chair in Consciousness Studies. Bigelow established his fortune building extended stay hotels and later set up Bigelow Aerospace for a hotel in space circling the moon.
(WSJ, 8/23/99, p.A1,8)
1995 Jan, The charred body of Ron Rudin (64), a millionaire real estate developer, was found in the desert. His 5th wife, Margaret, was suspect but there was insufficient evidence to arrest her.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A3)
1995 Dec 18, A powerful fertilizer bomb was found outside an Internal Revenue Service office in Reno, Nevada, but fizzled before its lit fuse could do much damage.
(AP, 12/18/00)
1995 Pope John Paul II created a separate diocese in Las Vegas under Bishop Daniel F. Walsh.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A23)
1995 James Chic-Cheng Chen built America's 1st "master-planned Chinatown" in Las Vegas.
(WSJ, 4/28/04, p.A1)
1995 Harold’s Club in downtown Reno, owned by the Fitzgerald Gaming Corp., was closed down. It was known for a large gun collection.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.D3)
1995 Golden West Sports Tours opened a shooting gallery in Las Vegas.
(WSJ, 6/16/99, p.A24)
1996 Jul, Bruce Weinstein, a professional gambler, was killed in his bed. His decomposed body was found a month later in the desert. His girlfriend, Amy DeChant, was charged in the crime. She was found in Florida in 1998 hiding at the Sunnier Days nudist camp.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A3,5)
1996 Sep 7, Rapper Tupac Shakur was shot on the Las Vegas Strip; he died six days later.
(AP, 9/7/97)
1996 Sep 13, Rap star Tupac Shakur (b.1971) died of gun shot wounds in Las Vegas after he was wounded Sep 7 in a drive-by shooting as he was leaving a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas. He had just finished filming "Gang Related" later retitled "Criminal Intent." He was buried at Stone Mountain, Georgia.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/13/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac_Shakur)
1996 Jack Lee Harelson was convicted for stealing Native American artifacts from a cave in the Nevada desert. In 2004 Harelson faced a trial in Oregon over charges that he tried to hire a hit man to murder 4 people involved in his conviction.
(Arch, 1/05, p.10)
1996 The Neon Museum was established in Las Vegas.
(Sm, 3/06, p.26)
1997 Jan 2, In the US Northwest a week of heavy rain and melting snow caused many rivers to overflow. Downtown Reno was under water and casinos closed. More than 2,000 visitors were trapped in Yosemite National Park for more than two days as a rockslide swept away a section of Highway 140. The park was closed until March. Highway 50 to Lake Tahoe was closed and expected to be out for a month. The Feather River between Marysville and Yuba City crested at just over 78 feet and 50,000 Californians were forced to evacuate the area.
(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A13)(AP, 1/2/98)(SFC, 1/7/17, p.A10)
1997 Jan 3, Las Vegas had a total of 101,106 hotel rooms as of this date.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)
1997 May 25, In Las Vegas Jeremy Strohmeyer (20) raped and killed 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in the Primadonna Casino. Strohmeyer’s friend, David Cash, saw the initial struggle, but failed to stop it. Cash was later plagued by fellow students in Berkeley for his non-action. Strohmeyer admitted his guilt in 1998 in exchange for life in prison. He was sentenced to life in prison in Oct, 1998.
(SFC, 8/26/98, p.A14)(SFC, 8/27/98, p.A17)(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A1)(SFC, 10/15/98, p.A3)
1997 Jul 1, Nevada Athletic Commission suspended Mike Tyson for biting Holyfield.
(www.lasvegassun.com/sports/boxing/htfight/)
1997 Jul 26, Pres. Clinton visited Lake Tahoe and announced that the Forest Service would allot 350 acres to the Washoe Indian tribe for a cultural center and give tribal members access to the edge of Lake Tahoe. He also made an executive order for $50 million over 2 years and 25 initiatives to improve the water quality of Lake Tahoe. He brought with him $26 million worth of natural gas postal trucks and sewage pipes to help preserve the lake.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.A1,14)(AP, 7/26/98)
1997 Aug 27, The annual Burning Man Festival began near Gerlach, Nevada, on a private ranch on the Hualapai Playa, a prehistoric lakebed. Some 20,000 people came to the instantly created "Black Rock City" for the torching of the 50-foot effigy.
(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.A3)(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A1, 15)
1997 Oct 13, A British jet car, Thrust SSC, driven by Andy Green of the Royal Air Force set a land speed record of 764.168 mph in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. The record was not recorded as official because turn around time went over an hour due to braking problems. Green officially broke the record two days later.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A1,7)(AP, 10/13/98)
1997 Oct 15, A British jet-powered car driven by pilot Andy Green broke the land speed record with an average run of 763.035 mph at Gerlach, Nevada. The Thrust SSC was powered by two 110,000-horse-power Rolls-Royce Spey 205 engines. The vehicle was 54 feet long, 12 feet wide, and weighed 10.2 tons.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A3)(AP, 10/15/98)
1997 Oct, In Nevada a US district court convicted Jose B. Uribe for attempting to swap world famous paintings for 110 pounds of cocaine. At least some of the paintings, that included work by Matisse, Renoir and Dali, were said to be owned by entertainer Wayne Newton. Newton, embroiled in a bankruptcy suit, initially denied ownership but later changed his mind and claimed ownership.
(SFC,11/17/97, p.A2)
1997 Dec 28, The Nevada Club owned by the Fitzgerald Gaming Corp. in Reno closed down after being sold to a private party. Everything inside was auctioned including 200 old mechanical slot machines that sold for $600 when new.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.D3)
1997 Louise Driggs, a descendant of John Piper, sold the Piper Opera House of Virginia City to the nonprofit Piper's Opera House Historic Programs.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, Z1 p.4)
1997 The streets of Reno flooded as the Truckee River overflowed.
(SSFC, 8/3/03, p.C7)
1998 Jan 7, In Mustang, Nevada, two blasts at the Sierra Chemical Co. plant left 4 workers feared killed.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.A3)
1998 Feb 11, KVBC-FM (Las Vegas) offered Monica Lewinsky $5M for an interview.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1998 Feb 19, Federal officials in Henderson, Nevada, arrested Larry Wayne Harris and William Job Leavitt for possession of suspected anthrax bacterium. Harris had earlier published the 131-page book: "Bacteriological Warfare: A Major Threat to North America." The substance turned out to be a harmless veterinary vaccine. Harris was later sentenced to 6 months probation.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A1,8)(SFEC, 2/22/98, p.A11)(SFC, 3/25/98, p.A3)
1998 Aug 8, A riot broke out in Reno during the annual "Hot Autumn Nights" festival. There was some property damage and a few minor injuries. 130 people were arrested.
(SFC, 8/10/98, p.A2)
1998 Sep 4, In Nevada two Air Force helicopters crashed during training and all 12 people aboard were killed.
(SFC, 9/5/98, p.A3)
1998 Sep 6, In Gerlach, Nevada, 15,000 people gathered at Black Rock City to watch the 13th Burning Man go up in flames and end the 8 day arts festival.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep, Lonnie "Ted" Binion (55), son of Benny Binion, died from a suspected drug overdose. 6 months later the coroner declared that his death was a homicide. Sandy Murphy (26), Binion's girl friend and her lover, Rick Tabish, were considered prime suspects. 36 hours after Binion's death police arrested Tabish digging up Binion's buried vault in Pahrump that contained $4 million in silver bars and was built by Tabish. Murphy and Tabish were arrested in 1999 and convicted of 1st degree murder in 2000.
(SFC, 5/24/99, p.A3)(SFC, 6/26/99, p.A4)(SFC, 5/20/00, p.A3)
1998 Oct 18, The new Steve Wynn $1.6 billion, 3,000 room Bellagio Casino opened in Las Vegas. It was built over the site of the old Dunes casino. It was named after the Italian town of Bellagio whose name means place of relaxation.
(SFC, 10/19/98, p.A1)(SFEM, 11/29/98, p.13)
1998 Oct 19, Mike Tyson got his boxing license back after pleading with the Nevada Athletic Commission not to "torture" him anymore for biting Evander Holyfield's ears in the ring 15 months earlier.
(AP, 10/19/08)
1998 Nov, Voters approved the medical use of marijuana with a 59% margin.
(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.A20)
1998 Dec 29, In Nevada 31 wild horses were found shot to death by rifle fire at close range at Devil's Flat near Washoe Valley.
(SFC, 12/30/98, p.A3)
1998 Bart Maybie, Canadian entrepreneur, bought the defunct Moulin Rouge for a reported $3 million. A re-opening was scheduled for 2003.
(SSFM, 4/29/01, p.34)
1998 The Nevada nuclear dump site at Yucca Mountain was originally scheduled to open this year. In 2006 the US Dept. of Energy announced that it would not open until 2017.
(SFC, 7/24/06, p.A1)
1999 Jan 4, A sniper hit at least 4 vehicles on I-80 between Reno and the California border. Police arrested Christopher Lee Merritt (20) of Mankato, Minn., who hoped to rob the drivers after they crashed. Merritt pleaded guilty in 1999 and was sentenced to at least 20 years in prison in 2000.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A3)(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A2)(SFC, 11/6/99, p.A6)(SFC, 1/12/00, p.A7)
1999 Jan 12, A Reno construction worker, Anthony John Merlino (21) was arrested for the slaughter of 34 wild horses. Two marines were also charged, William Brendle (22) and Darien Thomas (21).
(SFC, 1/13/99, p.A3)
1999 Feb 8, Nevada lawmakers voted to oppose federal plans for a nuclear storage dump northwest of Las Vegas.
(SFC, 2/9/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 4, A medical helicopter crashed about 35 miles northwest of Las Vegas and the pilot, James Bond Jr., and 2 nurses, Kathy Batterman and Leroy Shelton, were killed.
(SFC, 4/5/99, p.A4)
1999 May 3, The new $1.4 billion Venetian Resort Hotel and Casino opened at the former site of the Sands Hotel. It was developed by Las Vegas Sands, Inc.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, DB p.70)
1999 May 4, The Las Vegas primary mayoral election were scheduled. Lawyer Oscar Goodman (59) led a 9 person filed with 49% of the vote.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, p.C5)(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A3)
1999 Jun 3, Zane Floyd (23), a former Marine, killed 4 employees at an Albertsons supermarket in Las Vegas before being arrested by police.
(SFC, 6/4/99, p.A4)
1999 Jun 8, A general election was scheduled.
(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A3)
1999 Jun 4, Senators Diane Feinstein of California and Harry Reid of Nevada announced the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act. The bill authorized $300 million over 10 years to restore clarity and health to Lake Tahoe.
(SFC, 6/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jun 8, Oscar Goodman was elected mayor of Las Vegas with 63.8% of the vote over Arnie Adamsen.
(SFC, 6/9/99, p.A3)
1999 Jul 8, Heavy rains poured 3 inches onto Las Vegas and caused the worst flooding in 15 years.
(SFC, 7/9/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 5, Lightning sparked over 75 fires and blackened some 500 sq. miles of Nevada range.
(SFC, 8/6/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 9, The US government took over the Mustang Ranch brothel following successful fraud and racketeering charges.
(SFC, 8/10/99, p.A3)
1999 Sep 3, An estimated 18,000 people were in attendance at Black Rock Desert for the Burning Man festival. Local veterans complained that spontaneous art projects started giving way to carefully laid plans and agendas.
(SFC, 9/4/99, p.B1)(SSFC, 1/2/05, p.A20)
1999 Sep 4, The 14th Burning Man festival drew 23,500 people.
(SFEC, 9/5/99, p.C10)
1999 Sep 1, The $760 million Paris-Las Vegas Hotel Casino, owned by Park Place Entertainment, held its grand opening. Arthur Goldberg (d.2000 at 58) delivered the hotel on time and on budget at $785 million.
(SFEC, 10/24/99, p.T10)(SFC, 10/24/00, p.A26)
1999 Nov 22, Raymond Edward Wong called Pinole, Ca., police to report that Alice Sin (21) of Pinole, Ca., had not come home. Sin’s decomposed and bullet-riddled body was found Jan 25, 2000, in Churchill County, Nevada. In 2011 police in Pinole, citing new evidence, arrested Raymond Wong, the father of her child. Wong’s 2nd girlfriend, Jessica Tang, later testified that all three had driven into the desert and she and Wong shot and killed Alice Sin, who was reportedly pregnant at the time.
(SFC, 1/28/00, p.A1)(SFC, 12/31/11, p.C2)(SFC, 1/4/13, p.A1)
1999 Nov 30, Five white supremacists attempted to firebomb the Emanu-El synagogue in Reno. They pleaded guilty at their 7/14/00 trial.
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.A3)
1999 Dec, The $70 million Cirque du Soleil show called "O" began playing at the 1,800 seat Bellagio Theater.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.AA2)
1999 David Littlejohn edited "The Real Las Vegas: Life Beyond the Strip," a collection of 13 essays by journalism graduates of the master's program at UC Berkeley.
(SFEC, 10/17/99, BR p.5)
1999 David Thompson published "In Nevada: The Land, The People, God and Chance."
(SFEC, 10/31/99, BR p.10)
1999 Arthur Goldberg of Park Place Entertainment acquired Caesar’s World for $3 billion.
(SFC, 10/24/00, p.A26)
2000 Jan 30, The Mapes Hotel and Casino, listed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's as one of the most endangered landmarks, was blown up at 8 a.m. as 10,000 people watched.
(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A1)(SFC, 1/31/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 6, MGM Grand Inc. led by Kirk Kerkorian acquired Mirage Resorts, founded by Stephen A. Wynn, for $4.4 billion in cash.
(SFC, 3/7/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 8, In Nevada a van crashed on I-15 at jean and 8 people were killed with 5 injured.
(SFC, 3/9/00, p.A3)
2000 Mar 19, In Nevada 5 youths on a juvenile offenders cleanup crew were killed by a speeding minivan on I-15 in Las Vegas.
(SFC, 3/20/00, p.A11)
2000 Mar 19, Krystal Steadman (5) disappeared from a playground at Stateline. Her body was found the next day off US 50 and Thomas Robert Soria (19) was arrested.
(SFC, 3/21/00, p.A5)
2000 Mar 30, In Reno there was an arson fire at a construction site. By the end of May a serial arsonist was suspected in setting 12 fires with damages over $2 billion.
(SFC, 5/31/00, p.A6)
2000 Jun, Jose Manuel Vigoa Perez robbed the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, continued a string of robberies that began in 1998. He was soon caught and imprisoned. In 2008 John Huddy authored “Storming Las Vegas: How a Cuban-Born, Soviet-Trained Commando Took Down the Strip to the Tune of Five World-Class Hotels, Three Armored Cars, and Millions of Dollars."
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.W7)
2000 Jul 4, In Jarbridge the Jarbridge Shovel Brigade reopened access to South Canyon Road, which had been closed by the US Forest Service to protect endangered bull trout in the Jarbridge River.
(SFC, 7/5/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 15, The new $97 million Las Vegas federal courthouse opened.
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.A10)
2000 Sep 2, Some 28,000 people gathered for the finale of the Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert.
(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.A1)
2000 Oct 12, Syl Cheney-Coker (55), a poet from Sierra Leone, was named as the Las Vegas resident writer-in-asylum.
(SFC, 10/12/00, p.A10)
2000 Oct 19, Arthur Goldberg, head of Park Place Entertainment, died at age 58. In 1999 Park Place generated $4.6 billion in revenue.
(SFC, 10/24/00, p.A26)
2000 Dec 15, US Congressional compromise included federal protection for the Black Rock Desert-High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area, 1.2 million acres in northwest Nevada.
(SFC, 12/16/00, p.C2)
2000 Dec, Harper's magazine ran an article by Jim McManus, a "rank amateur," who had made a successful run in the 2000 World Series of Poker. In 2003 the article was expanded into the book "Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs and Binion's World Series of Poker.
(SSFC, 5/4/03, p.M1)
2000 Gregory Martin authored "Mountain City," a personal look at the northern Nevada mining town.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, BR p.8)
2000 Switch began building a series of colocation centers in Las Vegas. Its business got a boost in December 2002, when it acquired a former Enron broadband services facility out of bankruptcy. In 2010 the SWITCH SuperNAP, a huge data center, opened near the Las Vegas airport.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.28)(http://tinyurl.com/7r3deaq)
2000 In Nevada mine operator Arimetco abandoned a WW II-era mine and left behind a stew of uranium, arsenic and other chemicals. In 1994 the EPA determined that the site qualified for priority Superfund status but did not formally propose the listing until 2016. State regulators had first accused the Anaconda Mining Co. of discharging pollutants there in 1985. In 2018 the local Yerington Paiute Tribe fought against efforts to put the state and current owner Atlantic Richfield in charge of the cleanup, instead of the EPA.
(SSFC, 4/29/18, p.C11)
2001 April 5, Michelle Curran (16) was reported missing in Las Vegas. She was kidnapped as she hitchhiked, sexually abused for three weeks, and then shot in the head. In 2006 Michael Thorton (50) and Janeen Snyder (26) were both found guilty of murder, rape with a foreign object, and burglary. The pair were sentenced to death.
(http://tinyurl.com/fww93)(SFC, 9/9/06, p.B2)
2001 Apr 14, It was reported that 8 cases of childhood leukemia were recorded in 2000 in the area of Fallon, Nevada. 12 children were diagnosed with leukemia since 1997 and high levels of arsenic in the drinking water was suspected. Jet fuel at a nearby air base and a nuclear detonation in 1963, and pesticides were also cited as possible causes. In 2002 a 16th case was reported.
(SFC, 4/14/01, p.A6)(SFC, 7/29/02, p.A4)
2001 Apr 21, Stephanus Bridges (37), a South African national, was executed for the shooting Hunter Blatchford and leaving him to bleed to death in the desert outside Las Vegas. Bridges denied the killing.
(SFC, 4/23/01, p.A7)
2001 Jun 4, Nevada lawmakers approved a bill to legalize Internet gambling and passed a medical marijuana measure.
(WSJ, 6/5/01, p.A1)
2001 Jun 18, Thousands of firefighters fought the Martis fire at Floriston near Truckee that covered 12,300 acres since Jun 17. The fire on the California-Nevada border reached 14,500 acres with 2/3 in Nevada.
(SFC, 6/19/01, p.A1)(SFC, 6/20/01, p.A3)(SFC, 6/23/01, p.A3)
2001 Jul 28, Martin Stern Jr., architect of much of the Las Vegas skyline, died at age 84.
(SFC, 8/2/01, p.C2)
2001 Aug 17, Adam Ezerski (19), wanted for 2 recent murders in Florida, was arrested at the Holiday Inn in Reno as the city kicked off its gay pride celebration.
(SFC, 8/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 27, In Gerlach, Nevada, thousands of people gathered at Black Rock City for the 16th Burning Man arts festival. This year’s theme was the Seven Ages, from the cradle to the mausoleum
(SFC, 9/1/01, p.A1,9)
2001 Sep 2, The Burning Man festival came to a close. Also burned was "The Mausoleum," a plywood temple built over several weeks and dedicated to the dead.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.B3)
2001 Sep 22, Volunteers celebrated the completion of the Tahoe Rim Trail, a 150-mile loop around Lake Tahoe that began with an idea by US Forest Service ranger Glenn Hampton in 1980.
(SFC, 9/29/01, p.A13)(SSFC, 4/14/02, p.C5)
2001 Oct 15, Anthrax in a letter to a Reno Microsoft office was reported to be from Malaysia. 2 anthrax-tainted letters were reported to have been mailed from Trenton, New Jersey and 2 postal employees there showed symptoms.
(SFC, 10/16/01, p.A1)
2001 Sally Denton and Roger Morris authored "The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America 1947-2000."
(WSJ, 3/23/00, p.W12)
2001 Richard L. Orndorff, Robert W. Wieder and Harry F. Filkorn authored "Geology Underfoot in Central Nevada."
(NH, 6/01, p.22)
2001 Dwayne Jackson was arrested on kidnapping and robbery charges in Nevada. He spent 4 years in prison until his release in 2006. In November, 2010, an error regarding DNA evidence indicated that the wrong man had been sent to prison.
(SFC, 7/8/11, p.A6)
2002 Jan 10, US Energy Sec. Spencer Abraham said he found the Nevada site at Yucca Mountain "scientifically sound and suitable" as a nuclear waste repository.
(SFC, 1/11/02, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/11/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan, The 18th annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering was held in Elko.
(SSFC, 5/5/02, p.M2)
2002 Feb 15, Pres. Bush approved the Nevada Yucca Mountain site for nuclear waste. Nevada filed suit to block the decision.
(SFC, 2/16/02, p.A7)
2002 Apr 8, Gov. Kenny Guinn vetoed the Pres. Bush’s endorsement of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste site.
(SFC, 4/9/02, p.A5)
2002 Apr 23, The US Supreme Court ruled that property owners were not entitled to compensation in cases where a temporary freeze stops development. The ruling stemmed from a development freeze around Lake Tahoe.
(SFC, 4/24/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 27, In Laughlin, Nev., members of the Hells Angels clashed with members of the Mongol gang and 3 people were killed in a shootout at Harrah’s. Some 80,000 bikers were in town for the annual Laughlin River Run party. Investigations led to arrests on Dec 3, 2003.
(SSFC, 4/28/02, p.A9)(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A25)
2002 May 7, Lucas John Helder (21) of Pine Island, Minn., was arrested following a car chase near Lovelock, Nevada, and charged for the recent series of mailbox pipe bombs. Helder said he was trying to make a "smiley face" pattern on the map of his bombings. His series of rural mailbox bombings left six people wounded in Illinois and Iowa. Helder has since been found incompetent to stand trial.
(SFC, 5/8/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/10/02, p.A3)(AP, 5/7/07)
2002 May 13, A crash on I-80 east of Reno left 5 members of a Utah family dead. Stephen Scharosch later admitted he was drunk and under the influence of marijuana. In 2003 Scharosch (52) was sentenced to up to 80 years in prison.
(SFC, 1/18/03, p.A15)
2002 Jul 9, The US Senate approved a nuclear waste burial site at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert. The Senate voted to entomb thousands of tons of radioactive waste inside Yucca Mountain, rejecting the state's fervent protests. Gov. Kenny Guinn vowed to continue fighting the plan.
(SFC, 7/10/02, p.A3)(AP, 7/9/03)
2002 Jul 23, Pres. Bush signed legislation designating Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as the nation’s nuclear waste repository.
(WSJ, 7/24/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug 31, The Burning Man was put to flames at Black Rock, Nv. Some 29,000 people attended the event, which featured a 78-foot Temple of Joy, created by David Best, that was burned down Sep 1.
(SFC, 8/31/02, p.A3)(SFC, 9/2/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug, In Gerlach, Nevada, the 17th Burning Man arts festival was scheduled. Founder Larry Harvey summarized the event as an example of a gift economy, where "value is transmitted through people, from heart to heart."
(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.E6)
2002 Oct 5, In Nevada the partially clad body of Jay R. Smith (87), a former star in “The Little Rascals," was found wrapped in a sheet near Interstate 15. Charles Wayne Crombie (d.2014), a homeless man befriended by Smith, was later convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to 20 years to life.
(AP, 7/18/14)
2002 Dec 1, The US federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) began rounding up over 2,650 wild horses in Nevada to prevent starving and rangeland destruction.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.J7)
2002 Dec 4, John Weaver, historian, died in Las Vegas. His books included "Los Angeles: The Enormous Village" (1980).
(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A25)
2002 In Nevada Jeremiah Miller was robbed, killed and dismembered at a Las Vegas hotel. In 2007 Scott Raymond Dozier was sentenced to death for killing Miller, who had come to Nevada to buy ingredients for making meth.
(SFC, 7/12/18, p.A14)
2003 Mar 21, A young man from LA visiting Las Vegas hit pay dirt, a world record $39 million on a slot machine.
(AP, 3/22/03)
2003 Mar 25, Celine Dion opened a three-year gig in the new $95 million Colosseum theater at Caesars Palace.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 May 24, The $16 million Nevada Museum of Art opened in Reno.
(SFC, 5/27/03, p.D2)
2003 May 24, In Las Vegas Chris Moneymaker (27), an accountant, walked away with $2.5 million and the title of champion in the 34th annual World Series of Poker.
(AP, 5/25/03)
2003 May 29, A fire destroyed the Moulin Rouge casino in downtown Las Vegas.
(SFC, 5/30/03, p.A18)
2003 Jun 22, It was reported that Elko, Nevada, besieged by Mormon crickets (shield-backed katydids), had spent $56,000 for 18 tons of the pesticide carbaryl to stop the infestation. The 4-year Nevada plague, the worst in 5 decades, had missed Elko until this year.
(SSFC, 6/22/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 20, Floodwaters receded in Las Vegas following the worst flood since 1999.
(SFC, 8/21/03, p.A2)
2003 Aug 30, In Gerlach, Nevada, a woman riding an "art car" at the counterculture Burning Man festival died when she accidentally fell under the vehicle's wheels. The weeklong festival, theme name "Beyond Belief," peaked Saturday night with the torching of a 70-foot-high wooden effigy of a man.
(AP, 8/31/03)(SFC, 9/1/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 31, In Gerlach, Nevada, the "Temple of Honor" by David Best went up in flames. Some 30,500 people attended the weeklong "Burning Man" event.
(SFC, 9/1/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 3, In Las Vegas a tiger attacked magician Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy during a performance. It was Horn's 59th birthday.
(SFC, 10/4/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 25, A small plane crashed after takeoff at the North Las Vegas and 6 family members were killed.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.A3)
2003 The US Bureau of Land Management auctioned off the assets of Mustang Ranch on eBay. Lance Gilman paid $145,000 for the brothel’s trademark and pink stucco building, which he airlifted to his Wild Horse bordello in Storey County, Nevada.
(Econ, 1/29/05, p.33)
2004 Jan 13, Harrah's agreed to buy Binion's Horseshoe casino. It had just been shut down by federal agents for failure to pay pension and health benefits to its employees.
(WSJ, 1/14/04, p.B3)
2004 Jul 9, An appeals court rejected Nevada’s claim against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, but ordered leak plans beyond 10,000 years.
(WSJ, 7/12/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 14, Harrah’s reached a deal to acquire Caesars for about $17 a share.
(SFC, 7/15/04, p.C1)
2004 Jul 15, The new $650 million, 4.4-mile Las Vegas Monorail began operations with stops at 7 stations between Sahara and Tropicana avenues.
(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.D2)
2004 Jul 16, The Waterfall Fire in Carson City, Nev., consumed over 7,600 acres and threatened some 1,000 homes. 14 homes were already destroyed.
(SFC, 7/17/04, p.B1)
2004 Aug 30, In Gerlach, Nevada, the annual Burning Man Festival began.
(SFC, 8/30/04, p.B1)
2004 Sep 5, The 19th Burning Man went up in flames in Gerlach, Nevada, where some 35, 664 people had gathered for the annual festival.
(SSFC, 9/5/04, p.B1)
2004 Nov 16, US Senate Democrats selected Harry Reid of Nevada as party whip for the 109th Congress.
(SFC, 11/17/04, p.A3)
2005 Feb 21, The new Atomic Testing Museum opened in Las Vegas.
(www.ntshf.org/)
2005 Mar 9, In Las Vegas 2 retired NYC police detectives, Louis Eppolito (56) and Stephen Caracappa (63), were arrested on federal charges of taking part in 8 murders on behalf of the Mafia. In 2009 both men were sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 3/11/05, p.A3)(SFC, 3/7/09, p.A5)
2005 Apr 28, The new 2,700 room Wynn Las Vegas was scheduled to open.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F10)
2005 Apr 21, Anna Ayala, the woman who claimed she found a finger in her bowl of Wendy's chili last month in San Jose, Ca., was arrested at her home in Las Vegas.
(AP, 4/22/05)(SFC, 4/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 26, The 160-acre 1870 ghost town of Palisade, Nevada, was auctioned off in SF for $150,000.
(SFC, 4/27/05, p.A2)
2005 Apr 28, Steve Wynn opened the new $2.7 billion Wynn Las Vegas casino-resort. It was built on the site of the historic Desert Inn.
(SFC, 4/29/05, p.A3)(WSJ, 5/17/05, p.D10)
2005 May 23, Kansas City rapper Anthony “Fat Tone" Watkins (24) and another man were found shot dead in the Southern Highlands area of Las Vegas. Police later said that a SF rap promoter named Andre Dow, aka “Mac Minister," and Jason Mathis killed the 2 men to avenge the Nov, 2004, killing of Andre “Mac Dre" Hicks in Kansas. Mathis was arrested in 2005 in SF. Dow was arrested in 2006 in SF.
(SFC, 5/26/05, p.B5)(SFC, 11/29/05, p.A1)(SFC, 3/3/06, p.B7)
2005 Aug 22, Harrah’s said it has agreed to buy the Imperial Palace Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas for $370 million.
(WSJ, 8/23/05, p.D6)
2005 Aug 29-2005 Sep 5, The annual Burning Man Festival in Nevada planned to introduce BORG2, an event within the main event concentrating on art projects.
(SSFC, 1/2/05, p.A20)
2005 Sep 3, In Nevada over 35,000 people gathered in the Black Rock Desert for the 20th burning of the Burning Man.
(SFC, 9/3/05, p.A25)
2005 Sep 21, Stephen M. Ressa (27) of Rialto, Ca., drove a stolen car into a crowd on the Las Vegas Strip killing 2 people and injuring dozens.
(SFC, 9/23/05, p.A6)
2005 Sep 22, Boxer Leavander Johnson (35) died from injuries suffered in a Sep 17 Los Vegas boxing match with Jesus Chavez. The match was telecast on HBO.
(WSJ, 9/29/05, p.D10)
2005 Oct 8, In Nevada 23 robotic vehicles competed over a 150-mile course for a $2 million prize sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Darpa. 4 robotic vehicles finished the race across the Mojave desert over a rugged 132-mile course without a single human command. Stanford University's Sebastian Thrun, a customized Volkswagen, crossed first in 6 hours and 59 minutes. Race officials planned to resume the race Oct 9 so the sole remaining vehicle, a mammoth six-wheel truck, could compete in daylight.
(SFC, 10/8/05, p.C1)(AP, 10/9/05)(Econ, 10/15/05, p.88)
2005 Oct 9, A driverless Volkswagen won a $2 million race across the rugged Nevada desert, beating four other robot-guided vehicles that completed a Pentagon-sponsored contest aimed at making warfare safer for humans [see Oct 8].
(AP, 10/9/06)
2005 Nov, The US Bureau of Land Management auctioned 3,000 acres of Nevada land in the Las Vega area for $800 million.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.37)
2005 William L. Fox authored “In the Desert of Desire," a wandering meditation on Las Vegas.
(WSJ, 11/25/05, p.W3)
2006 Jan 21, In Las Vegas Manny Pacquiao avenged his defeat 10 months ago and handed Erik Morales the worst beating of his career before finally stopping him in the 10th round of their 130-pound showdown.
(AP, 1/22/06)
2006 Jan 21, In Las Vegas Jennifer Berry, a 22-year-old ballerina from Oklahoma, was crowned Miss America. The pageant went without coverage from a major television network for the first time since 1954, but aired on Country Music Television.
(AP, 1/22/06)
2006 Feb 7, Nevada’s State Gaming Control Board sent a letter to casinos expressing concern about “gangster rap."
(WSJ, 3/28/06, p.A1)
2006 May 5, A spokesman for Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn said Nevadans will be able to buy prescription drugs from Canada over the Internet starting next week, despite objections by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 Jun 12, Charla Mack was slashed to death in Reno, Nevada. Judge Chuck Weller (53) was shot and wounded the same day by a sniper. Police issued a murder warrant for Charla’s husband, David Mack (45), the next day and declared him a suspect in the shooting of Weller. Mack surrendered to Mexican police on June 23. In 2008 Mack was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 6/16/06, p.B6)(WSJ, 6/24/06, p.A1)(SFC, 2/9/08, p.A4)
2006 Jul 11, Kathy Augustine (50), Nevada state controller, died suddenly. Her husband, Chaz Higgs, said it was a heart attack and chalked it up to the stress of an uphill election battle for state treasurer. But just days after her death, Higgs tried to kill himself by slitting his wrists. On Sep 29 Police arrested Higgs in Hampton, Va., after toxicology tests found a drug in his wife’s system that would have paralyzed her. Higgs was convicted on June 29, 2007, of killing Augustine by injecting her with succinylcholine, a paralyzing drug. He was sentenced to life with a possibility of parole after serving 20 years.
(AP, 7/21/06)(SFC, 9/30/06, p.A3)(www.krnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6762551)
2006 Jul 22, Some 3,000 people gathered at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas for the annual Lifestyles conference, a five-day, $700-per-couple event that offers a mix of seminars, socializing and sex.
(Reuters, 7/22/06)
2006 Aug 11, Jamie Gold (36), a former Hollywood talent agent, won the $12 million grand prize in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, Nv.
(SFC, 8/12/06, p.A2)
2006 Aug 29, Warren Steed Jeffs (50), a fugitive polygamist, was arrested in Nevada. He was on the FBI’s 10 most-wanted list for sex crimes in Utah and Arizona.
(SFC, 8/30/06, p.A11)
2006 Aug 31, The United States carried out a subcritical nuclear experiment successfully at an underground test site in Nevada, the 2nd this year and the 23rd such test since 1997.
(http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/100778)
2006 Oct 31, In Reno, Nev., a fire at the Mizpah Hotel killed 12 people. Valerie Moore (47), a casino cook, was arrested the next day for starting the fire.
(SFC, 11/2/06, p.A4)(AP, 11/5/06)(SFC, 11/6/06, p.A3)(AP, 10/31/07)
2006 Nov 4, Katherine Jefferts Schori (52) took office at Washington National Cathedral as the 1st woman to lead the US Episcopal Church and the 1st female to head an Anglican province. The former bishop of Nevada was elected at the Episcopal convention in June.
(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.A9)
2006 Nov 9, The Nevada Supreme Court upheld a Las Vegas city regulation barring erotic dancers from raunchy physical contact with their customers, in a ruling that runs counter to the gambling city's sinful reputation.
(Reuters, 11/11/06)
2006 Nov 14, US Sen. Harry Reid, a moderate Nevada Democrat, was elected by colleagues as US Senate majority leader for the 110th Congress that will convene in January.
(AP, 11/14/06)
2006 Dec 4, Station Casinos of Las Vegas said it received a $4.7 billion buyout offer from its founding family and affiliate of Colony Capital LLC, a private equity firm.
(SFC, 12/5/06, p.C3)
2006 Dec 21, The US Census Bureau said Arizona had deposed Nevada as the fastest growing US state.
(WSJ, 12/22/06, p.A1)
2007 Jan 2, Jim Gibbons, former Republican Representative in Congress, was sworn in as governor of Nevada. He soon faced FBI investigations over unreported gifts while serving on the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees.
(WSJ, 2/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan, The culinary workers’ union in Nevada numbered some 51,000 members representing hotel and casino workers.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.30)
2007 Apr 11, Joe Francis (b.1973), the creator of the “Girls Gone Wild" video series, was indicted in Reno, Nevada, on federal tax charges. In September 2009, Francis pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns and bribing Nevada jail workers. On November 5, 2009, US District Judge S. James Otero accepted Francis’ deal on the grounds that a key witness withheld information from prosecutors.
(SFC, 1/29/10, p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Francis)
2007 Apr 21, Police in Las Vegas raided illegal brothels as part of “Operation Dollhouse," a sting aimed at prostitution and human trafficking with suspected links to Asia. Prostitution is legal in most counties of Nevada, but not in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas.
(SFC, 4/25/07, p.B5)
2007 May 5, In Las Vegas Floyd Mayweather Jr. won his boxing match against Oscar De La Hoya in a 12-round split decision. A sellout crowd of 16,200 paid a record $19 million gate.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 Jun 27, Nevada Solar One, the first large CSP (concentrating solar power) plant built since the 1980s, went online with a capacity to generate 64 megawatts.
(Econ, 9/15/07, p.42)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One)
2007 Jul 6, In Las Vegas Steven Zegrean (51) opened fire on gamblers at the New York-New York casino and wounded 4 people before he was tackled by off-duty military reservists. On Oct 19, 2009, Zegrean was sentenced to 26-90 years in prison.
(SFC, 7/7/07, p.A5)(SFC, 10/20/09, p.A5)
2007 Jul 7, Wildfires in California consumed 17,000 acres in Inyo National Forest and 7,500 acres in Los Padres National Forest. An 8,000-acre wildfire forced hundreds of people in the town of Winnemucca to leave their homes, one of more than a dozen blazes that charred a combined 55 square miles in northern Nevada. In Utah a 160,000-acre wildfire forced evacuations at Cove Fort and the Blundell Geothermal Power Plant. Wildfires also burned in Colorado, Arizona, Oregon and Washington states.
(AP, 7/8/07)(SSFC, 7/8/07, p.A5)
2007 Aug 21, The board of MGM Mirage approved a deal with Dubai World in which the holding company for the Persian Gulf state will eventually acquire a 9.5% stake and 50% ownership in the Las Vegas CityCenter project.
(WSJ, 8/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Aug 28, Burning Man became Burnt Man four days early, and a San Francisco performance artist was arrested on suspicion of igniting the signature figure of the counterculture festival in the remote Nevada desert.
(AP, 8/28/07)
2007 Sep 3, Steve Fossett (b.1944), tycoon turned record seeker, disappeared in Nevada after flying from the Flying M Ranch, owned by billionaire Baron Hilton. In 2002 Fosset became the 1st person to fly around the world in a balloon. In 2006 Fossett authored his autobiography “Chasing the Wind." A search was formally suspended on Oct 2. On Feb 15, 2008, an Illinois court declared him legally dead. In 2008 wreckage of his plane was found on Oct 1 in the rugged eastern mountains of California.
(SFC, 9/5/07, p.A8)(SFC, 9/15/07, p.A1)(SFC, 2/16/08, p.B5)(Econ, 2/23/08, p.106)(Reuters, 10/2/08)
2007 Sep 8, In Nevada Darrin Tuck (26) handed in a videotape to Nevada authorities. The graphic video depicted a 2003 sexual assault on a 2-year-old girl. Chester Arthur Stiles was tracked down following a nationwide manhunt. In 2009 Stiles was sentenced to 21 terms of life in prison.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.A4)(www.amw.com/fugitives/case.cfm?id=49286)
2007 Sep 11, Douglas Eugene "Gene" Savoy, explorer, died at age 80 in Reno, Nev. He discovered more than 40 lost cities in Peru and led long-distance sailing adventures to learn more about ancient cultures. Savoy wrote dozens of books, including "Antisuyo: The Search for the Lost Cities of the Amazon" (1970) about his early discoveries in Peru, and "On the Trail of the Feathered Serpent" (1974) about some of his sea journeys.
(AP, 9/16/07)
2007 Sep 14, Two airplanes collided at the Reno National Championship Air Races, killing one pilot and injuring another in the third fatal crash at the event in four days.
(AP, 9/15/07)
2007 Sep 16, Police in Las Vegas arrested O.J. Simpson saying he was part of an armed group that broke into a hotel room on Sep 13 and snatched memorabilia that documented his sports career. Simpson (60) was booked on five felony counts, including suspicion of assault and robbery with a deadly weapon. On Sep 18 DA David Roger filed the felony charges and added five other felonies, including kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping.
(SFC, 9/17/07, p.A1)(AP, 9/18/07)
2007 Nov 13, In Las Vegas the New Frontier casino, opened in 1942, was imploded to make way for a $5 billion megaresort. It earned historical notations by becoming the Strip's first theme casino and hosting Elvis Presley's debut in the city. Phil Ruffin sold the 34.5-acre site to Elad, owned by Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva, for $1.24 billion in May. Ruffin had bought the Frontier in 1997 for $165 million and quickly settled a nearly 6 1/2-year strike by 550 hotel workers, one of the longest job actions in US history.
(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 15, During a feisty Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Hillary Rodham Clinton accused her closest rivals, Barack Obama and John Edwards, of slinging mud "right out of the Republican playbook" and sharply criticized their records.
(AP, 11/15/08)
2007 Nov 25, Kevin Dubrow (52), lead singer for the 1980s heavy metal band Quiet Riot, died in Las Vegas from an accidental cocaine overdose.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Nov 28, O.J. Simpson pleaded not guilty in Las Vegas to charges of kidnapping and armed robbery stemming from a confrontation with sports memorabilia dealers. Simpson and a co-defendant were convicted in October, 2008.
(AP, 11/28/08)
2007 Dec 7, US federal officials outlined a new plan on how to allocate water to California, Arizona and Nevada from the Colorado River in case of shortages.
(SFC, 12/10/07, p.A9)
2008 Jan 5, A levee break flooded hundreds of homes In Nevada as a storm that has pummeled the West Coast with high wind and heavy rain dropped a thick blanket of snow on the Sierra Nevada.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 19, In Nevada Hillary Clinton defeated rival Barack Obama 51-45% in a tight Democratic contest. Her delegate count increased to 236 followed by Obama with 136 and 50 for Sen. John Edwards. Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor, cruised to victory in the little-contested GOP Nevada caucuses.
(AP, 1/20/08)(SSFC, 1/20/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 20, Brianna Denison (19) last was seen at the edge of the University of Nevada, Reno. Her body was found Feb 15, 8 miles away near a business park and an autopsy confirmed that she died of strangulation. DNA evidence linked her kidnapping to two other attacks on women near the university late last year.
(AP, 2/17/08)
2008 Feb 28, In Las Vegas two vials of ricin were found a manager at the Extended Stay America motel. 2 days earlier police had found firearms and an “anarchist type textbook" there. Roger Von Bergendorff (57) was the last to stay in the room, and has been in critical condition since calling an ambulance on Feb. 14 complaining of respiratory distress. In April Bergendorff was indicted on federal charges that included possession of a biological toxin. Bergendorff was convicted and sentenced in November to 3½ years in federal prison.
(AP, 3/1/08)(SFC, 3/3/08, p.A4)(SFC, 4/23/08, p.A3)(SFC, 11/18/08, p.A8)
2008 Mar 6, In Nevada letters began arriving this week to patients who received injected anesthesia at the endoscopy center from March 2004 to mid-January were urged to get tested for hepatitis B and C, and HIV. The Las Vegas clinic was found to be reusing syringes and vials of medication for nearly four years.
(AP, 3/6/08)
2008 Apr 11, Crystle Stewart (26), of Missouri City, Texas, was named Miss USA, besting 50 other beauty queens for the coveted crown in Las Vegas.
(AP, 4/12/08)
2008 May 12, Oakley Hall (b.1920), prolific author and writing teacher, died in Nevada City. His books included “Warlock" (1958) and “The Art and Craft of Novel Writing" (1994).
(SFC, 5/14/08, p.A1)
2008 May 28, In Reno, Nevada, 30 monkeys were found essentially cooked alive after a repair technician left a heater on at a lab owned by Charles River Laboratories. Two other monkeys had to be euthanized. The company was fined $14,000.
(SFC, 3/18/10, p.A7)(http://tinyurl.com/yab2maj)
2008 Jun 6, Pres. Bush signed a transportation bill that freed $45 million for environmental studies for a levitating train planned to run from Disneyland to Las Vegas.
(SFC, 6/7/08, p.C2)
2008 Jun 28, A small plane crashed outside Las Vegas killing 4 residents of Oakley, Ca.
(SFC, 6/30/08, p.B1)
2008 Jul 25, US regulators took over two banks and sold them to Mutual of Omaha Bank, the sixth and seventh bank failures this year as financial institutions struggle with a housing bust and credit crunch. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said it closed First National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank NA of California.
(Reuters, 7/26/08)
2008 Aug 22, In North Las Vegas, Nevada, an experimental aircraft crashed into a house killing the pilot of the Velocity 173 RG and 2 people in the home.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 30, In Black Rock City, Nevada, the 40-foot Burning Man was set aflame. This year’s festival, themed the American Dream, was marked by a 10-story steel frame tower built by union workers of recycled materials. The annual guidebook reached 77 pages.
(SSFC, 8/31/08, p.B2)
2008 Sep 1, In Nevada an air tanker being used to drop retardant on a wildfire in the Sierra Nevada crashed after taking off for its last flight of the day, killing all three crew members.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 5, US bank regulators shut down Silver State Bank, saying the Nevada bank failed because of losses on soured loans, mainly in commercial real estate and land development. It was the 11th failure this year of a federally insured bank.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Oct 3, O.J. Simpson was found guilty of robbing two sports-memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Las Vegas hotel room on Sep 13, 2007. This was 13 years to the day after being acquitted of killing his wife and her friend in Los Angeles. Four other men charged in the case struck plea bargains that saved them from potential prison sentences in return for their testimony.
(AP, 10/4/08)
2008 Nov 4, Voters in Nevada favored Barack Obama and ousted 2 Republicans to give Democrats a majority in the state senate.
(WSJ, 11/10/08, p.A10)
2008 Dec 5, O.J. Simpson was sentenced in Las Vegas from 9 to 33 years in prison for kidnapping and assaulting two sports memorabilia dealers with a deadly weapon.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 9, Nevada state and federal authorities said they arrested nearly two dozen people, many with ties to Eastern Europe, in a credit card fraud and identity theft scheme that cost Las Vegas businesses and consumers about $1.5 million.
(AP, 12/9/08)
2008 Dec 22, In Nevada the Encore, Steve Wynn’s vaguely Chinese-themed hotel, opened.
(Econ, 2/7/09, p.29)(http://tinyurl.com/byf3qk)
2008 Dec 27, In northern Nevada a 13 rail cars containing grain were involved in a derailment along the Humboldt River. The derailment triggered the collapse of a 102-year-old bridge spanning the river.
(SSFC, 12/28/08, p.B2)
2009 Jan 24, In Las Vegas Miss Indiana Katie Stam was crowned Miss America 2009 by Miss America 2008 Kirsten Haglund.
(AP, 1/25/09)
2009 Apr 17, Great Basin Bank of Elko, Nevada, became the 25th US bank to fail this year.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.79)(www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/greatbasin.html)
2009 May 1, Danny Gans (52), one of the most popular entertainers on the Las Vegas Strip for the last decade, died in his sleep at his home in Henderson, Nev. A coroner later said Gans' death was accidental, caused by a prescription painkiller.
(AP, 5/2/09)(AP, 6/9/09)
2009 May 13, RealtyTrac Inc. said new data indicated that the number of US households faced with losing their homes to foreclosure jumped 32 percent in April compared with the same month last year, with Nevada, Florida and California showing the highest rates.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 May, Dr. Conrad Murray (56), a Las Vegas cardiologist, signed on as Michael Jackson's personal physician at $150,000 a month. He was in dire financial shape at the time and owed a total of at least $780,000 in judgments against him and his medical practice, outstanding mortgage payments on his house, delinquent student loans, child support and credit cards.
(AP, 8/1/09)
2009 Aug 14, Real estate lender Colonial BancGroup Inc. was shut down by federal officials in the biggest US bank failure this year. The FDIC, which was appointed receiver of the Montgomery, Ala.-based Colonial and its about $25 billion in assets, said the failed bank's 346 branches in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Texas will reopen at the normal times starting on Aug 15 as offices of Winston-Salem, N.C.-based BB&T. Regulators also closed four other banks: Community Bank of Arizona, based in Phoenix; Union Bank, based in Gilbert, Ariz.; Community Bank of Nevada, based in Las Vegas; and Dwelling House Savings and Loan Association, located in Pittsburgh. The closures boosted to 77 the number of federally insured banks that have failed in 2009.
(AP, 8/15/09)
2009 Sep 30, In Nevada Karamjit Kaur (16), a high school sophomore, disappeared in Reno. Police suspected foul play. She was found with her brother-in-law on Oct 5 at a hotel in Merrillville, Ind.
(SSFC, 10/4/09, p.A10)(SFC, 10/5/09, p.A5)
2009 Nov 19, In Las Vegas Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines demolished Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto to become the only man in history to win seven titles in as many weight classes.
(AFP, 11/20/09)
2009 Dec 16, In Las Vegas, Nevada, the 76-acre CityCenter opened at a cost of around $8.5 billion. It was the largest privately funded construction project in America.
(Econ, 7/10/10, SR p.5)(http://tinyurl.com/y8f6659)
2009 Dec 28, In northern Nevada federal officials began a 2-month roundup of some 2,500 wild horses due to overpopulation. Federal managers on Feb 5 said the roundup was completed with 1,922 mustangs removed from the Calico Mountains Complex. 86 horses died in the government roundup, mostly from stress and trauma.
(SFC, 12/29/09, p.A8)(SFC, 2/6/10, p.A6)(SFC, 4/20/10, p.A6)
2009 Nevada, with a population of about 2.6 million, touted its limited reporting and disclosure requirements for corporations incorporated there. Over 400,000 companies were registered in the state with some 80,000 new firms added per year.
(Econ, 3/28/09, p.87)
2010 Jan 4, In Nevada Las Vegas Johnny Lee Wicks (66), disgruntled over cuts in his Social Security benefits, opened fire in the lobby of the federal court house in Las Vegas killing a court security officer and wounding a deputy. Police officers returned fire and Wicks was killed as he fled across the street.
(SFC, 1/5/10, p.A6)
2010 Jan 9, A company called TrueCompanion premiered the "lifelike" sex robot, Roxxxy on the floor of the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.
(http://tinyurl.com/yb7w8gr)(Econ, 4/2/11, p.65)
2010 Jan 30, In Las Vegas Caressa Cameron (22) of Virginia became the nation's newest Miss America, emerging from a field of 53 contestants picked for their beauty, compassion and interview savvy. Cameron, the first black Miss America since Ericka Dunlap in 2005, said she wants to get a master's degree and eventually become a news anchor.
(AP, 1/31/10)
2010 Feb 19, Pres. Obama, speaking in Nevada targeted Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada in a $1.5 billion “innovation fund" to assist homeowners struggling against foreclosure.
(SFC, 2/20/10, p.A1)
2010 Mar 19, In Las Vegas a fire at the private Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary killed over 250 exotic birds and a dog.
(SFC, 3/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Mar 31, The CalNeva casino on the north shore of Lake Tahoe closed due to declining gambling revenues.
(SFC, 4/1/10, p.C5)
2010 May 16, Rima Fakih (b.1986), a Lebanese-born immigrant and crowned as Miss Michigan, became the first Arab-American woman to win the Miss USA pageant at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rima_Fakih)
2010 May 28, US Regulators shut down three banks in Florida and one each in Nevada and California, bringing the number of US bank failures this year to 78.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 Aug 12, In Nevada 2 gold miners were killed in an accident at the Meikle mine.
(SFC, 8/13/10, p.A6)(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.A9)
2010 Aug 23, In Las Vegas Mexico's Jimena Navarrete (22) was crowned Miss Universe in an upset victory that stunned a pageant world which had predicted a winner to emerge from Ireland, Venezuela or the United States.
(AFP, 8/24/10)
2010 Oct 8, The remains of Lexis Roberts (12) from Nevada were found in Louisiana. A warrant was later issued for Thomas Steven Sanders (53). In 1994 family members had declared Sanders dead, seven years after he vanished. In November the remains of a woman, believed to be her mother, Suellen Roberts (31) were found in Arizona.
(http://tinyurl.com/2dwr8pa)(SFC, 11/5/10, p.A8)(SFC, 11/16/10, p.A18)
2010 Oct 9, It was reported that Madeleine Pickens, the wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, has acquired a Nevada ranch for use as a wild horse sanctuary, the Mustang Monument Preserve. The 14,000 acre property included grazing rights to 540,000 acres of public land. She was also said to be negotiating for and adjoining 4,000-acre ranch with grazing rights to 24,000 acres. She hoped to return all 34,000 in government funded holding facilities and pastures to their natural habitat.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A7)
2010 Oct 14, On the Arizona and Nevada border a soaring bypass bridge high above the Colorado River near Hoover Dam was dedicated after nearly eight years and $240 million worth of work. The bridge, which officially opens next week, is named for former Nevada Gov. Mike O'Callaghan and Pat Tillman.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Nov 3, A federal judge in Reno ordered 6 months of prison time for 2 men who admitted to shooting wild horses while drinking and leaving them to die.
(SFC, 11/4/10, p.A9)
2010 Nov 3, In Colorado Richard Paul (34) was arrested and federal agents seized five pounds of C-4 military explosives from his home in Durango. In Las Vegas Andrew Kaufman (36) was arrested. In San Diego Navy SEAL Nicholas Bickle (33) was arrested. They were accused of conspiring to smuggle and sell weapons to an undercover federal agent in Nevada and Colorado. Bickle, his close friend Paul, and their associate Kaufman allegedly sold machine guns for $1,300 to $2,400 each, and handguns for $300 to an undercover federal agent who told them they would be shipped to Mexico.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Dec 4, A Nevada panel voted to establish the state’s first-ever bear hunting season. Some 200-300 lived along Nevada’s eastern Sierra.
(SSFC, 12/5/10, p.A14)
2010 Dec 14, In Nevada an armed bandit escaped on a motorcycle after stealing $1.5 million in casino chips from the Bellagio resort. On Feb 3 police identified suspect Anthony M. Carleo (29) of Las Vegas as the bandit. Carleo was booked under the name Anthony M. Assad. On Aug 23, 2011, Carleo was sentenced to at least 3 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/15/10, p.A8)(SFC, 2/4/11, p.A7)(SFC, 8/24/11, p.A5)
2010 Dec 15, In Las Vegas the new $3.9 billion Cosmopolitan resort opened with 2,995 rooms and 100,000 square feet of casino.
(SFC, 12/13/10, p.D4)
2010 Dec 17, The states of Arizona and Nevada sued Bank of America Corp., accusing the largest US bank of routinely misleading consumers about home loan modifications.
(Reuters, 12/17/10)
2011 Jan 7, In Nevada a tip led police to the body of dancer Deborah Flores-Narvaez (31) in downtown Las Vegas. Police booked her boyfriend, Jason Griffith (32), on suspicion of murder. Griffith told police he had killed Flores-Narvaez at his home on Dec 12. He chopped off her legs and encased her naked body in concrete.
(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A10)(SFC, 1/11/11, p.A6)
2011 Feb 9, US federal prosecutors announced charges against 41 alleged gang members for activities ranging from racketeering conspiracy to drug and gun trafficking and murder in four states and Washington D.C. Some 29 defendants were arrested and more arrests are expected in connection with the separate cases from Los Angeles; McAllen, Texas; Kansas City; Washington D.C.; and Las Vegas.
(Reuters, 2/9/11)
2011 Mar 3, In Nevada Micaela "Mickey" Costanzo (16), disappeared after track practice at West Wendover High School. Her body was found March 5 in a shallow grave in a remote desert area about five miles west of West Wendover, near the Utah border.
(AP, 3/7/11)
2011 Apr 9, In Las Vegas Elena Caro (42) died after a botched buttocks enhancement surgery in the back room of a tile business. Two Colombia nationals, Ruben Dario Matallana-Galvas (55) and Carmen Olfidia Torres-Sanchez (47), were soon arrested as they tried to board a plane to return home.
(SFC, 4/12/11, p.A4)
2011 Apr 21, Nevada Sen. John Ensign (52) announced that he will resign amid an ethics investigation revolving around and extramarital affair with Cynthia Hampton, a member of his campaign staff and providing lobbying work to her husband. In April, 2008, Ensign’s parents had paid Douglas and Cynthia Hampton $96,000. In 2009 Douglas Hampton said it was severance pay.
(SFC, 4/22/11, p.A6)(SFC, 4/23/11, p.A4)
2011 May 16, Las Vegas marked the end of an era as one of the US gambling mecca's last original "Rat Pack" casino-hotels, the Sahara, closed its doors.
(AFP, 5/16/11)
2011 Jun 8, In Nevada, Carolyn Goodman, wife of popular Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman, succeeded him in office. She was easily elected, receiving 61% of the vote.
(Las Vegas Sun, 6/811)(AP, 6/8/11)
2011 Jun 24, In Nevada a tractor-trailer slammed into an Amtrak’s California Zephyr train on Highway 95 killing at least 6 people including rig driver Lawrence Valli II and a train conductor.
(SFC, 6/25/11, p.A1)(SFC, 6/27/11, p.A1)(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A1)
2011 Jun, In Elko, Nevada, Stephanie Gonzalez was killed in her home. An Elko justice of the peace issued a warrant the arrest of Eduardo Puentes Estrada for murder four days after her death. On Oct 26, 2014, Estrada (32) was taken into custody after he apparently was involved in a fight in Puerto Vallarta.
(AP, 10/28/14)
2011 Jul 14, Nevada authorities said federal and Las Vegas police seized 212 pounds of drugs, $280,000 in cash, 6 guns and 9 vehicles after searching homes in Las Vegas and Henderson. 8 illegal immigrants from Mexico were arrested on drug trafficking charges.
(SFC, 7/15/11, p.A7)
2011 Aug 16, California Gov. Jerry Brown and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval signed a pact with the federal government to increase the clarity of Lake Tahoe by half a foot per year for the next 65 years.
(SFC, 8/17/11, p.C1)
2011 Sep 4, In Nevada the annual burning Man festival in Black Rock Desert drew nearly 54,000 people, more than the 50,000 allowed under its permit.
(SFC, 9/5/11, p.A6)
2011 Sep 6, In Nevada Eduardo Sencion (32), armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, shot an entire group of five uniformed National Guard members eating breakfast at an IHOP, killing 3 of them and another person in a hail of gunfire. Sencion of Carson City, also shot himself and later died at a hospital.
(AP, 9/7/11)(SFC, 9/12/11, p.A4)
2011 Sep 16, In Reno, Nevada, a World War II-era P-51 Mustang fighter plane competing in an event described as a car race in the sky suddenly pitched upward, rolled and did a nose-dive toward a crowded grandstand. 9 people were killed and more than 60 injured. Pilot Jimmy Leeward (74) was among those killed. A 10th victim died on Sep 19.
(AP, 9/17/11)(AP, 9/18/11)(SFC, 9/20/11, p.A6)
2011 Sep 23, In Nevada Jeffrey Pettigrew, president of the San Jose chapter of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club, was shot and killed by Ernesto Manuel Gonzalez (53), an alleged member of the rival Vagos motorcycle gang, at John Ascuaga’s Nugget casino. Gonzalez was arrested 6 days later in San Francisco. On Oct 15 Steve Tausan was shot and killed in San Jose, Ca., at the funeral of Pettigrew. Police sought Steve Ruiz (38) for the killing of Tausan. On Feb 25, 2012, police arrested Tausan at a motel in Fremont, Ca.
(AP, 9/24/11)(SSFC, 10/16/11, p.A15)(SSFC, 10/23/11, p.A11)(SFC, 2/27/12, p.C1)
2011 Sep 23, In Nevada Cesar Villagrana, a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, shot a Vagos motorcycle gang member in the leg at John Ascuaga’s Nugget casino. In 2013 Villagrana (38) pleaded guilty to the shooting and faced 15 years in years.
(SFC, 7/23/13, p.A5)
2011 Sep 26, In Nevada Arthur Gerald Jones (73), a former Chicago commodities trader arrested in July, pleaded guilty to fraud. He had disappeared over three decades ago from Highland Park, Illinois, and was discovered living in Las Vegas under the assumed name of Joseph Richard Sandelli.
(Reuters, 9/26/11)
2011 Oct 7, A federal jury in Las Vegas convicted Navy SEAL Nicholas Bickle on charges that he led a scheme to sell machine guns and explosives from Iraq and Afghanistan in the US. On July 17, 2012, Bickle was sentenced to 17½ years in prison.
(SFC, 10/8/11, p.A5)(SFC, 7/18/12, p.A8)
2011 Oct 7, Wired magazine reported that a computer virus has infected networks used by pilots who control US Air Force drones in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. The spyware resisted efforts to remove it from computers at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.
(SSFC, 10/9/11, p.A12)
2011 Oct 24, President Barack Obama, speaking in Las Vegas, offered mortgage relief to hundreds of thousands of Americans, his latest attempt to ease the economic and political fallout of a housing crisis that has bedeviled him as he seeks a second term.
(AP, 10/24/11)
2011 Nov 18, In Nevada a fire swept throught an upscale community in the sierra foothills in southwest Reno destroying 32 homes. Nearly 10,000 people were forced to evacuate the area.
(SSFC, 11/20/11, p.A16)
2011 Dec 7, In Nevada 5 people were killed when a helicopter flying tourists over the Hoover Dam crashed into a mountain range bordering Lake Mead.
(SFC, 12/9/11, p.A11)
2012 Jan 13, In Nevada a Monsignor Kevin McAuliffe (59) was sentenced to 3 years and one month in prison and ordered to repay $650,000 he acknowledged siphoning from his Las Vegas parish to support a gambling habit.
(SFC, 1/13/12, p.A6)\
2012 Jan 14, Laura Kaeppeler (23), a beauty queen from Wisconsin, won the Miss America pageant in Las Vegas after singing opera and strutting in a white bikini and black beaded evening gown.
(AP, 1/14/12)
2012 Jan 17, Grant Korgan (33), of Incline Village, arrived at the South Pole on the 100-year anniversary of the Terra Nova Expedition. Korgan, paralyzed in a 2010 snowmobiling accident, used a device called a Sitski to get there. The expedition party included paralympian John Davis, two guides and cinematographers who were shooting for a documentary called "The Push: A South Pole Adventure." The film is expected to be released later this year.
(AP, 1/18/12)
2012 Feb 4, Mitt Romney won Nevada's Republican caucuses, grabbing the largest chunk of the state's 28 delegates in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Romney won 48% of the vote; Gingrich won 23%, Ron Paul 19% and Rick Santorum 11%.
(SSFC, 2/5/12, p.A1)
2012 Feb 8, John Fairfax (74), a self-proclaimed "professional adventurer," died near Las Vegas. He became famous in 1969 as the first person to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. He also rowed across the Pacific with his then-girlfriend Sylvia Cook, an ocean crossing that took him a full year to complete, from April 1971 to April 1972. His exploits inspired two memoirs: "Britannia: Rowing Alone Across the Atlantic" and "Oars Across the Pacific," both published in the early 1970s.
(AFP, 2/19/12)
2012 Jan 8, The Consumer Electronics Show opened in Las Vegas. South Korea-based Samsung and LG introduced their new 55-inch organic light emitting diode (OLED) HDTVs.
(SFC, 3/15/12, p.D2)
2012 Apr 4, It was reported that Wang Yusuo, founder of China’s ENN Group, has teemed with Nevada Senator Harry Reid to develop a solar plant in Laughlin, Nevada. ENN offered $4.5 million for land assessed at $38.6 million.
(SFC, 4/4/12, p.D5)
2012 Apr 15, In Las Vegas Ignacia Martinez (38) and her daughter Karla (10) were raped and bludgeoned to death. Arturo Martinez, the husband and father, was critically injured with head injuries. On April 27 police arrested Bryan Clay (22) for the attacks.
(SSFC, 4/29/12, p.A9)
2012 Jun 3, A Lockheed P2V aerial firefighter crashed in Utah killing 2 pilots. Another P2V, fighting a wildfire south of Reno, crash-landed at Minden-Tahoe Airport.
(SFC, 6/4/12, p.A8)
2012 Jun 22, North Las Vegas, after five years of declining property taxes, massive layoffs and questionable spending, declared a state of emergency, invoking a rarely used state law crafted for unforeseen disasters.
(AP, 6/22/12)
2012 Aug 25, In Nevada a single-engine Piper PA32 crashed in South Lake Tahoe killing all 5 people onboard.
(SFC, 8/28/12, p.C2)
2012 Oct 12, UC Berkeley law students Justin Teixeira and Eric Cuellar were seen laughing and throwing around the body of a dead helmeted guinea fowl at the Flamingo casino in Las Vegas. On Dec 28 prosecutors filed animal cruelty charges against both men. In 2013 Cuellar pleaded guilty and was fined $200 and sentenced to 48 hours of community service. A 3rd defendant Hazhir Kargaran (26) pleaded no contest to 3 misdemeanors and was sentenced to 2 days in jail and 48 hours of community service. Teixeira pleaded guilty to a felony animal killing was sentenced to 6 months in boot camp and then probation. On may 13, 2014, Teixeira was sentenced to 4 years’ probation and monthly work at an animal shelter.
(SFC, 12/28/12, p.A5)(SFC, 6/14/13, p.C8)(SFC, 5/13/14, p.A5)
2012 Oct 24, Police in southern California arrested Akingide Cole of Palmdale for the theft of $1.6 million in casino chips from the Venetian resort in Las Vegas. Detectives recovered $396,000 in chips.
(SFC, 10/31/12, p.A4)
2012 Dec 19, In Las Vegas Olivia Culpo (20), a student at Boston University, became the new Miss Universe, defeating dozens of contestants from six continents. An American had not won the Miss Universe title since Brook Lee won in 1997.
(AP, 12/20/12)
2012 Dec 21, Brenda Stokes Wilson (50) slashed a co-worker at the Bellagio casino in las Vegas. It was later learned that she had stabbed to death Jade Morris (10), her ex-boyfriend’s daughter, whom she was supposed to take Christmas shopping.
(SFC, 1/3/13, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/bznkswf)
2013 Jan 12, In Las Vegas Mallory Hagan, a 23-year-old blonde from Brooklyn, N.Y., won the Miss America crown after deftly dealing with a question about armed guards in schools and raising the issue of child sexual abuse in her contestant platform.
(AP, 1/13/13)
2013 Feb 21, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval signed legislation legalizing online gambling.
SFC, 2/22/13, p.A7)
2013 Feb 21, In Las Vegas a Maserati ran a red light at one of the Strip's busiest intersections and smashed into a taxi that exploded into flames, killing taxi driver Michael Boldon (62) and passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund (48), of Maple Valley, Wash. Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr., the driver of the Maserati, was killed. Bullets had flown from a black Range Rover at the Maserati as the vehicles raced toward a red light on the Strip. The black SUV was found on Feb 23 as police named Ammar Harris (26) in connection with the shooting and six-vehicle chain-reaction carnage. Ammar Harris was arrested in Los Angeles on Feb 28.
(AP, 2/21/13)(AP, 2/24/13)(AP, 2/28/13)
2013 Mar 5, In Las Vegas Xiao Ye Bai (26), convicted of being an enforcer for a Taiwan-based criminal gang, was sentenced to life in a Nevada prison without parole for murder in a bloody stabbing and slashing that left Wen Jun Li dead and two people wounded in a Las Vegas karaoke bar in July 2009.
(AP, 3/5/13)(SFC, 3/6/13, p.A4)
2013 Mar 18, In Nevada 7 Marines were killed when a mortar round exploded during a live-fire training exercise at the Hawthorne Army Depot.
(SFC, 3/20/13, p.A8)
2013 Mar 30, In Nevada a freeway crash on I-15 killed five Southern California family members and injured two others. On April 10 Jean Ervin Soriano (18), a juvenile detention escapee, was charged with seven felony charges of driving under the influence. He had a blood-alcohol percentage of 0.12, well above the Nevada legal limit of 0.08 percent.
(AP, 4/10/13)
2013 Apr 6, In Nevada the body of William McCune (62), the state’s chief insurance inspector, was found in the Carson River in Carson City. McCune was reported missing on April 4. Four suspects, believed to have stolen property, were arrested in the case.
(SSFC, 4/7/13, p.A13)(SFC, 4/8/13, p.A5)
2013 Apr 22, As Nevada legislators emotionally debated a move toward same-sex marriage, Sen. Kelvin Atkinson rose to his feet and declared, "I'm gay." Atkinson says that he quickly picked up hundreds of new friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter.
(AP, 4/24/13)
2013 Apr 27, British anti-war protesters demonstrated outside a Royal Air Force base used to control drone flights over Afghanistan. Until this week, British drones were operated only from a US Air Force base in Nevada.
(AP, 4/27/13)
2013 Apr 30, A Las Vegas casino subsidiary launched Ultimate Gaming, the first fully legal poker website in the US.
(SFC, 5/1/13, p.A8)
2013 May 29, Nevada powerbroker Harvey Whittemore (59) was convicted by a federal jury in Reno on three counts tied to almost $150,000 illegally funneled to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev) in 2007.
(SFC, 5/30/13, p.A5)
2013 May 31, Nevada's Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval signed a bill to authorize driving privilege cards for illegal immigrants in an action that is likely to win favor in the state's large and growing Hispanic community.
(Reuters, 5/31/13)
2013 Jun 8, In Nevada officials of Lake Mead urged people to avoid the Overton Arm of the lake following the appearance of a mysterious brown foam over an 8-mile area.
(SFC, 6/12/13, p.A5)
2013 Jun 11, Psychiatric patient James Flavey Coy Brown filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in Nevada accusing state officials of giving him a one-way ticket to northern California, where he arrived without money and identification. The complaint sought class-action status for as many as 1,500 people that lawyers claim were bused since 2008 from Nevada to almost every US state.
(SFC, 6/13/13, p.A8)
2013 Jun 16, In Las Vegas Erin Brady (25) of South Glastonbury, Conn., won the Miss America beauty pageant.
(AP, 6/17/13)
2013 Jun 28, It was reported that a pneumonia outbreak has killed at least 20 bighorn sheep on Old Dad Mountain in California’s Mohave National Preserve. Nevada numbered some 10,000 adult animals in at least 60 mountain ranges.
(SFC, 6/28/13, p.D5)
2013 Jun 29, In Nevada Sarah Guillot-Guyard (31), an acrobat and mother of two with Cirque du Soleil, died in las Vegas after falling some 50 feet from a production of “Ka" at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
(SFC, 7/2/13, p.A12)
2013 Aug 13, A US federal appeals court ruled that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been violating federal law by delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada.
(SFC, 8/14/13, p.A6)
2013 Aug 15, A CIA history was released that referred to Area 51 in Nevada by name and described some of the activities that took place there.
(SFC, 8/17/13, p.A5)
2013 Aug 20, Police in Las Vegas, Nevada, arrested David Allen Brutsche (42) and Devon Campbell Newman (67), members of the “sovereign citizens" movement, for plotting to abduct, torture and kill police officers.
(SFC, 8/24/13, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/mt5ctzl)
2013 Sep 10, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the state of Nevada accusing it of deliberately giving almost 500 psychiatric patients one-way bus tickets to California.
(SFC, 9/11/13, p.D1)
2013 Oct 21, In Nevada a boy (12) opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic Ruger handgun at Sparks Middle School killing math teacher Michael Landsberry (45) and critically wounding two students before killing himself.
(AFP, 10/21/13)(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A6)(SFC, 10/22/13, p.A6)
2013 Oct 23, A Nevada jury found Saudi Arabian air force Sgt. Mazen Alotaibi guilty of sexually assaulting a boy (13) at the Circu Circus hotel in las Vegas on New Year’s Eve.
(SFC, 10/24/13, p.A6)
2013 Nov 1, In Nevada Lee Hosey Jr. (25) was sentenced to 24-80 years in prison for a drunken driving crash in Las Vegas on Sep 13, 2012, that left 4 people dead and several injured.
(SFC, 11/2/13, p.A6)
2013 Dec 17, In Reno, Nevada, a gunman opened fire at the Center for Advanced Medicine killing one person and wounding two others before killing himself.
(SFC, 12/18/13, p.A8)
2013 Dec 30, The US FAA selected six states (Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas and Virginia) to test how drones can be more widely used in US airspace. 24 states had competed for selection.
(SFC, 12/31/13, p.A6)
2014 Jan 27, In Las Vegas the Prince and Princess pet store was torched. Firefighters rescued 27 puppies alive. Videos showed Gloria Eun Hye Lee, a US citizen originally from South Korea, and a man torching the store. Lee was arrested on Feb 7 and accomplice Kirk Bills was arrested in Indiana.
(AP, 2/8/14)
2014 Feb 11, The websites of casinos owned by Las Vegas Sands Corp. were hacked. These included sites for a Sands casino in Bethlehem, Pa., as well as casinos in Nevada and Macao.
(SFC, 2/12/14, p.A4)
2014 Feb 13, In Nevada Wayne Burgarello shot and killed Cody Devine (34) and wounded Janai Wilson (29) after confronting them sleeping at his vacant duplex in Sparks. On May 29, 2015, Burgarello (74) was found not guilty after insisting he was acting in self-defense.
(http://tinyurl.com/pks2m5o)(SSFC, 5/31/15, p.A6)
2014 Mar 1, In Nevada a US fighter jet crashed during a training exercise because of a snow storm in mountainous terrain. The pilot was later identified as Marine Capt. Reid Nannen (32).
(SFC, 3/3/14, p.A6)(SFC, 3/10/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 12, US officials ended a stand-off with hundreds of armed protesters in the Nevada desert, calling off the government's roundup of cattle it said were illegally grazing on federal land and giving about 300 animals back to the rancher who owned them.
(Reuters, 4/13/14)
2014 May 15, A federal judge in Las Vegas imposed a 20-year sentence on David Camez (22) for his role in what authorities say is an unprecedented criminal case involving an international cybercrime syndicate with hundreds of thousands of US victims. He was already is serving a seven-year term in Arizona for similar crimes. He also was ordered to share in restitution of nearly $51 million.
(AP, 5/16/14)
2014 Jun 9, In Nevada Jerad (31) and Amanda Miller (22) ambushed police officers Alyn Beck (41) and Igor Soldo eating lunch at a Las Vegas restaurant fatally shooting them at point-blank range before fleeing to a nearby Walmart where they killed Joseph Wilcox (31), who tried to stop them with his legal handgun, and then themselves.
(SFC, 6/9/14, p.A6)(SFC, 6/10/14, p.A6)(SSFC, 6/15/14, p.A10)(SFC, 6/23/14, p.A6)
2014 Jul 8, Federal water managers said drought in the southwestern US will deplete Nevada’s vast Lake Mead this week to levels not seen since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
(Reuters, 7/9/14)
2014 Jul 22, In Nevada Nathan Stoliar (64) of Australia pleaded guilty to charges in federal court for his role in a scheme to bilk a US biodiesel fuel program out of more than $41 million. Federal prosecutors said Stoliar and a Las Vegas man, James Jariv, used firms in Canada and Las Vegas to fraudulently generate millions of dollars' worth of federally-funded credits known as renewable identification numbers.
(AP, 7/23/14)
2014 Jul 31, Tesla said that it broke ground in June at a site outside Reno for a potential 6,500-employee battery factory.
(SFC, 8/1/14, p.A1)
2014 Aug 25, In Nevada the Burning Man festival in the desert north of Reno, scheduled to open at 10am, was closed to new arrivals due to rain.
(SFC, 8/26/14, p.C2)
2014 Aug 28, In Nevada a woman (29) died after falling under a large vehicle at the Burning Man counter-cultural festival.
(AFP, 8/28/14)
2014 Sep 4, Tesla Motors announced plans to build its new $5 billion battery factory in Nevada.
(SFC, 9/4/14, p.A1)
2014 Sep 8, In Nevada an experimental plane crashed killing pilot Lee Behel (64) as he attempted to qualify for the Reno National Championship Air Races.
(SFC, 9/16/14, p.A6)
2014 Oct 7, A US federal appeals court in San Francisco struck down Nevada and Idaho’s bans on same-sex marriage. The ruling also applies to all nine states in the court’s territory and will overturn marriage bans in Montana, Alaska and Arizona.
(SFC, 10/8/14, p.A6)
2014 Nov 6, A Guam jury convicted three people of mailing drugs from Las Vegas to Guam. Nine other defendants signed plea deals in the case.
(AP, 11/6/14)
2014 Nov, SF-based Uber suspended ride services in Nevada after a state judge banned its unlicensed operations statewide. Uber had refused to seek licensing claiming it was a technology company, not a motor carrier.
(SSFC, 11/30/14, p.D2)
2014 Dec 9, In Nevada a woman and two men from China pleaded guilty in federal court in Las Vegas to reduced charges in what prosecutors say amounted to a $13 million illegal Internet gambling operation broken up by an FBI raid at high-roller suites at Caesars Palace.
(AP, 12/10/14)
2015 Jan 6, The Intl’. Consumer Electronics Show opened in Las Vegas.
(Econ, 1/3/15, p.48)
2015 Feb 12, In Las Vegas Tammy Meyers (44) was shot in the head outside her home in a Las Vegas cul-de-sac shortly before midnight after confrontations that began when she was giving her daughter (15) an after-hours driving lesson and the girl honked at a driver she felt was speeding. The mother's life-support was disconnected on Valentine's Day. On Feb 19 police arrested Erich Nowsch (19) on suspicion of murder.
(http://tinyurl.com/odzz2sf)(SFC, 2/20/15, p.A7)
2015 Mar, A judge in Las Vegas ruled that Panama-based Mossack Fonseca and MF Nevada were one and the same. Under American law this allowed any investigator anywhere in the world to subpoena Mossack through the Nevada subsidiary for information relevant to cases in any country.
(Econ, 4/16/15, p.61)
2015 May 2, In Las Vegas boxer Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines lost by unanimous decision to American Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a 12-round fight.
(AP, 5/3/15)
2015 May 4, In Las Vegas the 2,075-room Riviera Hotel and Casino closed. The 26-acre site was purchased last February by the Los Vegas Convention and Visitor Authority.
(SFC, 5/5/15, p.D4)
2015 Dec 10, Nevada’s Gov. Brian Sandoval announced plans to offer $335 million in state tax incentives and infrastructure upgrades to an upstart, Chinese investor-backed electric carmaker that wants to build $1 billion production plant in a Las Vegas suburb.
(AP, 12/11/15)
2015 Dec 20, In Nevada Lakeisha Holloway, with a toddler in her car, swerved multiple times onto a busy sidewalk on the Las Vegas Strip, leaving one dead and 30 injured.
(AFP, 12/21/15)
2015 Dec 20, In Nevada Colombian contestant Ariadna Gutierrez Arevalo was already wearing this year's Miss Universe crown when host Steve Harvey returned to announce on live television that he had mistakenly read from a cue card, and that Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach, the contestant from the Philippines, was actually this year's winner.
(AP, 12/21/15)(SFC, 12/22/15, p.E6)
2015 Dec, In Nevada the family of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson acquired control of the Las Vegas Review Journal, the state’s largest newspaper. Adelson was a major benefactor of the Republican Party.
(SFC, 12/30/15, p.C3)
2016 Feb 20, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump grabbed a big win in the South Carolina primary, while Democrat Hillary Clinton breathed life into her sluggish campaign with a victory over Bernie Sanders in Nevada.
(AFP, 2/21/16)
2016 Mar 10, In Nevada a drone made by Flirtey successfully delivered a package to a residential location in Hawthorne in what was reportedly the first fully autonomous urban drone delivery in the US.
(AP, 3/26/16)
2016 May 7, In Nevada Airbus completed a test flight of a glider set to eventually travel to the edge of space, in a pioneering step into the stratosphere.
(AFP, 5/7/16)
2016 Jun 14, In Nevada the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas was imploded. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Center expected to spend $42 million to level the 13-building campus with plans for expansion.
(SFC, 6/14/16, p.A4)
2016 Jul 10, In northwestern Nevada 2 federal firefighters were killed when their vehicle crashed while returning from a patrol for lightning-sparked wildfires.
(SFC, 7/12/16, p.A5)
2016 Aug 31, President Barack Obama opened a two-day environmental tour aimed at showcasing conservation efforts before traveling to Asia. Obama visited Lake Tahoe to speak at a summit dedicated to the iconic lake's preservation. He then headed to Honolulu, for a speech to a gathering of leaders of island nations in the Pacific Ocean.
(AP, 8/31/16)
2016 Aug, Steve Wynn opened his $4.2 billion Wynn Palace in Las Vegas.
(Econ, 10/8/16, p.57)
2016 Nov 8, Former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto defeated Rep. Joseph J. Heck (R) in a narrow fight, becoming the first woman of Hispanic descent to take a place in the Senate.
(CSM, 11/9/16)
2016 Nov 8, Voters rendered a split decision on gun control measures in the election, approving universal background checks for private firearms sales in Nevada while narrowly rejecting them in Maine.
(Reuters, 11/9/16)
2016 Dec 28, Pres. Obama designated two new national monuments. The Bears Ears National Monument in Utah encompassed 300,000 acres. Gold Butte National Monument in Nevada protected 1.35 million acres.
(SFC, 12/29/16, p.A5)(Econ, 1/14/17, p.27)
2017 Jan 4, In Nevada Faraday Future’s FF91 was unveiled during a press event for CES17 in las Vegas. The company was backed by Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting. Production was scheduled to start in Nevada this year with first deliveries in 2018.
(SFC, 1/5/17, p.C2)
2017 Jan 20, Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp. agreed to pay $6.96 million to US authorities to end a more than five year corrupt practices investigation of the firms former relationship with a consultant in China and Macao. This was in addition to a $9 million payment made in April to settle a US SEC investigation that found some payments to the consultant were not properly authorized or documented.
(SFC, 1/21/17, p.A8)
2017 Mar 22, An estimated 17,000 AT&T workers in California and Nevada went on strike to protest the handling of work assignments. Technicians and call center workers returned to work the next day following an agreement on work assignments.
(SFC, 3/23/17, p.C1)(SFC, 3/24/17, p.C1)
2017 Mar 25, In Nevada a gunman, later identified as Rolando Cardenas (55), opened fire on a double-decker bus on the Las Vegas Strip, killing one person and wounding another before finally surrendering.
(AFP, 3/26/17)(SSFC, 3/26/17, p.A8)(SFC, 3/27/17, p.A4)
2017 Mar 27, National Football League (NFL) owners voted 37-1 to approve the Oakland Raiders’ move to Las Vegas.
(SFC, 3/28/17, p.A1)
2017 Apr 24, A jury in Las Vegas found Gregory Burleson of Arizona guilty of eight charges related to the armed standoff near Clive Bundy’s Nevada ranch in 2014. Todd Engel of Idaho was found guilty of obstruction and extortion. The jury deadlocked on charges against four other men
(SFC, 4/25/17, p.A6)
2017 May 14, A Las Vegas police Officer Kenneth Lopera used a stun gun seven times and an unapproved neck hold on Toshii Brown (40), an unarmed black man in a deadly foot chase. The officer reported that Toshii was trying to carjack a pickup truck.
(SFC, 5/18/17, p.A4)(SFC, 5/19/17, p.A5)
2017 Jul 1, Nevada became the 5th US state to let marijuana shops sell recreational pot.
(SSFC, 7/2/17, p.C1)
2017 Jul 20, In Nevada O.J. Simpson (70) was granted parole after more than eight years in prison for a Las Vegas hotel-room heist, successfully making his case for freedom in a nationally televised hearing that reflected America's enduring fascination with the former football star. Simpson was due to be freed on October 1.
(AP, 7/21/17)(SFC, 7/21/17, p.D1)
2017 Aug 2, Marcus Hutchins (23), a British cybersecurity researcher, was arrested at McCarran Int’l. Airport in Las Vegas as he prepared to fly home following a cybersecurity convention. On August 14 he faced charges in Wisconsin for committing computer fraud. Four months earlier he had identified a “kill switch" to slow the outbreak of the WannaCry virus that crippled computer worldwide. In 2019 Hutchins pleaded guilty to writing malware in 2015, before changing to a career in cybersecurity. He was sentenced to time served.
(SFC, 8/1517, p.A7)(SFC, 4/22/19, p.A7)(SFC, 7/27/19, p.A6)
2017 Aug 20, Jerry Lewis (b.1926), American actor and comedian born as Joseph Levitch, died in Las Vegas. His many films included “The Nutty Professor" (1963) and “The King of Comedy" (1982). For years he hosted telethons for muscular dystrophy.
(SFC, 8/21/17, p.A1)
2017 Aug 26, In Las Vegas Conor McGregor lost his match against Floyd Mayweather Jr. as referee Robert Byrd stopped the bout in the 10th round. Mayweather secured his place in boxing history to head into retirement with a record 50th straight victory.
(AP, 8/27/17)(AFP, 8/27/17)
2017 Sep 3, In California Aaron Joel Mitchell (41) died at UC Davis after he ran through two layers of security the previous evening and into flames of the Burning Man in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.
(SFC, 9/4/17, p.A5)
2017 Sep 30, In Nevada three boys were killed after they were struck on an east Las Vegas sidewalk by a driver who may have been trying to pass another vehicle at a high rate of speed. Driver Joseph Eskandarian (28) was arrested early the next day.
(SFC, 10/2/17, p.A4)
2017 Oct 1, In Nevada Stephen Craig Paddock (64) opened fire from inside the 32-floor Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino unleashing a hail of bullets on the outdoor Route 91 Harvest Festival below. 58 people were killed in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. Paddock had at least 23 guns in his hotel suite and investigators found at least 19 additional firearms at his home in Mesquite. Paddock had stockpiled 47 guns since 1982. His father Benjamin Hoskins Paddock (d.1998) had tried to run down an FBI agent in 1960 and escaped from federal prison in Texas in 1968. Investigators found him in 1978 after he attracted publicity for opening Oregon’s first licensed bingo parlor.
(AP, 10/2/17)(SFC, 10/2/17, p.A6)(SFC, 10/3/17, p.A6)(SFC, 10/5/17, p.A9)
2017 Oct 1, In Nevada O.J. Simpson (70) was released from Lovelock Correctional Center after serving nine years for a botched hotel room heist.
(SFC, 10/2/17, p.A4)
2017 Oct 27, US Pres. Donald Trump said he is approving the recommendation of Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments in Utah along with Nevada’s Gold Butte and Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou.
(SFC, 10/28/17, p.A4)
2017 Dec 20, A US judge in Nevada declared a mistrial in the case against Nevada rancher Clive Bundy, accused of leading a 2014 armed standoff with federal agents in a cattle grazing dispute.
(SFC, 12/21/17, p.A6)
2017 Dec 30, In Las Vegas two security guards were fatally shot Arizona Charlie’ Hotel and Casino on Decatur Blvd. Gunman Christopher Olague fled the seen but was soon found at a residence with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
(SSFC, 12/31/17, p.A7)
2017 In Nevada the 82-year-old Culinary Workers Union Local 216 included some 57,000 members and represented employees at most of the casinos on the Vegas Strip and downtown.
(Econ, 8/12/17, p.21)
2018 Jan 8, A federal judge in Nevada dismissed charges against Cliven Bundy and his sons. They had been accused of leading an armed standoff against federal land managers at the Bundy ranch in 2014.
(SFC, 1/9/18, p.A10)
2018 Jan 18, Allan 'Gut' Terk (78), psychedelic artist and one of Ken Kesey's Marry Pranksters of the 1960s, died in Nevada.
(SFC, 2/15/18, p.D3)
2018 Feb 6, In Nevada the board of directors of Wynn Resorts accepted the resignation of billionaire casino mogul Steve Wynn. The announcement came less than two weeks after the Wall Street Journal reported that a number of women said Wynn harassed or assaulted them and that one case led to a $7.5 million settlement.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 25, In Nevada a British tourist who was pulled from the wreckage of a fiery helicopter crash in the Grand Canyon died from her injuries, bringing the total number of deaths from the Feb. 10 crash up to five.
(AP, 2/26/18)
2018 Apr 4, In Nevada a US Air Force pilot was killed in the crash of his F-16 Fighting Falcon jet during training near Nellis Air Force Base.
(SFC, 4/6/18, p.A5)
2018 Apr 15, In Nevada Anthony Wrobel (42), opened fire on a picnic for employees of the Las Vegas Venetian resort killing a woman and critically injuring a man. Wrobel fled the scene and his vehicle was found at a local airport.
(SFC, 4/17/18, p.A8)
2018 Jun 1, In Las Vegas Vietnamese tourists Sang Boi Nghia and Khoung Ba Le Nguyen were found fatally stabbed at their Circus Circus hotel room. Suspect Julius Trotter (31) was arrested On June 7 following a car chase in Chino, Ca.
(SSFC, 6/3/18, p.A8)(SFC, 6/9/18, p.A6)
2018 Jun 9, In Las Vegas Terence Crawford of Nebraska dropped Jeff Horn of Australia with 50 seconds left in the ninth and sent him into the ropes with a slew of punches, ending the fight and winning the WBO welterweight title.
(AP, 6/10/18)
2018 Jul 11, A Nevada judge put the execution of two-time killer Scott Raymond Dozier on hold after pharmaceutical company Alvogen urged the judge to block the use of its sedative midazolam, saying the state had illegally secured the product.
(SFC, 7/12/18, p.A14)
2018 Jul 22, In Nevada John Kelley O'Connor (48) walked into his Mormon church in Fallon and opened fire killing one man and wounding another. O'Connor was charged with murder and battery.
(SFC, 7/24/18, p.A5)
2018 Jul, The US federal Bureau of land management began rounding up wild horses in Nevada and Utah as drought threatened their livelihood. Volunteers in Arizona and Colorado were said to be hauling food and water to dried up grazing grounds. The region was home to some 67,000 wild horses.
(SFC, 7/24/18, p.A10)
2018 Aug 6, Paul Laxalt (96), former Nevada governor (1967-1971) and US Senator (1974-1987), died in Virginia.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Laxalt)(SFC, 8/7/18, p.A7)
2018 Oct 16, In Nevada Dennis Hof (72), Republican nominee to the state Assembly, died overnight at his Love Branch Brothel, just outside Pahrump. On Nov. 6 voters chose Hoff over Lesia Romanov for the 36th Assembly District. Officials planned to appoint a Republican to take his place.
(SFC, 10/17/18, p.A5)(SFC, 11/8/18, p.A8)
2018 Dec 29, In Nevada a woman skipped out on a $35 manicure and used a stolen car to run over and kill manicurist Ngoc Nguyen (51) in Las Vegas. Krystal Whipple (21) was arrested on Jan. 11, 2019, in Glendale, Arizona, by a team of fugitive hunters.
(SFC, 1/12/19, p.A6)
2019 Jan 16, In Nevada Wilber Ernesto Martinez-Guzman (20), an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, fatally shot a Reno couple with it at their home with a gun stolen from the couple two weeks earlier. The couple had employed him as a landscaper. His DNA was found on the revolver also used to kill Connie Koontz and Sophia Renken in their homes in Gardnerville. Koontz was found dead Jan. 10. Renken's body was found Jan. 13. Martinez-Guzman was arrested Jan. 19 in Carson City.
(SFC, 1/29/19, p.A5)(AP, 2/8/19)
2019 Jan 19, In Las Vegas Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines showed flashes of his old speed in winning a unanimous 12-round decision over Adrien Broner to easily defend his piece of the welterweight title.
(AP, 1/20/19)
2019 Mar 16, In Nevada a robbery suspect died following a shootout the previous evening outside the Bellagio hotel-casino in Las Vegas.
(SSFC, 3/17/19, p.A8)
2019 Sep 1, It was reported that scientists have detected microplastics at several locations around Lake Tahoe for this first time this year and they're working to understand what that means for human health and the environment of the Tahoe Basin.
(AP, 9/1/19)
2019 Sep 3, It was reported that authorities have arrested at least 58 people at this year's Burning Man festival in the northern Nevada desert, 14 more than last year. The counter-culture gathering wrapped up on Sept. 2 after attracting more than 70,000 people about 100 miles (160 km) north of Reno.
(AP, 9/4/19)
2019 Sep 7, In Nevada two people were killed and three others injured late today in the crash of a small private plane near Henderson Executive Airport.
(AP, 9/8/19)
2019 Oct 3, It was reported that survivors and family of 58 people who were slain in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, 2017, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, have reached a settlement of at least $735 million with MGM Resorts.
(AP, 10/3/19)
2019 Oct 6, It was reported that Nevada Officials are testing dead animals and monitoring migratory elk and deer at the state line with Utah for signs of chronic wasting disease, a highly contagious and terminal disorder that causes symptoms such as lack of fear of humans, lethargy and emaciation.
(AP, 10/6/19)
2019 Oct 16, Las Vegas police said the body of a woman missing for five months has been found encased in concrete in the desert and that a suspect has been arrested. Christopher Prestipino (45) was arrested on Oct. 11 on suspicion of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder. Lisa Mort (31) was also arrested for allegedly helping to conceal the killing.
(AP, 10/16/19)
2019 Oct 30, A woman in her 40s was kidnapped in North Las Vegas. Shed was dragged to, Palmdale, California, by father-and-daughter kidnappers. She was found by military personnel on Oct. 6 cold but alive after a harrowing, weeklong kidnapping where she was raped, robbed and left for dead in the desert. Stanley Alfred Lawton (54) and his daughter Shaniya Nicole Poche-Lawton (22) were soon arrested.
(AP, 11/9/19)
2019 Nov 15, Charles Gary Sullivan (73) of Arizona was charged with open murder of Julia Woodward (21) of San Rafael, California. In 1979 the woman's bludgeoned body was discovered in a shallow grave near Reno, Nevada.
(ABC News, 11/17/19)
2019 Dec 14, Federal officials said two programmers in Las Vegas recently admitted to running two of the largest illegal television and movie streaming services in the country. An FBI investigation led officials to Darryl Polo (36) and Luis Villarino (40) who have pleaded guilty to copyright infringement charges for operating iStreamItAll, a subscription-based streaming site, and Jetflix, a large illegal TV streaming service.
(USA Today, 12/16/19)
2019 Dec 21, In Nevada six people were killed and 13 injured after a fire this morning in a three-story apartment complex in downtown Las Vegas.
(AP, 12/21/19)(SFC, 12/24/19, p.A4)
2020 Jan 10, In Nevada Margaret Rudin (76), a socialite antiques shop owner dubbed the “black widow" while she was a fugitive ahead of her 2001 trial, left a women’s prison after winning parole from her 20-years-to-life sentence for the killing of real estate mogul Ron Rudin. The 64-year-old prominent Las Vegas real estate developer had disappeared in December 1994. Fishermen stumbled across his skull and some charred bones a month later near the shoreline of a Colorado River reservoir about 45 miles (72 kilometers) outside Las Vegas.
(AP, 1/10/20)
2020 Jan 29, Illinois, Nevada and Virginia, the last three states to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, sued the archivist of the US government, demanding that an amendment to the US Constitution guaranteeing equal rights for women be declared valid.
(Reuters, 1/30/20)
2020 Feb 15, It was reported that the Bureau of Land Management has announced plans to fund 11,000 miles (17,703 km) of strategic fuel breaks in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada and Utah in an effort to help control wildfires.
(AP, 2/15/20)
2020 Feb 18, It was announced that billionaire Mike Bloomberg has qualified for the Feb 19 Democratic presidential debate in Nevada, marking the first time he’ll stand alongside the rivals he has so far avoided by bypassing the early voting states and using his personal fortune to define himself through television ads.
(AP, 2/18/20)
2020 Feb 19, In Nevada Democrats savaged New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg and raised pointed questions about Bernie Sanders' take-no-prisoners politics during a contentious debate that threatened to further muddy the party's urgent quest to defeat President Donald Trump.
(AP, 2/19/20)
2020 Feb 22, Nevada Democrats hosted hundreds of caucuses, the third contest in the state-by-state presidential nominating process. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won his second straight contest with a convincing 47% victory in Nevada. Former VP Joe Biden finished a distant second with 19%.
(Reuters, 2/22/20)
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Subject = Nevada
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