Goldfield

Goldfield

Author: Ted Faye

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2023-07-10

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 1467160024

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There was a time when Goldfield, Nevada, was known around the world as a city growing in the desert, seemingly out of nowhere, with no natural resources except for the extremely rich and plentiful mineral found in the ground--gold! In England, they were afraid the amount of gold mined in Goldfield would flood the market, making gold worthless. In Germany, gold seekers heard of the riches and made their way to the remote desert site. Those that had gone to Alaska for the great Klondike rush were now headed to Nevada. Goldfield was the last great gold rush on the American frontier. Discovered in 1902, its boom lasted about a decade and then came the inevitable and fateful decline. Yet its story is largely unknown. Nevada historians and scholars have documented Goldfield for years; others have amassed vast collections of ephemera, artifacts, and photographs; and some have even collected and restored the town's most impressive buildings. Through personal photo albums and accounts of those who were there, this book reflects life in Goldfield, Nevada, the last great American gold rush.


The Longest Fight

The Longest Fight

Author: William Gildea

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2012-06-19

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0374280975

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The dramatic, little-known story of Joe Gans, an early African-American sports hero and the welterweight champion of the world. Though he is largely unknown today, this book will change that with its emphasis on one key fight in 1906.


The Main Event

The Main Event

Author: Richard O. Davies

Publisher: University of Nevada Press

Published: 2014-04-21

Total Pages: 483

ISBN-13: 0874179386

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Richard O. Davies won Foreword Reviews' INDIEFAB Book of the Year Bronze Medal in Sports for The Main Event: Boxing in Nevada from the Mining Camps to the Las Vegas Strip. Davies' book was chosen as one of the best indie books of 2014. As the twentieth century dawned, bare-knuckle prizefighting was transforming into the popular sport of boxing, yet simultaneously it was banned as immoral in many locales. Nevada was the first state to legalize it, in 1897, solely to stage the Corbett-Fitzsimmons world heavyweight championship in Carson City. Davies shows that the history of boxing in Nevada is integral to the growth of the sport in America. Promoters such as Tex Rickard brought in fighters like Jack Dempsey to the mining towns of Goldfield and Tonopah and presented the Johnson-Jeffries “Fight of the Century” in Reno in 1910. Prizefights sold tickets, hotel rooms, drinks, meals, and bets on the outcomes. It was boxing\--before gambling, prostitution, and easy divorce\--that first got Nevada called “America’s Disgrace” and the “Sin State.” The Main Event explores how boxing’s growth in Nevada relates to the state’s role as a social and cultural outlier. Starting in the Rat Pack era, organized gambling’s moguls built arenas outside the Vegas casinos to stage championships\--more than two hundred from 1960 to the present. Tourists and players came to see and bet on historic bouts featuring Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson, and other legends of the ring. From the celebrated referee Mills Lane to the challenge posed by mixed martial arts in contemporary Las Vegas, the story of boxing in Nevada is a prism for viewing the sport. Davies utilizes primary and secondary sources to analyze how boxing in the Silver State intersects with its tourist economy and libertarian values, paying special attention to issues of race, class, and gender. Written in an engaging style that shifts easily between narrative and analysis, The Main Event will be essential reading for sports fans and historians everywhere.


Ghosts of Goldfield and Tonopah

Ghosts of Goldfield and Tonopah

Author: Janice Oberding

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2015-06-08

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 1625854781

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Meet the prospectors, forlorn widows, and other spirits who haunt the historic remnants of Nevada's former boomtowns—includes photos! In the throes of early financial disaster, the Silver State had little to entice newcomers—or discourage residents from leaving. Jim Butler’s silver discovery at Tonopah changed everything. With a subsequent gold discovery near Goldfield, the rush was on, and from these burgeoning mines, Nevada’s early leaders amassed their wealth and power. In this fascinating book, paranormal historian Janice Oberding shares firsthand accounts of ghostly encounters in the Goldfield and Mizpah Hotels and uncovers the history behind the mysterious cowboy ghost, the haggard hitchhiker, and other eerie local tales.


Tex Rickard

Tex Rickard

Author: Colleen Aycock

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2014-01-10

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 0786490179

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Whether opening saloons, raising cattle, or promoting sporting events, George Lewis "Tex" Rickard (1870-1929) possessed a drive to be the best. After an early career as a cowboy and Texas sheriff, Rickard pioneered the largest ranch in South America, built a series of profitable saloons in the Klondike and Nevada gold rushes, and turned boxing into a million-dollar sport. As "the Father of Madison Square Garden," he promoted over 200 fights, including some of the most notable of the 20th century: the "Longest Fight," the "Great White Hope," fight, and the famous "Long Count" fight. Along the way, he rubbed shoulders with some of history's most renowned figures, including Teddy Roosevelt, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, John Ringling, Jack Dempsey, and Gene Tunney. This detailed biography chronicles Rickard's colorful life and his critical role in the evolution of boxing from a minor sport to a modern spectacle.


Nevada

Nevada

Author: Michael S. Green

Publisher: University of Nevada Press

Published: 2015-03-23

Total Pages: 566

ISBN-13: 0874179742

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Nevada: A History of the Silver State has been named a CHOICE Outstanding Title. Michael S. Green, a leading Nevada historian, provides a detailed survey of the Silver State’s past, from the arrival of the early European explorers, to the predominance of mining in the 1800s, to the rise of world-class tourism in the twentieth century, and to more recent attempts to diversify the economy. Of the numerous themes central to Green’s analysis of Nevada’s history, luck plays a significant role in the state’s growth. The miners and gamblers who first visited the state all bet on luck. Today, the biggest contributor to Nevada’s tourist economy, gaming, still relies on that same belief in luck. Nevada’s financial system has generally been based on a “one industry” economy, first mining and, more recently, gaming. Green delves deeply into the limitations of this structure, while also exploring the theme of exploitation of the land and the overuse of the state’s natural resources. Green covers many more aspects of the Silver State’s narrative, including the dominance of one region of the state over another, political forces and corruption, and the citizens’ often tumultuous relationship with the federal government. The book will appeal to scholars, students, and other readers interested in Nevada history.


Jews in Nevada

Jews in Nevada

Author: John P. Marschall

Publisher: University of Nevada Press

Published: 2011-03-28

Total Pages: 662

ISBN-13: 0874177480

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Jews have always been one of Nevada’s most active and influential ethnic minorities. They were among the state’s earliest Euro-American settlers, and from the beginning they have been involved in every area of the state’s life as businessmen, agrarians, scholars, educators, artists, politicians, and civic, professional, and religious leaders. Jews in Nevada is an engaging, multilayered chronicle of their lives and contributions to the state. Here are absorbing accounts of individuals and families who helped to settle and develop the state, as well as thoughtful analyses of larger issues, such as the reasons Jews came to Nevada in the first place, how they created homes and interacted with non-Jews, and how they preserved their religious and cultural traditions as a small minority in a sparsely populated region.


Devils Will Reign

Devils Will Reign

Author: Sally Zanjani

Publisher: University of Nevada Press

Published: 2007-08-01

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 0874176662

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Nevada entered the Union in 1864 as the thirty-sixth state, a mere two decades after John Charles Frémont and his party undertook the first Euro-American exploration of the Great Basin. However, the intervening years were exceptionally eventful—gold was discovered in California in 1848; the debate over slavery in the territories made the Far West a significant topic of congressional concern; and the Mormon establishment in Utah stimulated national suspicion of the sect’s ambitions and policies—giving this remote, sparsely populated region on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada an importance that it probably would not have had in less turbulent times. In 1849, more than 22,000 people traveled the emigrant trails across the Great Basin, and soon Mormons from Utah set up a trading station in the Carson Valley to reap profit from the emigrant trade and anchor the western periphery of what their leader, Brigham Young, envisioned as a Mormon inland empire. Miners in Gold Canyon (just south of what is now Virginia City) and settlers in the Carson Valley were pushing the Native Americans out of their ancient homelands and vying with one another for control of choice land and rudimentary local governments. In Devils Will Reign, acclaimed historian Sally Zanjani recounts the momentous early history of the territory that is now known as Nevada, weaving the colorful saga of this rowdy frontier into the larger story of national political crises and economic ambitions, rapid development in California, and religious antipathy toward the polygamous Mormons. Here are intrepid frontiersmen, beleaguered Native Americans, zealous Mormons, and colorful characters and farmers, including a group of African Americans who successfully settled in the Carson Valley. Zanjani covers the lives of the pioneers, as well as the development and impact of the Comstock silver bonanza and the tenuous, halting efforts of the region’s residents to create first a territorial, then a state government. Seldom has the process of western settlement and government-making been described with such detail and insight.