The largest city in Northern Nevada, Reno is the center of the Lake Tahoe Region and the self-proclaimed "The Biggest Little City in the World". It is known for its gaming industry and its historically liberal divorce laws.
Originally known as Truckee Meadows, Reno was the home of the prehistoric Martis Peoples. By the time of contact, the area was the home of the Washoe. By the 1850s some Anglo settlers began to settle in the meadows, practicing subsidence farming and acting as last stop suppliers for emigrants along the California Trail before they attempted the Sierra Nevada.
In 1859 the Comstock Silver Rush led to a massive influx of miners attempting to reach Virginia City. To connect the mines to the California Trail, in 1859 Charles Fuller built a log toll bridge over the Truckee River. He was bought out by Myron Lake, who developed a small community around the bridge. When the Transcontinental Railroad passed in 1863 after its herculean efforts over the Sierra Nevada, Lake deeded land to the Central Pacific Railroad in exchange for a promise to build a depot at his town. The railroad agreed, and the new depot was named after Jesse Reno, a Union Maj General killed a year before at South Mountain in the American Civil War.
Reno continued to grow. In 1872 the Virginia and Truckee Railroad reached the city, which became the largest between Sacramento and Salt Lake City. It suffered slightly from the decline and closure of the mines, but in 1931 it struck its own gold. That year Nevada legalized gambling, and Reno quickly began building casinos. Washoe also passed the most liberal divorce laws in the United States at the time and soon Reno became both the gaming and divorce capital of the United States, quickly becoming its own tourist destination, reaching its height in the 1950s. Since then Reno slowly but surely declined as the decades wore on, as other states liberalized their divorce laws and Las Vegas began to take off. The city hit a bit decline in the 2000s as Indian and Online gaming took over a large part of Reno's California market share. It remains a tourist and entertainment center, though its Downtown is only a shadow of its former glory.
Reno, Nevada
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