Interesting Facts about Reno Nevada
Reno One of 10 Best Places to Live - Reno ranked 8th in small towns as the best place to live in the
Men's Journal June 2004-2006 edition. The magazine based their rankings on 37
factors, including cost of living, air and water quality, and the amount
of nearby wilderness land. This new ranking comes after Forbes Magazine
named the Reno area the 25th best place to do business in the country.
In addition, the March, Inc. Magazine ranked Reno sixth out of 89
mid-sized cities across the country for doing business. Looks like more
people are discovering what we've known all along, Reno is a great place
to live!
1. In 1899 Charles Fey invented a slot machine named the Liberty
Bell. The device became the model for all slots to follow.
2. The Reno Ice Pavilion is a 16,000-square-foot rink once dismantled
and moved to Reno from Atlantic City, New Jersey.
3. Bugsy Siegel named his Las Vegas casino "The Flamingo" for the
long legs of his showgirl sweetheart, Virginia Hill.
4. The Imperial Palace on the Las Vegas strip is the nation's first
off-airport airline baggage check-in service.
5. Bertha was a performing elephant that entertained for 37 years at
John Ascuaga's Nugget casino located in Sparks. She was 48 years old
when she died.
6. There were 16,067 slots in Nevada in 1960. In 1999 Nevada had
205,726 slot machines, one for every 10 residents.
7. While Samuel Clemens took the penname "Mark Twain" as a reporter
working for the "Territorial Enterprise," he began his writing career as
a reporter in the Midwest some years before moving to Virginia City in
1862.
8. Pershing County located in Cowboy Country features the only round
courthouse in the United States. Update: {the Bucks County Courthouse in
Pennsylvania, constructed in 1960, is considered round. Now there are
two.}
9. In 1931 the Pair-O-Dice Club was the first casino to open on
Highway 91, the future Las Vegas Strip.
10. In March 1931 Governor Fred Balzar signed into law the bill
legalizing gambling in the state.
11. Once the highest concrete dam in the world, Hoover Dam offers
guided tours and a museum of artifacts of the construction and its
workers.
12. In Death Valley, the Kangaroo Rat can live its entire life
without drinking a drop of liquid.
13. Construction of the Nevada State Capitol located in Carson City
was proposed on April 14, 1870. Carson City is one of the smallest state
capitals in the country. Update: {With current growth, may now be 14th
smallest.}
14. The ghost town of Rhyolite still pays homage to early pioneers
and their dreams. Remains of the depot, glass house, bank and other
buildings are on display.
15. In Tonopah the young Jack Dempsey was once the bartender and the
bouncer at the still popular Mispah Hotel and Casino. Famous lawman and
folk hero Wyatt Earp once kept the peace in the town.
16. The first recorded white men in the Elko area were fur trappers
who trapped beaver in the area starting in 1828.
17. The first community college in Nevada opened in Elko in 1967.
Great Basin College was the forerunner of a statewide system associated
with the University of Nevada.
18. Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park is constructed around the
fossilized remains of ancient, mysterious reptiles within a
well-preserved turn-of-the-century Nevada mining camp.
19. The ichthyosaur is Nevada's official state fossil.
20. Austin's oldest church, St. Augustine, requires the
establishment's bells in the tower to be rung by pulling a rope located
in the men's restroom.
21. Nevada takes its name from a Spanish word meaning snow-clad.
22. Most of the state is desert but the Sierra Nevada mountain range
near Reno and the Ruby Mountains near Elko has snow for half the year.
23. Locals use terms like The Sagebrush State, The Silver State, and
The Battle Born State as nicknames for Nevada.
24. Nevada is the seventh largest state with 110,540 square miles,
85% of them federally owned including the secret Area 51 near the little
town of Rachel.
25. Nevada has more mountain ranges than any other state, with its
highest point at the 13,145 foot top of Boundary Peak near the
west-central border.
26. Grammatically, the proper term for the mountains is the Sierra
Nevada not the Sierras. Robert Conrad almost called one of his
television series High Sierra Rangers but changed it to High Mountain
Rangers.
27. Wayne Newton owns a home in the Las Vegas area, and it was a real
location for the film "Vegas Vacation."
28. The longest running show in Las Vegas is the Follies Bergere at
the Tropicana Hotel and Casino. It opened in 1959. The production
numbers in "Showgirls" were written specifically for the Paul Verhoeven
film and shot in the Horizon Hotel at Lake Tahoe. The bulk of the movie
used locations located at the Luxor and the Forum Shops at Caesars.
29. You see the name Hughes on numerous locations and developments.
Howard Hughes bought up considerable Nevada property before he died in
1976, including the following hotels and casinos: Castaways, Desert Inn,
Frontier, Landmark, Sands, Silver Slipper, and Harold's Club. Part of
the Hughes legend was recounted in Jonathan Demme's "Melvin and Howard."
30. Misfits Flats off Highway 50 near Stagecoach takes its name from
the John Huston film. Huston used the privately owned area to film a
complicated wild horse round up with Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe,
Montgomery Clift and Eli Wallach.
31. Nevada is the largest gold-producing state in the nation. It is
second in the world behind South Africa.
32. The state has about 50,000 miles of paved road, much of it
featured in films like "Vanishing Point," "Breakdown," "Rainman," and
"Lethal Weapon 4."
33. Hoover Dam, the largest single public works project in the
history of the United States, contains 3.25 million cubic yards of
concrete, which is enough to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco
to New York. The dam face was used in an amazing stunt for Roland
Emerich's "Universal Soldier" and has been seen in such films as "Viva
Las Vegas" and "Fools Rush In."
34. The Virginia City steam train still operates and was featured in
the Imax project "Mark Twain's America." The "steam train" is a
modern-day tourist train and does not link back to the original Virginia
& Truckee RR which had its last run to Virginia City in 1938.
35. The state's Highway 50, known as the Loneliest Highway in
America, received its name from "Life" magazine in 1986. There are few
road stops in the 287 mile stretch between Ely and Fernley.
36. Frank Sinatra once owned the Cal-Neva at Lake Tahoe's Crystal
Bay. It is possible to stand in both Nevada and California inside
Cal-Neva's building.
37. Nevada's smallest incorporated city is Gabbs located about 140
miles southeast of Reno.Update: {Gabbs, what was Nevada's smallest city
was disincorporated on May 8, 2001}
38. Nevada tribes include the Shoshone, Washo and Paiute. Tribal
lands have been used in such film projects as "Misery," and "The
Greatest Story Ever Told."
39. The Las Vegas Strip is actually under jurisdiction of Clark
County and can be seen in just about any film set in the city.
40. Nevada is the only state with an entire museum devoted to the
life and time of entertainer Liberace.
41. Writer and commentator Lowell Thomas called Elko the last cowtown
in America. Elko is the home of the annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering.
42. Area 51 is acknowledged with State Route 375 officially
christened "The Extraterrestrial Highway" in a ceremony featuring the
director and cast of the movie "Independence Day." The highway runs
between Alamo and Tonopah. There is a tiny restaurant stop at the Little
Ale' Inn at Rachel.
43. The only Nevada lake with an outlet to the sea is man made Lake
Mead.
44. Camels were used as pack animals in Nevada as late as 1870.
45. To drive from Los Angeles, California to Reno, Nevada the
direction traveled is to the west.
46. Construction worker Hard Hat's were first invented specifically
for workers on the Hoover Dam in 1933.
47. Las Vegas has more hotel rooms than any other place on earth.
48. Las Vegas has the majority of the largest hotels in the world.
49. The longest morse code telegram ever sent was the Nevada state
constitution. Sent from Carson City to Washington D.C. in 1864. The
transmission must have taken several hours.
50. Virginia City is the home of the Nevada Gambling Museum.
Click here for HomePage
