Page 134 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

government as a meeting hall. Later on the hotel became Nevada’s first prison!
At the beginning, Carson City had been a mining town. By the end of the Civil War all of the mines were worked out and instead, Carson City was confirmed as the capital, and as a result government and businesses connected to finance came in. The capitol building was built between 1870 and 1871. Then a branch of the United States Mint was opened in Carson City. But there were other changes, too. Constructing the railroad had partly been done by immigrant Chinese. Now they stayed in Carson City and in 1880 a fifth of the population was Chinese.
Then more gold rushes occurred in nearby Tonopah and Goldfield.
Later, like Reno and Las Vegas, Carson City would try to benefit from the 1930s
era when gambling was allowed in Nevada when it was banned almost everywhere
else. But all the same, Carson City was
really off the beaten track and Carson
City had to advertise itself as “America’s smallest capital.” It would not get back to the population of 1880 until 1960 – some eighty years later.
Capitol Building.
134
Historic District today.