John C. Fremont

Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

Frederick S. Dellenbaugh established his artistic reputation in Nevada with one painting. "Las Vegas Ranch," executed in 1876, was painted as the artist was resting on his way to a mining camp in Southern California. It has the distinction of being the first known painting of the Las Vegas Valley. Dellenbaugh studied art in New York, Munich, and Paris. However, it is his career as a topographer and writer that is highly regarded to this day.
 
Below is reprinted with permission from the Nevada Historical Society Quarterly.
 

Nevada Travel Literature

Nevada travel literature offers an outsider's perspective of the state's geography, environment, and culture. It is the reportage and impressions of travelers whose journeys of choice or necessity have led them to the Great Basin and Nevada. The literature ranges from explorer and emigrant diaries to the avant-garde. As visitors, the writers attempt to express the "otherness" of the place, and often the central character or metaphor is the land.

Jacob Dodson

Jacob Dodson was an African-American member of John C. Fremont's group of explorers who traversed Nevada in the mid-1840s. As such, he is, with Peter Ranne, one of the first known persons of African descent to enter the territory now known as Nevada.

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