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- In 1899 Charles Fey invented a slot machine named the
Liberty Bell. The device became the model for all slots to
follow.
- The Reno Ice Pavilion is a 16,000-square-foot rink once
dismantled and moved to Reno from Atlantic City, New Jersey.
- Bugsy Siegel named his Las Vegas casino "The Flamingo"
for the long legs of his showgirl sweetheart, Virginia Hill.
- The Imperial Palace on the Las Vegas strip is the
nation's first off-airport airline baggage check-in service.
- Bertha was a performing elephant that entertained for 37
years at John Ascuaga's Nugget casino located in Sparks. She
was 48 years old when she died.
- There were 16,067 slots in Nevada in 1960. In 1999
Nevada had 205,726 slot machines, one for every 10
residents.
- While Samuel Clemens took the penname "Mark Twain" as a
reporter working for the "Territorial Enterprise," he began
his writing career as a reporter in the Midwest some years
before moving to Virginia City in 1862.
- Pershing County located in Cowboy Country features the
only round courthouse in the United States. Update: {the
Bucks County Courthouse in Pennsylvania, constructed in
1960, is considered round. Now there are two.}
- In 1931 the Pair-O-Dice Club was the first casino to
open on Highway 91, the future Las Vegas Strip.
- In March 1931 Governor Fred Balzar signed into law the
bill legalizing gambling in the state.
- Once the highest concrete dam in the world, Hoover Dam
offers guided tours and a museum of artifacts of the
construction and its workers.
- In Death Valley, the Kangaroo Rat can live its entire
life without drinking a drop of liquid.
- Construction of the Nevada State Capitol located in
Carson City was proposed on April 14, 1870. Carson City is
one of the smallest state capitals in the country. Update:
{With current growth, may now be 14th smallest.}
- The ghost town of Rhyolite still pays homage to early
pioneers and their dreams. Remains of the depot, glass
house, bank and other buildings are on display.
- In Tonopah the young Jack Dempsey was once the bartender
and the bouncer at the still popular Mispah Hotel and
Casino. Famous lawman and folk hero Wyatt Earp once kept the
peace in the town.
- The first recorded white men in the Elko area were fur
trappers who trapped beaver in the area starting in 1828.
- The first community college in Nevada opened in Elko in
1967. Great Basin College was the forerunner of a statewide
system associated with the University of Nevada.
- Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park is constructed around the
fossilized remains of ancient, mysterious reptiles within a
well-preserved turn-of-the-century Nevada mining camp.
- The ichthyosaur is Nevada's official state fossil.
- Austin's oldest church, St. Augustine, requires the
establishment's bells in the tower to be rung by pulling a
rope located in the men's restroom.
- Nevada takes its name from a Spanish word meaning
snow-clad.
- Most of the state is desert but the Sierra Nevada
mountain range near Reno and the Ruby Mountains near Elko
has snow for half the year.
- Locals use terms like The Sagebrush State, The Silver
State, and The Battle Born State as nicknames for Nevada.
- Nevada is the seventh largest state with 110,540 square
miles, 85% of them federally owned including the secret Area
51 near the little town of Rachel.
- Nevada has more mountain ranges than any other state,
with its highest point at the 13,145 foot top of Boundary
Peak near the west-central border.
- Grammatically, the proper term for the mountains is the
Sierra Nevada not the Sierras. Robert Conrad almost
called one of his television series High Sierra Rangers but
changed it to High Mountain Rangers.
- Wayne Newton owns a home in the Las Vegas area, and it
was a real location for the film "Vegas Vacation."
- The longest running show in Las Vegas is the Follies
Bergere at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino. It opened in
1959. The production numbers in "Showgirls" were written
specifically for the Paul Verhoeven film and shot in the
Horizon Hotel at Lake Tahoe. The bulk of the movie used
locations located at the Luxor and the Forum Shops at
Caesars.
- You see the name Hughes on numerous locations and
developments. Howard Hughes bought up considerable Nevada
property before he died in 1976, including the following
hotels and casinos: Castaways, Desert Inn, Frontier,
Landmark, Sands, Silver Slipper, and Harold's Club. Part of
the Hughes legend was recounted in Jonathan Demme's "Melvin
and Howard."
- Misfits Flats off Highway 50 near Stagecoach takes its
name from the John Huston film. Huston used the privately
owned area to film a complicated wild horse round up with
Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift and Eli
Wallach.
- Nevada is the largest gold-producing state in the
nation. It is second in the world behind South Africa.
- The state has about 50,000 miles of paved road, much of
it featured in films like "Vanishing Point," "Breakdown,"
"Rainman," and "Lethal Weapon 4."
- Hoover Dam, the largest single public works project in
the history of the United States, contains 3.25 million
cubic yards of concrete, which is enough to pave a two-lane
highway from San Francisco to New York. The dam face was
used in an amazing stunt for Roland Emerich's "Universal
Soldier" and has been seen in such films as "Viva Las Vegas"
and "Fools Rush In."
- The Virginia City steam train still operates and was
featured in the Imax project "Mark Twain's America." The
"steam train" is a modern-day tourist train and does not
link back to the original Virginia & Truckee RR which had
its last run to Virginia City in 1938.
- The state's Highway 50, known as the Loneliest Highway
in America, received its name from "Life" magazine in 1986.
There are few road stops in the 287 mile stretch between Ely
and Fernley.
- Frank Sinatra once owned the Cal-Neva at Lake Tahoe's
Crystal Bay. It is possible to stand in both Nevada and
California inside Cal-Neva's building.
- Nevada's smallest incorporated city is Gabbs located
about 140 miles southeast of Reno.Update: {Gabbs, what was
Nevada's smallest city was disincorporated on May 8, 2001}
- Nevada tribes include the Shoshone, Washo and Paiute.
Tribal lands have been used in such film projects as
"Misery," and "The Greatest Story Ever Told."
- The Las Vegas Strip is actually under jurisdiction of
Clark County and can be seen in just about any film set in
the city.
- Nevada is the only state with an entire museum devoted
to the life and time of entertainer Liberace.
- Writer and commentator Lowell Thomas called Elko the
last cowtown in America. Elko is the home of the annual
Cowboy Poetry Gathering.
- Area 51 is acknowledged with State Route 375 officially
christened "The Extraterrestrial Highway" in a ceremony
featuring the director and cast of the movie "Independence
Day." The highway runs between Alamo and Tonopah. There is a
tiny restaurant stop at the Little Ale' Inn at Rachel.
- The only Nevada lake with an outlet to the sea is man
made Lake Mead.
- Camels were used as pack animals in Nevada as late as
1870.
- To drive from Los Angeles, California to Reno, Nevada
the direction traveled is to the west.
- Construction worker Hard Hat's were first invented
specifically for workers on the Hoover Dam in 1933.
- Las Vegas has more hotel rooms than any other place on
earth.
- Las Vegas has the majority of the largest hotels in the
world.
- The longest morse code telegram ever sent was the Nevada
state constitution. Sent from Carson City to Washington D.C.
in 1864. The transmission must have taken several hours.
- Virginia City is the home of the Nevada Gambling Museum.
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