In 1902, pioneer rancher Helen J. Stewart hired surveyor J. T. McWilliams to map out her 1,800 acres of ranch land in the Las Vegas Valley so that it could be sold to United States Senator William Clark of Montana, who was building a railroad through the area from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. While surveying the Stewart Ranch, McWilliams noticed that part of a separate eighty-acre tract, owned by the U.S.