Places
Kirk Kerkorian
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Kirk Kerkorian probably has done more while receiving less attention than anyone else in Las Vegas history, partly because he likes it that way. Three times, he has built the world's largest hotel-casino in Las Vegas. His International Hotel and two MGM Grand hotels significantly affected the... more
Kimberly
Places: White Pine County, Northern Nevada
The town of Kimberly was established in 1903 for the purpose of mining plentiful copper in central White Pine County. It was one of four "company towns" in the area, and was built by Giroux Consolidated Company on some of the oldest copper discoveries in the district, some of which dated... more
Keyhole Canyon Petroglyphs and Creation Mythology
Places: Clark County, Southern Nevada
Keyhole Canyon is located about halfway between Las Vegas and Searchlight, outside the town of Nelson in the Eldorado Mountains. While it is unknown who carved the petroglyphs at Keyhole Canyon, scholars do agree that the Mohave, the Paiute, and the Anasazi/Pueblo were the main groups in the region... more
Keeley Institute
Places: Virginia City, Reno, Storey County, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
Substance abuse and addiction affected thousands of miners, middle-class female consumers, prostitutes, Chinese workers, and other citizens of bourgeoning nineteenth-century Comstock communities. As a result, the Keeley Institute, a privately owned and nationally franchised addiction treatment... more
Kaitty Holland Exhibit
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
“Out of the Closet: The Kaitty Holland Clothing Collection” debuted in May 2008 at Virginia City’s Historic Fourth Ward School Museum. The changing gallery exhibit, funded in part by Nevada Humanities, tells the story of a nineteenth-century mining family by showcasing the... more
Julia Bulette
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
Prostitute Julia Bulette moved to Virginia City around 1863 when the lively mining boom town boasted a population approaching 10,000. Four years later, an intruder strangled her during the early morning hours of January 20, 1867.Local officials arrested Frenchman Jean Millian when he tried to sell... more
Joseph Goodman
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
Joseph Goodman was born in Masonville, New York in 1838. He traveled to California with his father in 1856 and secured employment with Rollin Daggett, typesetting for The Golden Era, a San Francisco literary weekly. Goodman met fellow-printer Denis McCarthy, and the two traveled to Virginia City in... more
John William Mackay
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
John Mackay was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1831. His surname was Scottish, but he identified with his Irish heritage. In 1840, Mackay's family immigrated to New York, his father dying shortly afterwards. John Mackay left school and eventually apprenticed as a shipwright. In 1851, he traveled to... more
John Wesley North
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
Nevada territorial Supreme Court Justice John Wesley North played an important role in the pivotal single ledge case. Born in Sand Lake, New York in 1815, North began teaching school at age fifteen. In 1833, he became a licensed lay preacher. While continuing to teach, he attended the Cazenovia... more
John Ross Browne
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
During two brief Nevada sojourns, John Ross Browne, traveler, author, and artist, created an invaluable portrait of the territory's early development. He was born near Dublin, Ireland, in 1821, where his father edited a nationalist paper, inspiring British authorities to imprison him. They... more
John Piper
Places: Virginia City, Storey County, Northern Nevada
John Piper was a young German immigrant operating a fruit stand in San Francisco when he, his wife, and brothers joined the 1860 rush to the Comstock Lode. Piper bought property on Virginia City's B Street, a busy commercial corridor, where he established the Old Corner Bar. He became a... more
John Livermore
Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
John Livermore is a former Newmont Mining Exploration geologist credited with locating or collaborating in the location of at least four major gold deposits, including the Carlin deposit, the origin of the modern-day Carlin trend gold province in Nevada. Livermore is also known as the man who... more
John Kell Houssels
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
John Kell (J. Kell) Houssels, Sr. (1895-1979) turned a small card parlor on Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas into a gambling club, and over the next four decades he became one of the most respected operators of casinos in Southern Nevada, including the El Cortez, Showboat, and Tropicana.... more
John Gutzon Borglum
Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
John Gutzon Borglum is included in the Online Nevada Encyclopedia on the basis of one work: his statue of the Nevada mining magnate John William Mackay (1831-1902), which is located on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno. Borglum is better known for his sculpted likenesses of four American... more
John Cahlan
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
John Cahlan was an important part of Las Vegas journalism and life for more than half a century. Born in Reno in 1902, he was the grandson of men who had moved to Nevada before the Comstock Lode's discovery. Cahlan graduated from the University of Nevada and worked for the Nevada State Journal... more
John Battenberg
Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
John Battenberg designed Creatures of Nevada, a complex, multi-part set of sculptures and fountain heads for the first block of the Truckee River Walk, at the southwest corner of Virginia Street and the Truckee River in Reno. Retired in 1985 as a professor of art from San Jose State University, San... more
Joanne de Longchamps, Artist
Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
Joanne de Longchamps (1923-1983) was a vital force in both the literary and visual arts of Reno, Nevada from 1941 until her death in 1983. De Longchamps' complex collages represented a desire to explore—visually—subjects that had informed her poetry, notably warm-and cold-blooded... more
Joanne de Longchamps
Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada
One can hardly return to Nevada letters of mid-century without reading Joanne de Longchamps (1923-1983). A student of two art forms, poetry and collage, she spent a lifetime piecing into them her love of Greece, animals, and the struggle between Eros and Thanatos—love and death. In her art... more
JoAnn Smokey Martinez
JoAnn Smokey Martinez and her sister Theresa Jackson were among the last members of the Washoe Tribe to be raised in their traditional Native American culture. They spoke only Washoe until they started school, and as children both helped their mother and grandmother gather willows for baskets.... more
Jews in Reno Gaming
Betting on races, fights and cards was a part of life in early Nevada. Jews were participants in these pastimes, and those who owned saloons were party to the practice. After the legalization of gambling in 1931, Jews were prominent in Reno gambling. Those who had plied their trade elsewhere and... more
Jewry and Judaism in Nevada
Jews were among the first to provide the essential mercantile infrastructure for Nevada's mining towns and camps. Their numbers grew to nearly a thousand by the late 1870s. Even as the state's population declined from 1880 to 1910, small numbers of Jews or a single Jewish-owned store could... more
Jewish Agricultural Experiment in Wellington
Places: Lyon County, Northern Nevada
When Nevada's ore production dropped precipitously after 1877, the population steadily declined and public officials searched for ways to attract new citizens and bolster the tax base. Eventually, the Hebrew Agricultural Society of the United States unveiled a plan to triple Nevada's... more
Jefferson
Places: Nye County, Southern Nevada
A.V. Wilson and R. Chanrock discovered silver at Jefferson Canyon in Nye County's Toquima Range in 1865, but it was not until two large stamp mills were built in 1874 that the town of Jefferson was born. The town's best years were 1875 and 1876 when $1.5 million was produced and its... more
Jeanne Janish
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Jeanne Russell Janish was the first female graduate from Stanford University with a master's degree in geology. Her botanical illustrations are recognized nationally and generations of Nevadans have learned local botany from her field guide illustrations.Janish was born in 1902 in Marshall,... more
Jay Sarno
Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada
Jay Sarno, one-time motel developer with ties to the corrupt Teamsters Union, arrived in Las Vegas in the early 1960s. He soon conceived of many innovations—some of them outlandish—in hotel design and promotion in his Caesars Palace and Circus Circus projects. Both greatly influenced... more