History of Mineral County:

Brief:

Mineral County Mineral County, Nevada, was created out of the northern portion of Esmeralda County on February 10, 1911. Nevada's earliest maps show the presence of Walker Lake, a prominent feature of Mineral County and a noted landmark to early explorers. Jedediah Smith, first non-native explorer into Nevada, passed near Walker Lake in 1827 during his remarkable trip from west to east across the state. Peter Skene Ogden, another noted earlier explorer of the region now known as The Great Basin, was here in 1829, then Fremont in 1845 with his guides Kit Carson and Joseph Walker, for whom the lake was named.

The town site of Hawthorne was selected in 1880 by H.M. Yerington, president of the Carson and Colorado Railroad Company, as a division and distribution point for the new railroad. Yerington named the new town Hawthorne after a lumberman friend in Carson City. On April 14, 1881, the first train arrived at the town's site, loaded with prospective buyers for the new town.

The Hawthorne Army Depot is in Mineral County and occupies approximately 150,000 acres of semiarid land surrounding the Hawthorne community. Hawthorne Army Depot is a government-owned, contractor-operated military industrial installation. Established after an explosion destroyed the Lake Denmark, New Jersey ammunition plant in 1926 and hundreds of people were injured in nearby towns. A court of inquiry investigating the explosion recommended that a depot be established in a remote area within 1,000 miles of the west coast to serve the Pacific area.

Presently, Hawthorne is a central point for desert travelers and for the vacation, sporting, and recreational activities on nearby Walker Lake.

Mineral County is also home to the Walker River Paiute Indian Reservation, which occupies over 200,000 acres and is located in the northwestern portion of Mineral County, spilling over to the north into Churchill County and to the west into Lyon County.

The rest of the history.......

Brief about the Walker River Paiute Tribe:

The reservation's land area is 529.970 square miles (1,372.616 km²) and a population of 853 persons was reported at the 2000 census. Schurz is the only town on the reservation. Weber Reservoir, an impoundment of the Walker River, is located upstream of Schurz and provides irrigation water for farms on the reservation. Most of the reservation is cattle range. The reservation belongs to the Walker River Paiute Tribe, a Northern Paiute tribe. Their Paiute name is Agai-Ticutta. The English translation means "Trout Eaters."

Photos:
Image 1 - Walker Lake
Image 2 - Historic photo of tribe members
Image 3 - map of the reservation