In Greek, Eureka means, “I found it.” In 1873, Nevada legislators decided to found a new county: Eureka. This year, Eureka County turns 150.
To understand this history, we need to go back farther, to 1862. Mining discoveries along Reese River led to the need for more local government in the area. That year, the territorial legislature created Lander County. The name honored Frederick Lander, a surveyor and Civil War general who had recently died. In 1863, they designated Austin, the Reese River district’s chief mining boomtown, as county seat. About ten thousand people arrived in the next couple of years.
Austin became a mining hub. Prospectors fanned out to look for more ore, and found it. Miners from Austin located silver in the western foothills of the White Pine Range and built the town of Hamilton. Other miners ended up at Belmont, Treasure Hill, and Tuscarora.
In 1864, prospectors organized Eureka. They found silver and lead, and the area produced millions of dollars over the next two decades. In 1875, the Eureka and Palisade Railroad linked Eureka to the Central Pacific.
Now, the image of a mining town is that it can be pretty rowdy. There’s some truth to that. The reality is that if the town lasts long enough, the tents give way to wooden buildings and then the wood to brick. Families arrive, and a community develops, with churches and schools. But the other aspect of the rowdiness is that it feeds the need for law and order. Disputes over claims are inevitable. Someone has to keep track of the claims, and of other property. Miners might not have wanted much government, but they wanted enough of it to be able to figure out who owned what and who owed whom. That also helped attract investors in the mines and other businesses.
In 1869, the Nevada legislature had carved Elko and White Pine Counties out of Lander County as miners came to the area … and Elko was right on the Central Pacific Railroad. The Eureka’s discovery and subsequent growth prompted the 1873 legislature to create still another county out of Lander, named for the town and the mining district, to bring more organization to the area.
Eureka would go on to have quite a history. New technology perfected there made it easier to separate silver and lead, leading to bigger profits. Italian immigrants known as Carbonari migrated to the area, and worked the smelters, which required charcoal to operate. When they went on strike in 1879, there was an all-out war on them, with a sheriff’s posse ambushing them and ending the strike. The town
became known for its opera house, built in 1880 and still standing tall and beautiful. Its onetime director, Wally Cuchine, developed an extensive collection of Nevada art that was displayed around the state; he donated 160 pieces to the Ely Art Bank before he died last year.
From mining to art, Eureka has been a key part of the fabric of Nevada. As the county turns one hundred and fifty, it’s worth paying more attention to what some just see as some of the land surrounding Highway 50, the loneliest road in America.