(P/B) LAS VEGAS (ICONS) VINTAGE GRAPHICS

Παρουσίαση

A young scout named Rafael Rivera first set foot in the area in 1829. He called the springs he discovered there Las Vegas, derived from the Spanish word for "the meadows", although the name hardly applied. Rather, the locale could claim to be one of the hottest spots in North America, a place where the excruciating heat during the summer months soared passed the century mark and the temperatures in winter could easily dip into freezing. The Mojave desert was simply a place to endure, a wasteland travelers passed through on their way to the coast.
In 1844, civilian pathfinder John C. Fremont led a U. S. Army expedition to Las Vegas to map the territory. They did not stay long. A decade later, thirty devout, Mormon missionaries from nearby Utah established a fort there to protect a Congressionally mandated mail route from Salt Lake City to San Diego. But years of harsh conditions, internal bickering and a brutal Indian raid in 1857 sent them home to Salt Lake.
In the end, it took the railroad to create Las Vegas, to transform the site from nowhere into somewhere. In 1862, Congress passed a charter authorizing the Union Pacific Railroad to connect to the Central Pacific Railroad's tracks at the California border. Las Vegas, Nevada (the latter was granted statehood in 1864) had its official founding on May 15,1905 as the last railroad spike was pounded into the desert floor. Travelers on their way to the California coastline could now cross the unrelenting desert in a fraction of the time it took by covered wagon or horseback. [...] (From the publisher)