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The oldest carousel in the United States is located in the resort town of Watch Hill, Rhode Island.

The largest city in area in the United States is Juneau, Alaska. It covers 3,248 square miles, yet the city population is fewer than 30,000.
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City History

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The prehistoric landscape of what is now the Las Vegas Valley and most of Southern Nevada was a virtual marsh of abundant water and vegetation. Over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, rivers that were present sank into the ground, and the marsh receded. The valley evolved into a parched, arid landscape that only supported the hardiest of animals and plants. At some point in the valley's geologic history, the water that had been submerged below the terrain sporadically resurfaced and flowed into what is now the Colorado River. This helped luxurious plant life flourish, creating a wetland oasis in the Mojave Desert landscape.

Las Vegas, "The Meadows" or "The Grasslands", was named by Spaniards who used the water in the area while heading north and west along the Old Spanish Trail from Texas. In the 1800s, areas of the Las Vegas Valley contained artesian wells that supported widespread meadows, hence the name Las Vegas

John C. Frémont traveled into the Las Vegas Valley on May 3, 1844, while it was still part of Mexico. He was a leader of a group of scientists, scouts and observers for the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Following occupation by the United States, Brigham Young assigned 30 Mormon missionaries to the area to convert the Paiute Indian population. A fort was buil, serving as a stopover for travelers along the "Mormon Corridor" between Salt Lake and the briefly thriving Mormon colony at San Bernardino, California. Las Vegas was established as a railroad town in 1905, when 110 acres owned by Montana Senator William A. Clark's San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad, was auctioned off in what is now downtown Las Vegas. Las Vegas became an incorporated city on March 16, 1911.

The city started as a stopover on the pioneer trails to the west and became a popular railroad town in the early 1900s. It was a staging point for all the mines in the neighboring area who shipped their goods out to the rest of the country. With the growth of the railroads, Las Vegas became less important, but the completion of the nearby Hoover Dam resulted in substantial growth in tourism, which, along with the legalization of gambling, led to the advent of the casino-hotels for which Las Vegas is famous.

The constant stream of tourist dollars from the hotels and casinos was augmented by a new source of federal money. This money came from the establishment of what is now Nellis Air Force Base. The influx of military personnel and casino job-hunters helped start a land building boom which still goes on today.

In the 1990s as Las Vegas became one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S. Numerous landmark hotels and other structures were raised to make way for ever larger and more magnificent resorts.

In 2003, Las Vegas became home to the first hydrogen fueling station in the US.

Historic Figures

Herbert Hoover and the Hoover Dam (Completed in 1935)



Herbert Hoover and the Hoover Dam (Completed in 1935)
Hoover Dam, also known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete gravity-arch dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada. The dam, located 30 miles SE of Las Vegas, is named after Herbert Hoover, who played an instrumental role in its construction, first as Secretary of Commerce and then later as President of the United States. Construction began in 1931 and was completed in 1935, over two years ahead of schedule.

March 29, 2024

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