Ormsby County was a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

Nevada Territory The Territory of Nevada (N.T.) was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until October 31, 1864, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Nevada. Prior to the creation of the Neva ...

from 1861 to 1864 and in the State of Nevada from 1864 until 1969. It contained

Carson City Carson City, officially the Carson City Consolidated Municipality, is an independent city and the capital of the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 58,639, making it the 6th most populous city in the state. The m ...

, 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 ...

, and later, the

state capital Below is an index of pages containing lists of capital city, capital cities. National capitals *List of national capitals *List of national capitals by latitude *List of national capitals by population *List of national capitals by area *List of ...

, founded two years earlier.

Name

It was named after Major William Ormsby, one of the original settlers of Carson City, killed along with seventy-five other men in 1860, in an unsuccessful attempt to subdue a perceived uprising of

Paiute Paiute (; also Piute) refers to three non-contiguous groups of Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Although their languages are related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, these three languages do not form a single subgroup and th ...

people near Pyramid Lake, Nevada, which was at the time part of

Utah Territory The Territory of Utah was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 4, 1896, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Utah, the 45th st ...

History

Ormsby County was established in 1861 with creation of

. The county's population dwindled significantly after the

gold rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, ...

days. By the late 1940s, it was little more than

and a few surrounding hamlets to the west. By the 1960 census, all but 2,900 of the county's 8,300 residents lived in Carson City. Discussions began about merging Carson City with Ormsby County after World War II. However, the effort never got beyond the planning stages until 1966, when a statewide referendum formally approved the merger. The required constitutional amendment was passed in 1968. On April 1, 1969, Ormsby County and Carson City officially merged as the Consolidated Municipality of Carson City.

Politics

References

{{coord, 39, 09, 53, N, 119, 46, 35, W, scale:250000_source:GNS, display=title 1861 establishments in Nevada Territory 1969 disestablishments in Nevada Former counties of Nevada History of Carson City, Nevada Populated places disestablished in 1969 Populated places established in 1861

Name

History

Politics

See also

References