Description

Brigham Young University Press [Published date: 1973]. Paper covers, 66 pp. In very good condition. Grey illustrated paper covers have very light bumping to edges and corners and light overallscuffing. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. NOT Ex-library. NO remainder marks. Contents include:The Pahranagat Boom; The Boom Peaks; Pahranagat's Decline; Final Political Settlement in Lincoln County; Mormon-Gentile Struggle for Mastery; Conclusions; Notes; Index. [From Introduction] In September 1865 a prospector working in the recently discovered Pahranagat district wrote to the Nevada governor requesting instructions for forming a county in that remote area. The letter was the opening shot in a dispute over the region that involved Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and the federal government for six years and ended only after the loss of sizable territories by Utah and Arizona, the mass abandonment of several settlements along the Muddy River, and the effective political subordination of the Latter-day Saint (Mormon) community in Meadow Valley. At the time, Pahranagat and all of southeastern Nevada were more than one hundred miles beyond the settlement line in the central and western portions of the state. At stake was the area comprising modern Lincoln and Clark counties, where the contending parties were the Mormon ranchers and the first wave of the expanding mining frontier. Development of southeastern Nevada was primarily tied to Utah and the East. Most of the risk capital came from New York State, where the majority of companies were incorporated. The initial mineral discoveries were made by parties from either Salt Lake City or the "Dixie" settlements of southern Utah. While communication with Salt Lake City was routine, no one in 1865 had crossed the deserts separating Pahranagat from Carson City. Finally, any fair sampling of opinion would show that the majority of residents were satisfied with Utah's theo-democracy and low tax rates. Yet, despite precedent and the wishes of the populace, the region was attached to Nevada. The reasons were largely economic, and an examination of those reasons forms the basis of this paper.