Nevada

A state admitted early because a war needed it, on land almost nobody farmed. The Comstock Lode, found in 1859 near Virginia City, was the richest silver deposit ever discovered in the country, and it financed San Francisco's growth and much of the Union war effort. Nevada was rushed to statehood in October 1864 with a population far below the usual threshold, because Lincoln wanted the electoral votes and a third vote for the Thirteenth Amendment; its constitution was telegraphed to Washington in full, then the longest telegram ever sent. The Comstock was exhausted within twenty years and the state nearly emptied. It survived by legalising what other states would not: quick divorce from 1931, which made Reno a destination, and casino gambling the same year. The Hoover Dam, built 1931 to 1936, supplied the water and power that made Las Vegas possible. The federal government owns about eighty per cent of the state, the highest share anywhere, and tested over nine hundred nuclear devices at the Nevada Test Site. Carson City is the capital. It is the driest state in the country. Las Vegas holds most of the state's population, far from the capital. The name is Spanish for snow-covered, describing the Sierra Nevada on its western edge. Basin and range topography gives it more mountain ranges than any other state. Area 51 sits within the test range. Nevada produces most of the country's gold, and lithium mining in its northwest is expanding quickly. Burning Man has been held in the Black Rock Desert since 1990.

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