Minden is a
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
(CDP) in
Douglas County, Nevada
Douglas County is a County (United States), county in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 49,488. Its county seat is Minden, Nevada, Minden. Douglas County comprises the Gardnerville Ran ...
, United States. The population was 3,001 at the
2010 census. It is the
county seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...
of Douglas County
and is adjacent to the town of
Gardnerville. The Douglas campus of the
Western Nevada College is located in Minden.
History
It was founded in 1906 by Heinrich Friedrich Dangberg Jr., who named it after the town of
Minden
Minden () is a middle-sized town in the very north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the largest town in population between Bielefeld and Hanover. It is the capital of the district () of Minden-Lübbecke, situated in the cultural region ...
, in the German state of
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...
, which was near his father's birthplace. A large share of the first settlers were Germans. Minden was founded on company land of the
Dangberg Home Ranch and Dangberg commissioned most of the town's early buildings. Minden has had a post office since 1906.
Use of sundown siren and sundown town status
Minden sounded a "
sundown siren" at 6pm almost every evening from 1917 until 2023, originally signifying that members of the Washoe Indian tribe were required to leave town by 6:30pm or face jail or fine.
Douglas County fully repealed its sundown ordinance in the mid-1970s.
In 2021, the State of Nevada passed a law that prohibits communities from sounding signals associated with a past law "which required persons of a particular race, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin or color to leave the town by a certain time." Minden Town Manager J. D. Frisbee claimed the law doesn't apply to them stating, “There’s a (Minden) ordinance in place right now that says that the siren sounds every day in commemoration of our first responders. … It never went off at 6:30, when the county had an ordinance to get Native Americans out of town.”
After another Nevada law targeting sundown sirens, S.B. 391, was passed in 2023, Minden finally silenced the siren.
Marty Meeden, a retired elementary school teacher of
Washoe descent, expressed relief, saying, "Did you hear about the partially deaf senior woman who was verbalized for being in town after sunset? Did you hear about the routine picking up of our young men who were beaten and then left out in the fields?... This is the history we as children learned in regards to the siren."
Geography
According to the
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
(CDP) of Minden has a total area of , of which is land and (0.5%) is water.
The
Carson Valley and Minden are considered one of the top gliding spots in the world. Flights of over have been made on sailplanes from this location. Its location, east of the
Sierra Nevada range, favors
lee wave formation. East of the Pine Nuts mountains is the Nevada desert, one of the best thermal generators in the world.
U.S. Highway 395 runs through Minden. It is also the terminus of
State Route 88, which becomes
California State Route 88
State Route 88 (SR 88), also known as the Carson Pass Highway, is a state highway in the U.S. state of California. It travels in an east–west direction from Stockton, California, Stockton, in the San Joaquin Valley, to the Nevada state l ...
on the west side of the state line.
Climate
Minden has a
cool semi-arid climate (
Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...
''BSk'') with huge
diurnal temperature variation
In meteorology, diurnal temperature variation is the variation between a high air temperature and a low temperature that occurs during the same day.
Temperature lag
Temperature lag, also known as thermal inertia, is an important factor in diur ...
s during all seasons. Summers are hot to very hot during the day, with 68.5 afternoons topping and 5.7 afternoons getting over ; however, mornings even in summer are very cool to cold and between June and August. On average, 1.2 mornings will fall under freezing. Rainfall is very rare during the summer as
the monsoon practically never reaches this far north: in July more than four years in ten record no measurable precipitation and only one in twenty expects . Winter afternoons are cool and frequently sunny, but mornings are freezing to frigid. Temperatures of or below can be expected on two mornings each winter, although all but 4.7 afternoons each year can be expected to top freezing, whilst during the three winter months 45.9 afternoons will typically top . The hottest temperature on record is on July 6, 2007 and the coldest is , which occurred on January 21, 1916, January 26, 1949 and February 7, 1989. The coldest afternoon was on January 9, 1937 when the temperature did not top and the hottest minimum on August 28 and 29, 1906, June 25, 1927 and August 20, 1931.
The majority of precipitation occurs from winter Pacific storm systems, although the Sierra Nevada rain shadow limits the precipitation they produce in Nevada. The wettest “rain year” has been from July 1937 to June 1938 with and the driest from July 1959 to June 1960 with . The wettest day on record has been December 30, 2002 with . With at least , January 1909 was the wettest single month on record. Winter afternoons are warm enough in Minden that most precipitation occurs as rain, although the mean snowfall is . The cold, wet month of January 1916, however, saw as much as of snow and the season from July 1908 to June 1909, ; however, no measurable snow fell between July 1962 and June 1963.
Demographics

As of the
census
A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
of 2000, there were 2,836 people, 1,166 households, and 839 families residing in the CDP. The population density was . There were 1,231 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the CDP was 94.0%
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 0.1%
African American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
, 0.7%
Native American, 1.1%
Asian, 0.1%
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...
, 2.1% from
other races, and 1.9% from two or more races.
Hispanic
The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
or
Latino of any race were 6.6% of the population.
There were 1,166 households, out of which 28.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 62.4% were
married couples
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...
living together, 7.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.0% were non-families. 23.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.38 and the average family size was 2.78.
In the CDP the population was spread out, with 21.9% under the age of 18, 4.4% from 18 to 24, 22.7% from 25 to 44, 27.5% from 45 to 64, and 23.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 46 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.4 males.
The median income for a household in the CDP was $56,795, and the median income for a family was $64,375. Males had a median income of $40,833 versus $34,700 for females. The
per capita income
Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year.
In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...
for the CDP was $30,405. About 3.7% of families and 5.4% of the population were below the
poverty line
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...
, including 10.2% of those under age 18 and 1.5% of those age 65 or over.
Education
All of Douglas County is in the
Douglas County School District.
Minden has a
public library
A public library is a library, most often a lending library, that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil servic ...
, a branch of the Douglas County Public Library.
Media
* ''Carson Valley Times''
* ''
The Record-Courier''
Notable people
*
Donald E. Bently – businessman; long term resident of Mindenol in Minden
*
Shaaron Claridge - voice actress credited with providing the police dispatch voice work for Adam-12, Dragnet and Columbo.
*
Shawn Estes – baseball player; attended high school in Minden
*
Nicholas Furlong – songwriter and producer
*
Howard D. McKibben – Federal Judge; practiced law in Minden from 1967 to 1971.
*
David Derek Stacton – author; born in Minden
*
Tanner Thorson – racing driver; born in Minden
*
Eric Whitacre – composer; attended high school in Minden
*
Jeff Nady - football coach; attended high school in Minden
See also
*
List of census-designated places in Nevada
*
List of sundown towns in the United States
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Census-designated places in Douglas County, Nevada
County seats in Nevada
German-American culture in Nevada
1906 establishments in Nevada
Sundown towns in Nevada