Stacey Peebles, age 12, of Henderson, Nev., for her question:
HOW DID NEVADA RECEIVE ITS NAME?
Nevada's name was taken from the Sierra Nevada, a rugged mountain range that cuts across a corner of the state west and south of Carson City. The name Nevada comes from a Spanish word meaning "snow clad." Miners and other settlers chose the name when the region became a United States territory in 1861.
Nevada entered the Union on October 31, 1864, as the 36th state. In land area, it is the seventh largest state in the U.S. Nevada is bounded on the north by Oregon and Idaho, on the east by Utah and Arizona and on the southwest and west by California.
According to the 1980 census, Nevada had 800,493 inhabitants, an increase of 63.8 percent over 1970. This increase made the state the fastest growing in the United States. The average population density was only seven people per square mile with the vast majority of the state's population concentrated in the Las Vegas and Reno metropolitan areas.
Even though Nevada has one of the smallest populations of all the states, every year it has enough visitors to outnumber the population of most states. Nevada is the only state whose laws allow most kinds of gambling. Luxurious gambling casinos and beautiful hotels attract visitors from all parts of the world to Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe.
The state's most common nickname, the Silver State, comes from the vast amounts of silver once taken from its many mines. Colorful ghost towns and historic mining towns, such as Virginia City, now attract thousands of tourists every year. But mining is still one of Nevada's chief industries.
Today important minerals include barite, copper, diatomite, gold, gypsum, sand and gravel, silver and stone. These resources support the state's growing manufacturing and processing industry.
Nevada is famous for its rugged snow capped mountains, grassy valleys and sandy deserts. Pine forests cover many mountain slopes and crystal clear streams flow through steep, rocky canyons. Trout swim in the valley lakes.
Bighorn sheep glaze in the south on jagged plateaus that glow red in the bright sunshine. The flowers of cactus, yucca and sagebrush plants add splashes of color.
Public land owned by the United States government makes up more than 85 percent of Nevada. Some of this land is leased by ranchers with large herds of cattle and sheep. The U.S. government maintains a testing center for nuclear weapons in the Nevada desert.
Nevada's main agricultural crops are alfalfa seed, hay, potatoes and wheat. But less rain falls in Nevada than in any other state. And as a result, farming depends on irrigation. The Newlands Irrigation Project, near Reno, was the first system of its kind built by the federal government. Hoover Dam, on the Colorado River, created Lake Mead, one of the world's largest artificially created lakeS. the dam supplies electricity for Arizona, California and Nevada.