Item Detail
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3611
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0
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0
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English
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Washoe Territory : Rudimentary Government in Nevada
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Arizona and the West
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Autumn 1969
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11
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213-32
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Although American mountain men were traversing Washoe (the early name for Nevada) as early as 1827, permanent settlement was not established until 1851 when the Mormons located a way station en route to the California gold fields. In the absence of any governmental authority, some 50 Mormons and Gentile prospectors and cattle ranchers drew up a Washoe code concerned with land claims. In time, its coverage was enlarged. Mormon-Gentile relations deteriorated and letters and petitions were soon reaching Washington. Gentiles even asked to be annexed to California. Utah Territory countered this by incorporating the area as a county. When Federal troops were sent to Utah in 1857, the Mormons left Washoe. The Gentiles took over and launched a move for separate territorial status. The end of an Indian war in 1860, new problems occasioned by the mining boom of 1859 and the national North-South cleavage, and the failure of a newly formed provisional territorial government led to the creation of Nevada Territory by Congress in 1861. The pragmatic attempts to establish workable frontier institutions had failed and the paternalistic territorial system was welcomed. According to the author, Nevada's experience was similar to the evolution of government struggle on many other western frontiers.