Get ready to blow out 161 candles, Nevada — it’s your birthday!
This Friday marks 161 years since Nevada became the 36th state to join the Union on October 31, 1864, right in the thick of the Civil War. Fittingly nicknamed the “Battle Born State,” Nevada’s story is packed with wild facts, silver strikes, and a few extraterrestrial rumors just for fun.
Nevada is one of the only states to become much bigger after its admission into the Union.
- Governor: Joe Lombardo
- Capital city: Carson City
- Largest city: Las Vegas
- Nicknames: Silver State, Battle Born State and the Sagebrush State
- State motto: All for Our Country
- State bird: Mountain Bluebird
- State flower: Sagebrush
- State tree: Bristlecone Pine
- State animal: Desert Bighorn Sheep
- State fish: Lahontan Cutthroat Trout
- State reptile: Desert Tortoise
- State area: 110,622 square miles
- Highest point: Boundary Peak
Here are some fun facts about Nevada:
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- The state was named after the mountain range “Sierra Nevada”.
- Nicknamed the “Silver State”, Nevada is actually the largest gold-producing state in the U.S. and fourth-largest in the world.
- America’s largest silver deposit, the Comstock Lode, was found in Nevada in 1859.
- Nevada is the seventh-largest state in size in the U.S.
- Nevada has more mountain ranges than any other state in the U.S. Nevada has 314 named mountain ranges — more mountain ranges than any other state — and 35 peaks over 10,000 feet in elevation. Because of the dramatic geography, the state has many pockets of unique habitat for plants and wildlife to call home.
- Las Vegas has more hotel rooms than any other city on Earth.
- 15 of the top 25 largest hotels in the world reside in Las Vegas.
- Nevada was the first state to ratify the 15th amendment to the U.S. constitution which prohibits the states and federal governments from denying a citizen to vote based on that citizen’s “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
- Area 51, a top secret area of Nellis Air Force Range and Nuclear Test Site is rumored to have housed the development of the first Stealth bomber and alien UFO research facilities.
