Welcome to Humboldt County!
"Humboldt County is the oldest county in Nevada, created by the Utah Territorial Legislature in 1856. It was also one of Nevada's original nine counties created in 1861. The county is named after the Humboldt River, which was named by John C. Fremont, after Baron Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt, a German naturalist, traveler and statesman."1
"Established in 1861, Humboldt County took its name from the Humboldt River, which runs through the territory. The river itself was named after Baron Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt. Although the first county seat was located in Unionville, officials did not build a permanent courthouse until the seat of government shifted to Winnemucca in 1873.
"The site of modern-day Winnemucca has been important to Nevada since the first explorers traversed the region in the late 1820s. It later became a critical place for early settlers, and marked the point at which the immigrant trail headed south toward the Sierra Nevada passes. Winnemucca became a major distribution point for the Central Pacific Railroad, established itself as the center of commerce in north-central Nevada, and was the site of a major bank robbery that remains controversial to this day. Peter Skene Ogden, a leading trapper for the Hudson Bay Company, was the first of European descent to arrive in 1828. Some members of the Bartleson-Bidwell party reached the area in 1841, followed by other westbound immigrants who found it to be the most convenient place to cross the Humboldt River. A Frenchman established a trading post there in the early 1850s and the site became known as Frenchman's Ford.
"There was some mining activity in nearby mountains in the 1860s, which led settler Joseph Ginacca to begin construction of a ninety-mile canal for transporting ore for processing. The waterway began at Preble, northeast of Golconda, and was designed to flow ninety miles to Mill City. Only a portion of the canal was completed, and it was used for irrigation purposes in Frenchman's Ford.
"Frank Baud, one of the town's first founders and Winnemucca's first postmaster, came in 1862 to work on the canal. A year later he built a toll bridge, and in 1867 established the Winnemucca Hotel. He died in 1868, but left $500 in his will to establish Winnemucca's first schoolhouse.
"The town began to flourish in 1868, when Charles Crocker of the Central Pacific Railroad deemed it a good place for the railway to intersect with stage lines that ran both north and south. It was about this time that the town was named after Old Winnemucca, a respected Paiute leader. By 1870, a modern town of 290 citizens had emerged, and in 1872 it was designated as the seat of Humboldt County.
"The "Winnemucca Bank Robbery" occurred on September 19, 1900, when three men entered the First National Bank and robbed owner George Nixon at gunpoint. The men escaped on horseback, and were never apprehended. For many years, Butch Cassidy was said to have been one of the robbers, but modern historians have debunked the story. Based on Cassidy's known whereabouts at the time, it is unlikely that he was in Winnemucca."2
The Summit Lake Indian Reservation is in this county as is a portion of the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation. The Lahontan Cutthroat Trout Natural Area, the Sheldon National Wildlife Range and a portion of the Humboldt Toiyabe National Forest are also in this county.
Winnemucca is the only incorporated city in the county. Unincorporated areas include: McDermitt, Denio, Golconda, Orovada, Paradise Valley and Valmy. Sites on the Historic Register include Adorno Station, Applegate-Lassen Trail (Sulphur), Golconda School, Humboldt County Courthouse, Humboldt River Bridge, Last Supper Cave, Martin Hotel, Micca House (Paradise Valley), Paradise Valley Ranger Station, W.C. Record House, Silver State Flour Mill (Paradise Valley), US Post Office-Winnemucca, Winnemucca Grammar School, and Winnemucca Hotel.1
Census Records
Link: New twist in notorious Nevada bank robbery
Sources
1Wikipedia, retreived December 6, 2014
2 onlinenevada.org ~ Three Creek, Idaho at ghosttowns.com
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