Online Nevada Encyclopedia

Sondra Cosgrove

Muddy Mission

After Mormon missionaries established a way station between Utah and California at Las Vegas in 1855, they received a directive from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to scout more town sites just north of the area along the Muddy River. Not everyone approved, but Church officials authorized new Muddy settlements anyway. Before long, the Muddy missionaries discovered why no one else had settled there before them.

Rise of the Mormon Church

While fur trappers and government scouts were the first Americans to traverse the Great Basin, its early white settlers were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Mormons, as they were called, arrived in the late 1840s seeking isolation.

Mormons and Genoa

What some consider Nevada's first Euro-American town appeared in the Carson Valley in 1850. Gold Rush fever had swept the nation, sending fortune-seekers streaming into California. The Humboldt Trail, one route west, crossed Northern Nevada and deposited prospectors at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. At this point a handful of Mormons established a trading post to provision road-weary travelers. Their success and the Comstock Lode's discovery soon attracted others, but Genoa and Dayton now competed for the title of the first American settlement in the western Great Basin.

Mormon Settlement: Lincoln County

In 1857, afraid that American troops were about to invade Utah, Church of Latter-day Saints leader Brigham Young called for outlying Mormon settlers to return home to Salt Lake City.  He made one exception, allowing a small group of Mormons to find a remote place where church leaders could take refuge if needed.  These scouts moved to the western edge of Utah territory and established Panaca, the first se

Las Vegas Mormon Temple

More sacred than a meeting house, a Mormon temple provides its members with a refuge from the secular world and allows the faithful to partake in important ceremonies. Not every city has a temple, but church leaders try to make them as accessible as possible. To serve its growing Mormon population, in April 1984, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced the construction of the Las Vegas temple, which was dedicated in December 1989.
          

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