Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/476

NEVADA. The State has one representative in the National House of Repressentatives.

. The churches do not show a strong numerical representation in Nevada. The Catholics, with a membership of about 4000, outnumber all the other churches combined. The Protestant Episcopal, Mormon, Methodist Episcopal, and Presbyterian churches are represented.

. The State expends a large per capita sum for educational purposes, and maintains a school term of more than seven months in length. The total expenditure for 1900 was $224,622. The number of children of school age (five to eighteen years) was 9260; number enrolled, 6676; average daily attendance, 4698. Education is compulsory, but the law is not strictly enforced. There are about 400 pupils in the high schools of the State and over 300 in the State University—a coeducational institution located at Reno, in connection with which the Federal Government has established an agricultural experiment station. There are no normal schools. The national Government maintains a boarding school for Indian children.

. The State supports an orphan's home, at Carson; a hospital for mental diseases, at Reno; and a State prison at Carson.

. Nevada has had but one constitution, which was adopted by popular vote in 1864. A proposed amendment may originate in either House and must receive the approval of a majority of the members elected to each House at two consecutively elected legislatures, after which it must receive a majority vote of the people. A constitutional convention may be called if approved by two-thirds of the members elected to each House and a majority of the popular vote. Suffrage is restricted to sane male citizens, twenty-one years of age, who have resided in the State six months and the district or county thirty days; the Legislature, however, has the power to make the payment of a poll tax a conditional right for voting. Carson City is the capital.

. The aggregate number of members of both branches of the Legislature cannot exceed 75, and the Senators must not number less than one-third or more than one-half the Assem- blymen. Assemblymen serve two years and Senators four years. Both are elected on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November of even years, and the sessions of the Legislature convene on the third Monday of January of odd years and cannot exceed 60 days in length.

. The Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Secretary, Treasurer, Controller, Surveyor-General, and Attorney-General are elected at the same time as are the members of the Legislature, and serve for four years.

. There are a supreme court, district courts, and justices of the peace and such city and town courts as the Legislature may establish.

. A uniform system of county and township government is established by the legislature, which system must provide for a board of county commissioners in each county. . The militia numbers 138 men.

. The territory from which Nevada was formed was acquired from Mexico by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848, and later formed part of Utah Territory. The

first European known certainly to have entered the region was Francisco Garcés, a Franciscan friar, on his way to California from Sonora in 1775. Other friars followed him, but no settlements were made. In 1825 Peter S. Ogden, in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company, worked inland with a small party and came upon the Humboldt River, sometimes called the Ogden River after himself, or the Mary River, after his Indian wife. Other trappers came within the next five years, though they suffered from the attacks of the Blackfeet and Shoshone Indians. In 1826 Jedediah S. Smith crossed the entire breadth of the present State from west to east. Frémont passed through in 1843-45, and possibly occasional emigrants bound for Oregon or California settled here and there. In 1849 the Mormons founded a trading post in the valley of the Carson River, near the present town of Genoa, to supply gold-seekers on their way to California. When Utah Territory was formed, September 9, 1850, the western bomdary was fixed as the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and so included much of the present State, but the Territorial organization did not extend at once to the extreme west, and the inhabitants organized a government of their own. In 1853, and again in 1856, the inhabitants of the Carson Valley petitioned to be annexed to California, claiming that the Government of Utah did not protect them, and had even withdrawn the county government, so tardily given. A petition for Territorial government was sent to Congress in August, 1857, and in 1858 a provisional government was formed at Carson City with Isaac Roop as Governor. In 1860 another petition was sent to Congress and the Territorial Delegate applied for admission. Meanwhile the Comstock Lode had been discovered in June, 1859, and miners flocked thither from every direction. The new Territory was separated from Utah, March 2, 1861, being bounded on the east, however, by the 116th meridian. Another degree was cut from Utah, July 14, 1862, and on May 5, 1866, the eastern boundary was extended to the 114th meridian and that part of the State lying below 37° was taken from Arizona. In September, 1863, an election was held for delegates to form a State constitution, but the instrument submitted was defeated in January, 1864. However, the political situation made two additional Republican votes in the United States Senate exceedingly desirable, and Congress in March, 1864, again passed an enabling act; in July the Constitution was accepted, and the State was admitted October 31st. Politically the State is swayed largely by local interests. It was Republican in national elections until 1892, when it was carried by the People's Party. In 1890 and 1900 it voted for the free-silver candidate, William Jennings Bryan.

The Governors of Nevada have been as follows: