Henderson’s decision to build its own police force the year it became a city is the same choice it has kept for more than seventy years, even as other Nevada communities now study merging their departments into one. Henderson incorporated as a city on April 16, 1953, according to the City of Henderson’s own account… Continue reading Henderson Organized Its Own Police Department the Year It Became a City in 1953. George Crisler Led It for 15 Years, and Henderson Never Joined the 1973 Merger That Created LVMPD.

A Utah-trained banker who agreed to lend money to an industry mainstream banks wouldn’t touch didn’t just keep one casino afloat. The credit he extended helped build the financial case for a change in state law that let Nevada’s casino industry trade mob money for public capital — the same structure that still finances the… Continue reading E. Parry Thomas Took Control of a One-Year-Old Las Vegas Bank in 1955 and Started Lending to Casinos No Other Bank Would Touch. Nevada’s Public Casino-Ownership Law Traces Back to the Credit He Extended.

A clause one Strip casino wrote into its first labor contract in 1989 didn’t just unionize that casino. Thirty-five years later, it became the method that finally brought every major casino on the Las Vegas Strip into the same union. Steve Wynn’s Mirage opened on the Las Vegas Strip in November 1989 already represented by… Continue reading The Mirage’s First Labor Contract Let Culinary Organize Without a Strike in 1989. That Clause Helped Make the Las Vegas Strip 100% Union by Sept. 19, 2024.

Henderson paid for Green Valley’s water and sewer lines with a fee on the growth the project itself created — a financing approach Nevada cities still lean on today, years before state lawmakers wrote it into law. H.M. Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, began assembling undeveloped land southeast of Las Vegas in the… Continue reading American Nevada Corp. Opened Green Valley in Henderson on Oct. 24, 1978. The City Financed Its Water and Sewer Lines With a Fee on Growth Before State Law Required It.

A desert bombing range became ground zero for the nation’s nuclear testing program in 1951. The law built to pay for what the fallout did to Nevadans has outlived the testing itself — it lapsed, and Congress revived and expanded it again just last year. The site now called the Nevada National Security Site started… Continue reading President Truman Approved the Nevada Proving Grounds on Dec. 18, 1950. Congress Let the Law Compensating Its Fallout Victims Lapse in 2024, Then Revived It in 2025.

Congress told two states to settle a shared aquifer’s fate in 2004. More than twenty years later, nobody ever signed the agreement — and Nevada’s water regulators are still writing new orders today to control the same kind of fight in other valleys. Snake Valley straddles the Nevada-Utah border, and the aquifer beneath it doesn’t… Continue reading Congress Ordered Nevada and Utah to Settle Snake Valley’s Water in 2004. The Agreement They Drafted Still Has Blank Signature Lines.

The Timbisha Shoshone Tribe spent most of the 20th century losing access to the desert land it had used for generations. The water rights Congress finally attached to two small Nevada parcels in 2000 were written to survive almost anything — even the kind of groundwater fights now reshaping rural Nevada. The Timbisha Shoshone lived… Continue reading Congress Granted the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe Nevada Trust Land in 2000, 17 Years After Recognizing It Without a Land Base. The Lida Parcel Still Hosts Tribal Ceremonies Today.

Bob Bailey spent the 1960s turning Las Vegas casino floors into job-training grounds for Black workers who had been locked out of them. Six decades later, Nevada’s gaming industry still answers for how far that access actually reaches. William “Bob” Bailey was born Feb. 14, 1927, in Detroit and raised in Cleveland, where he sang… Continue reading Gov. Grant Sawyer Named Bob Bailey to a Commission Studying Discrimination in Nevada in 1961. His Minority Job-Training Drive Opened More Than 1,000 Positions Within Two Years.