Lyon County’s Fort Churchill was founded in July 1860 during the critical period of conflict between Native Americans and newly arrived settlers. Captain Joseph Stewart, recently of Fort Alcatraz, had led forces from California to fight in the second phase of the Pyramid Lake War. He then received orders to establish a fort to protect transcontinental trade and transportation routes as they extended through the western Great Basin.

Folklife is the traditional expressive culture shared within groups of people. The definition used in the establishment of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in 1976 says, "American folklife is the traditional, expressive, shared culture of various groups in the United States: familial, ethnic, occupational, religious, and regional. Expressive culture includes a wide range of creative and symbolic forms, such as custom, belief, technical skill, language, drama, ritual, architecture, music, play, dance, pageantry, and handicraft.

[VR Morph by Howard Goldbaum]

The city of Fernley owes its existence to the Newlands Project, which began irrigating a small number of farms in an arid region of western Nevada in 1905. The project, which diverted water from the Truckee River, was the first of its kind to be federally funded. The overall success of the endeavor is debatable to this day, but there is no doubt that it gave birth to the town of Fernley.