Names behind Nevada’s counties

In the beginning there were nine. Three years later, there were eleven. A little more than decade later their number had grown by four more and eventually there were 17.

They are the state of Nevada’s counties and while few in number compared to states like Texas, which has 254, or Georgia, which has 159, they encompass several of the largest counties in the nation in terms of size, such as Nye, which is 18,147 square miles (third biggest), and Elko, which is 17,182 square miles (fourth biggest).

The original nine counties were formed in 1861, when the Nevada Territory was created, and included Churchill, Douglas, Esmeralda, Humboldt, Lake (renamed Roop a year later), Lyon, Ormsby, Storey and Washoe.

Three years later, when Nevada gained statehood, two additional counties, Nye and Lander, were created (carved from Esmeralda). Over the next decade four more counties were organized including Lincoln (1866), Elko and White Pine (1869) followed by Eureka (1873). In 1889, Lake/Roop was dissolved because of its tiny population and consolidated into Washoe County.

The early 20th century saw the creation of three more counties, Clark (1909), Mineral (1911), and Pershing (1919). The last major change in terms of county structures occurred in 1969, when Ormsby County merged with Carson City to become the state’s only consolidated city-county government.

Of course, a county of only fleeting existence was Bullfrog County, a political jurisdiction created by the Nevada legislature in 1987 (carved out of Nye County) in order to maximize the state’s ability to extract funding from the Federal Government in case a national nuclear waste facility opened at Yucca Mountain.

Nye County officials, however, filed a successful lawsuit to stop the county’s creation and the legislature repealed the law that created Bullfrog two years later.

Looking at the names of the state’s 16 counties and 1 combined county-city, at least one is pretty easy to place. Lincoln is obviously named for President Abraham Lincoln, who approved Nevada’s statehood but who or what were the others named after?

The following are the stories behind each of the county names:

• Churchill County was named in honor of Sylvester Churchill (1783-1862), who served during the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. He was cited for his actions during the Battle of Buena Vista during the latter and promoted to the rank of brevet brigadier general. He served as Inspector General of the Regular Army for two decades.

• Douglas County was named to honor Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas, who was the Democratic Party nominee against Abraham Lincoln (the Republican Party nominee) in the presidential election of 1860. In spite of his defeat, Douglas rallied his supporters to the Union (Lincoln’s) cause when the Civil War broke out in April 1861 but died a few weeks later of typhoid.

• Esmeralda is the Spanish and Portuguese word for emerald and the county’s name was derived from the successful Esmeralda Mining District. According to some sources, an early miner, James Manning Cory, named the mining district after the Gypsy dancer, Esmeralda, in the Victor Hugo novel, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

• Humboldt County was named after the Humboldt River, which winds through the county. The river, in turn, was named after Alexander Von Humboldt, a famous German naturalist who had explored South and Central America. Explorer John C. Fremont named the river in honor of a man he admired.

• Lake County was named because of the many lakes in the region, including Honey Lake, Pyramid Lake, and Winnemucca Lake. It originally included Susanville, California, since the boundary between Nevada and California was poorly delineated in the act that created the Nevada Territory. The matter wasn’t resolved until 1864, when a joint California-Nevada boundary survey determined that the Honey Lake area, including Susanville, were located inside California’s boundaries.

• Roop County was the name given to Lake County in 1862. The new name honored Isaac Roop, first provisional governor of the proposed Nevada Territory, who was the leader of an unsuccessful effort to join Honey Lake Valley with the Nevada Territory.

More on the origins of Nevada’s county names next week.

Rich Moreno covers the places and people that make Nevada special.