The Stories Behind Nevada's County Names Part 2

William Ormsby

   While it’s pretty obvious who Lincoln County was named after, what about Nevada’s other counties? What are the origins of the names of Lyon, Nye or Lander counties? And what county is named for a former U.S. Senator who was accused of purchasing his seat?

   The following are the namesakes for the rest of Nevada’s counties. Part one of this story appeared last week.

   • Lyon County is named to honor General Nathanial Lyon, a Civil War-era commander who died in action during the Battle of Wilson’s Creek. Lyon was the first Union general killed in the Civil War. His efforts on behalf of the Union are said to have prevented Missouri from joining the Confederacy.

   • Ormsby County (now simply the combined city-county of Carson City) honors William M. Ormsby an early Nevada business owner and political figure who helped to establish Carson City and the Nevada Territory. In May 1860, after the owners of a trading post near present-day Silver Springs kidnapped two Paiute girls and were killed by Paiute warriors in retaliation, Ormsby led a group of about 100 armed men to Pyramid Lake to confront the tribe. Ill-equipped and poorly trained, the force was ambushed south of the lake and about three quarters were killed, including Ormsby. The encounter became known as the first battle of the so-called Pyramid Lake or Paiute War.

   • Storey County was named for Edward Farris Storey, a Nevada pioneer who, like Ormsby, was a casualty of the Pyramid Lake War. Storey was the commander of Company K of the Nevada Militia, known as the Virginia City Rifles. He and his men joined Ormsby’s campaign to attack the Paiutes and was killed in June 1860 during the second battle of the war, during which the Paiutes were routed by the combined forces of Nevada militia and regular U.S. Army troops.

   • Washoe County is the only county in the state named for a Native American tribe. The Washoe (also spelled Washo) people had resided for generations in the Truckee Meadows.

   • Lander County is named for Frederick W. Lander, a Civil War general who died of pneumonia shortly after successfully defending the community of Romney, Maryland from an assault by Confederate forces. On February 14, 1862, he led a successful charge against a Confederate encampment at Bloomery Gap but two weeks later succumbed to what was called “congestive chill.”

   • Nye County’s name honors James W. Nye, who served as Nevada’s first Territorial Governor and later was elected to the U.S. Senate representing Nevada (1864-1873).

   • Elko County takes its name from the city of Elko, which was named by Charles Crocker superintendent of the Central Pacific Railroad. The name, it is said, came from Crocker’s fondness for taking animal names and adding an “o,” but there’s no evidence to support that claim. Another version of the story is that Elko is a Shoshone word for either “white woman” or “beautiful” or “white elk.” Basically, no one knows where the name came from.

   • White Pine County derives its name from the many stands of limber pine (also called white pine) trees said to be found in this part of eastern Nevada.

   • Eureka County derives its name from the mining town (and district) of Eureka, which was established in 1864. The name is a Greek word meaning “I found it.”

   • Clark County is named to honor William A. Clark, owner of the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, which founded the city of Las Vegas (in 1905). Clark made his fortune in copper mining in Montana and in 1899 was chosen to serve as one of the state’s U.S. Senators (at the time, state legislatures appointed U.S. Senators). However, the U.S. Senate refused to seat him after it came out that he had bribed Montana legislators to gain the post. He was finally elected to the Senate in 1901 and served one term.

   • Mineral County’s name is pretty easy to understand. The name reflects the multitude of mineral resources found in the region.

   • Pershing County was named in honor of John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, a much decorated and highly-respected Army general who led the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I.

Who Are Nevada's Counties Named For? Part 1

 

Sylvester Churchill — namesake for Churchill County

  In the beginning, there were nine. Three years later, there were eleven. A little more than decade later, their number had grown by four more, and eventually there were 17.

  They are Nevada’s counties, and while few in number compared to states like Texas, which has 254, or Georgia, which has 159, they include several of the largest counties in the nation in terms of size, such as Nye, which is 18,147 square miles (third biggest in the U.S.), and Elko, which is 17,182 square miles (fourth biggest).

  The original nine counties were established in 1861, when the Nevada Territory was created. These nine jurisdictions included Churchill, Douglas, Esmeralda, Humboldt, Lake (renamed Roop a year later), Lyon, Ormsby, Storey and Washoe.

  Three years later, when Nevada gained statehood, two additional counties, Nye and Lander, were created (carved from Esmeralda). Over the next decade four more counties were organized including Lincoln (1866), Elko and White Pine (1869) followed by Eureka (1873). In 1889, Lake/Roop was dissolved because of its tiny population and consolidated into Washoe County.

  The early 20th century saw the creation of three more counties, Clark (1909), Mineral (1911), and Pershing (1919). The last major change in terms of county structures occurred in 1969, when Ormsby County merged with Carson City to become the state’s only consolidated city-county government.

  There was, also, a unique county that only existed for brief time, which was Bullfrog County. This tiny square of land carved out of Nye County was a political jurisdiction created by the Nevada legislature in 1987 in order to maximize the state’s ability to extract funding from the Federal Government in case a national nuclear waste facility opened at Yucca Mountain (which was inside Bullfrog County).

  Nye County officials, however, filed a successful lawsuit to stop the county’s creation and two years later the legislature repealed the law that created Bullfrog County.

  Looking at the names of the state’s 16 counties and 1 combined county-city, at least one is pretty easy to place. Lincoln is obviously named for President Abraham Lincoln, who approved Nevada’s statehood but who or what were the others named after?

  The following are the stories behind the names for a handful of the rest of Nevada’s counties:

  • Churchill County was named in honor of Sylvester Churchill (1783-1862), who served during the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. He was cited for his actions during the Battle of Buena Vista during the latter and promoted to the rank of brevet brigadier general. He served as Inspector General of the Regular Army for two decades.

  • Douglas County was named to honor Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas, who was the Democratic Party nominee against Abraham Lincoln (the Republican Party nominee) in the presidential election of 1860. In spite of his defeat, Douglas rallied his supporters to the Union (Lincoln’s) cause when the Civil War broke out in April 1861 but died a few weeks later of typhoid.

  • Esmeralda is the Spanish and Portuguese word for emerald and the county’s name was derived from the successful Esmeralda Mining District. According to some sources, an early miner, James Manning Cory, named the mining district after the Gypsy dancer, Esmeralda, in the Victor Hugo novel, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

  • Humboldt County was named after the Humboldt River, which winds through the county. The river, in turn, was named after Alexander Von Humboldt, a famous German naturalist who had explored South and Central America. Explorer John C. Fremont named the river in honor of a man he admired.

  • Lake County was named because of the many lakes in the region, including Honey Lake, Pyramid Lake, and Winnemucca Lake. It originally included Susanville, California, since the boundary between Nevada and California was poorly delineated in the act that created the Nevada Territory. The matter wasn’t resolved until 1864, when a joint California-Nevada boundary survey determined that the Honey Lake area, including Susanville, were located inside California’s boundaries.

  • Roop County was the name given to Lake County in 1862. The new name honored Isaac Roop, first provisional governor of the proposed Nevada Territory, who was the leader of an unsuccessful effort to join Honey Lake Valley with the Nevada Territory.

  Next week: the stories behind the names for the rest of Nevada’s counties.