Nevada settlers split the Virgin Valley’s water supply 60-40 between Mesquite and Bunkerville with a physical wall inside a 1933 storage tank. Sixty years later, the Nevada Legislature chartered a public water district that inherited the same 60-40 split as its ownership structure, and that structure still governs the utility supplying a fast-growing Nevada border… Continue reading Nevada Split the Virgin Valley’s Water 60-40 in a 1933 Tank. The Same Split Still Owns the Water District Today.

Nevada lawmakers created the Nevada Indian Commission in 1965 to give the state’s tribes a formal channel to the governor’s office — a five-member panel with no independent authority beyond studying issues and reporting recommendations. Fifty-nine years later, the Nevada Legislature elevated that same commission into a cabinet-level department that also runs a former federal… Continue reading Nevada Created an Indian Commission in 1965 to Open a Direct Line to the Governor. It Became a Full State Department in 2024.

A federal appeals court upheld convictions in 1985 against five men for skimming cash from the Tropicana Hotel and Country Club on behalf of Kansas City organized crime figures, based on wiretap evidence, seized cash and testimony from an inside operative who could never have qualified for a Nevada gaming license himself. Four decades later,… Continue reading A Kansas City Crime Family Skimmed the Tropicana From 1975 to 1979. A Federal Court Sent Five Men to Prison for It.

Congress opened the door in 1998 for Nevada to sell federal land around Las Vegas to fund parks, schools and water infrastructure as the valley grew. Nearly three decades later, more than 1,000 acres inside that same boundary are reserved not for sale on the open market, but for cities and the state to build… Continue reading A 1998 Law Let Nevada Sell Off Las Vegas Valley Public Land for Growth. Today More Than 1,000 Acres of It Are Reserved for Housing Instead.

Every four years, Clark County voters elect the same kind of office the Nevada Legislature created when it carved the county out of Lincoln County in 1909: a sheriff who answers directly to voters, not to a mayor or a city council. That same elected sheriff’s office still sits atop the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police… Continue reading Nevada Carved Clark County Out of Lincoln County in 1909 With an Elected Sheriff. Voters Just Renewed That Office for Four More Years.

Hoover Dam’s turbines were engineered in the 1930s to run on a reservoir the Bureau of Reclamation expected to stay full. Ninety-one years later, Lake Mead has fallen within a few feet of the elevation where those same turbines lose most of their power — and the agency that built the dam is now spending… Continue reading Hoover Dam’s Turbines Were Sized for a Full Reservoir in 1935. Lake Mead Is Now a Few Feet From Gutting Their Output.

The last time Culinary Union Local 226 pushed a contract fight all the way to a deadline, no one walked out. The union’s 60,000 members ratified a five-year contract in 2024 worth roughly $3 billion in raises without a single strike day — leverage built on decades of demonstrating it can shut down the Las… Continue reading The Strip’s Casinos First Went Dark in a 1970 Culinary Strike. The Union’s Newest Contract Came Without Anyone Walking Out.

Nevada’s gaming regulators still decide who is allowed to own a casino on the Strip — the same job the state took on as Las Vegas cut its mob-linked financiers out of casino ownership decades ago. The Nevada Gaming Control Board approved another change of casino control in April 2026, when Golden Entertainment moved from… Continue reading A Mob-Linked Teamsters Loan Nearly Sank Circus Circus in 1971. Bennett and Pennington’s 1974 Takeover Started Its Corporate Turn.

More than a million visitors a year drive up from the Las Vegas heat to Mount Charleston without knowing the mountains around them spent nearly nine decades folded into other national forests before Congress ever gave the range a federal identity of its own. This year, the U.S. Forest Service and Clark County imposed new… Continue reading The Spring Mountains Lost Their Own Forest Name in 1915. Congress Didn’t Give Them a New One Until 1993.

Nevada’s per-pupil funding formula gives extra money for English learners, gifted students, and students who are at risk. There’s no line in that formula for a school’s band program — which means when budgets get tight, music funding depends entirely on what’s left over. Nevada’s Pupil-Centered Funding Plan, the formula that determines how state education… Continue reading Nevada’s School Funding Formula Has a Weight for Almost Everything. Music Isn’t One of Them.