LibGuides: HIST 302 (Figanbaum) Public History: Early Las Vegas

Books on early Las Vegas history

Las Vegas, As It Began, As It Grew by Stanley W. Paher
Call Number: Lied Library Oversize F849.L35 P3
ISBN: 0913814016
Publication Date: 1971
Stanley Paher is the author of many histories of Nevada communities and bibliographies about Nevada history from the 1970s.
The Las Vegas Story by Ralph Roske
Call Number: Lied Library Oversize F849.L35 R77x 1986
ISBN: 0932986366
Publication Date: 1986
Las Vegas, A Centennial History by Eugene Moehring and Michael Green
Call Number: Lied Library Book Stacks F849.L35 M638 2005 ; ebook version linked
ISBN: 0874176115
Publication Date: 2005
Resort City in the Sunbelt by Eugene P. Moehring
Call Number: F849.L35 M643 2000, UNLV Book Stacks and Special Collections
ISBN: 0874173566
Publication Date: 2000
Old Spanish trail : Santa Fé to Los Angeles : with extracts from contemporary records and including diaries of Antonio Armijo and Orville Pratt by LeRoy R. Hafen and Ann W. Hafen
Call Number: F591 .F35 1954-61
Publication Date: 1954
ebook can be checked out for one hour at archive.org
Young Las Vegas by Joan Burkhart Whitely From 1905 to 1931, Las Vegas was still a tiny oasis in a big, dangerous desert. Its isolated people made their own swamp coolers, and sometimes their own whiskey. This work captures the memories of a Mojave Mayberry where neighbours took care of each other, not merely because no one else would, but because it was their hometown, and they cared.
ISBN: 1932173323
Publication Date: 2010

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Hathi Trust This link opens in a new window
Access to nearly any public domain (pre-1924) book owned and scanned by a library. UNLV users can login with their ACE accounts and download entire "full view" books/documents.
American West This link opens in a new window
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1830-1939
Pamphlets, maps, books, ephemeral material and rare printed sources related to the history of the American West.
Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926 (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window
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1500-1926
Digital library of works written or published in the United States, as well as items printed elsewhere, that document the history of the Americas (North, Central, South and the Caribbean) from 1492 to the mid-1800s.
Primary sources that offer original accounts of exploration, settlement, military actions, Native Americans, westward expansion, European relations with Latin America and more. Based on Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana.

Las Vegas Springs / Mormon Fort

Native American perspectives

Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America This link opens in a new window
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1400-1950s
Primary sources for American Indian history in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books from pre-contact through the mid-20th century.
Indigenous Newspapers in North America This link opens in a new window
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1828-2016
Includes national periodicals as well as local community news and student publications from an Indigenous perspective.
Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
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1959-
Articles, editorials, and reviews from the ethnic, minority, and native press.
Ethnic NewsWatch is an interdisciplinary, bilingual (English and Spanish) and comprehensive full text database of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press. Designed to provide the "other side of the story," ENW titles offer additional viewpoints from those proffered by the mainstream press.
Access U.S. News: Ethnic Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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2005-
Newspapers serving religious, ethnic and cultural groups in the US.

Oral Histories in Special Collections

Memoirs and oral histories of pioneer residents such as C.P. Squires, Florence Boyer Squires, and Leon Rockwell also provide insight into these early years. All books are cataloged and can be searched in the library catalog.

Catalog search: Las Vegas & Oral History
List of oral histories that illuminate the history of Las Vegas.
UNLV Oral History Interviews database
Interviews and brief summaries searchable by name or keyword.

Manuscript and photograph collections

Manuscript and Photograph Collections

The most comprehensive historical records of the earliest days of the town of Las Vegas are those of the Union Pacific Railroad, whose precursor, the San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake Railroad, built the line on which it laid out a small town to service its trains. It is impossible to separate the town from the railroad in these early years and the extensive documentation created by this most bureaucratized of corporations assured a detailed record of all the details of building a town, from renting lots, building houses, and railroad buildings, to providing and distributing water through its subsidiary Las Vegas Land and Water Co.

Family papers and photograph collections provide a more personal perspective on this early history. They include the Las Vegas “pioneers” families who in some instances were its first settlers, established its first businesses and over the generations provided its leaders. Besides being active participants in this history several were avid local history buffs, very aware of their own history and the adventure of settling a new frontier, and consequently amateur historical collectors. The most notable of these collections are from the Rockwell, Stewart, Squires, Bracken, Ferron, Wilson, Von Tobel, Lake, Eglington, and George families.

Union Pacific Railroad
Date: 1902-1969
The Union Pacific Collection comprises the original corporate records of the Union Pacific Railroad's operations in Las Vegas but also including southern Nevada, Utah, southern California and Los Angeles. The collection dates from 1902 when Montana Senator William Clark began construction of his San Pedro, Los Angeles, & Salt Lake railroad linking the Union Pacific's mainline in Utah with Los Angeles and southern California to approx. 1967. The collection documents the purchase of the land (the original Stewart ranch) and the construction of the original depot and town which became modern Las Vegas. The collection also contains the records of the Las Vegas Land & Water Company, a subsidiary of the railroad, formed in 1905, to handle all the railroad's land transactions. Besides office files, containing correspondence, reports, leases, various legal, governmental and financial documents, etc., the collection contains large and small format maps, architectural and engineering drawings; published technical reports; railroad operational manuals; bound legal briefs; ledgers; payroll and receipt books. The collection document's the railroads and includes the records of the Land and Tax, Law, Engineering & Industrial Development departments, as well as the personal files of Walter Bracken, the Union Pacific's special representative in Nevada and vice president of the Las Vegas Land and Water Company. The collection contains more than 300,000 pages of correspondence, documents, maps and blue prints organized into more than 4100 files spanning approx.175 linear feet. There are in addition over 5200 maps, blue prints, drawings and tracings. The Union Pacific Collection is the largest and most comprehensive historical collection documenting the early history of Las Vegas, and one of the most significant collections relating to the Union Pacific, and railroads in general, in the United States.

HIST 302 (Figanbaum) Public History

Nevada boundaries

Territorial Papers

Historical maps of Nevada

Documentaries

Blogs