Where I Stand — Guy Rocha: Political torch is passed

Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2001 | 8:51 a.m.

Editor's note: In August Where I Stand is written by guest columnists. Today's writer, Nevada State Archivist Guy Rocha, is one of the top historians chronicling Nevada's past.

GROWING UP in Las Vegas in the 1960s, I witnessed a burgeoning Southern Nevada surpass Reno and Northern Nevada as the economic engine driving the Silver State. However, economic power and greater population did not mean the reins of political power were relinquished without a fight.

After moving to Northern Nevada in 1975 to pursue a Ph.D. in history at the University of Nevada, Reno, and now residing and working in Carson City, I have finally seen the changing of the guard in Nevada's political arena. Despite phenomenal population growth and four reapportionments of the Legislature dating back to 1965, power only gradually shifted to Clark County, principally because of the seniority of Northern Nevada legislators. Following the hard-fought reapportionment battle in the 2001 legislative session, Nevada in the 21st century promises to be shaped by political forces centered in and around Las Vegas.

Tables have turned a number of times in Nevada's 150-year history. The center of power in the 1850s was in the Carson Valley town of Genoa. Initially settled by Mormons in 1851 when most of the western Great Basin was part of Utah Territory, it was believed that Genoa might become the capital of a proposed new federal territory. In the end, after Nevada Territory was created in 1861 and all the deals were cut in the first legislative session, Carson City emerged as the new capital. The discovery of the great Comstock Lode in 1859 and its gold and silver soon made Virginia City the population center and political broker in Nevada's future.

The Comstock's mining corporations and miners' unions exerted tremendous influence over political campaigns. Virtually every member of Nevada's congressional delegation and most of its constitutional officers, including the governors, hailed from the Comstock. Men from Virginia City, Gold Hill, and other nearby mining and milling towns, dominated the state Legislature in the latter 19th century.

As the Comstock declined beginning in the late 1870s, other communities grew to challenge Virginia City for control of state politics. In 1887 it appeared that Winnemucca might emerge as a rival when Nevada's U.S. Sen. William M. Stewart sought to annex southern Idaho Territory to the Silver State. Stewart proposed that the Humboldt County seat become the state capital because the Central Pacific Railroad town would be centrally located in a much larger Nevada. The annexation bill died in Congress.

The real threat to Virginia City came from another growing Central Pacific Railroad town in the nearby Truckee Meadows. Reno, a transportation crossroads and commercial hub founded in 1868, began to flex its political muscle in the 1890s. By 1900 Reno had grown larger than Virginia City and political power in Nevada now centered in Washoe County.

With the Silver State's second great mining boom in the early 1900s, Goldfield practically eclipsed Reno in economic and political power. However the national financial "Panic of 1907" abruptly brought the bonanza days to a close. Efforts to move the state capital to Goldfield ceased. Almost everyone who made their fortune in the central Nevada mining towns, and didn't leave the state, moved to the Reno area.

The tough little town on the Truckee River drew national attention with its lucrative, and controversial, divorce trade. By 1931, six-month residency for a divorce had been reduced to six weeks. Men and women were getting "Renovated" by the thousands every year.

The Legislature also supported unrestricted casino gambling some 21 years after making gambling illegal in Nevada in 1910. Downtown Reno became world-famous for its gambling dens.

Wedding chapels proliferated as Californians, avoiding a waiting period and blood tests to acquire a marriage license, flocked to Reno to tie the knot. Regulated prostitution flourished in and around "The Biggest Little City in the World" until World War II.

At the same time, scores of millionaires relocated to Northern Nevada to enjoy the low taxes and pro-business environment promoted by the "One Sound State" campaign of Gov. Richard Kirman (a former Reno mayor) and the governors that followed him in the 1930s and 1940s. Despite the growth associated with the construction of Hoover Dam and Boulder City in the 1930s, Las Vegas' challenge to Reno began with World War II.

The origins of Nellis Air Force Base, Henderson, and the Strip are found in the early 1940s. Throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, Reno held its own, however, beginning with Howard Hughes, Kirk Kerkorian, and the advent of corporate gaming in the late 1960s, Las Vegas has grown exponentially compared to Reno. Thanks to Steve Wynn and other gaming entrepreneurs, the Strip is truly world famous. As Hal Rothman, UNLV professor of history, has so forcefully proclaimed, Las Vegas has taken its place among America's most powerful metropolises.

With the onset of the new millennium, the political torch has been passed once more in Nevada's short history. Greater Las Vegas, in all likelihood, will be dictating the political reality for the rest of the century if water woes don't undercut its future. Fair-minded leadership reflecting concern for all Nevadans is essential for the state to prosper in the face of the proliferation of casino venues throughout the nation, and particularly in California.

Let's make our Nevada Day celebrations in late October truly a statewide event with thousands of Southern Nevadans visiting their state capital. And as difficult as it may be for many Northern Nevadans to accept, Las Vegas now holds the key to our state's future. Old attitudes die hard, yet the political chasm between north and south must be bridged in the best interests of a rapidly changing Nevada.