Town Names & Tribal Reservations
Pahrump – Originally home to various Indigenous groups including the Southern Paiute people, its name derives from the Paiute word “Pah-Rimpi” which referred to the natural springs found in the area.
Tonopah – Originally a mining town, Tonopah is believed to derive its name from the Shoshone word “Tonampaa,” meaning “hidden spring.”
Panaca – Located in eastern Lincoln County, Nevada, the town of Panaca derives its name from the Southern Paiute words “Pan-nuk-ker,” or “metal, money, and wealth.”
Battle Mountain – Once the headquarters of the Nevada Central Railroad, its name refers to an 1850 conflict between California immigrants in the area and a band of local Shoshone peoples.
Winnemucca – The town of Winnemucca was named after the 19th Century leader of the Northern Paiutes, Chief Winnemucca. Winnemucca’s daughter, Sarah, went on to be a famed advocate for Native American rights. The name translates to “one moccasin,” referring an early interaction between travelers and Chief Winnemucca, who was wearing only one moccasin.
Beowawe – An unincorporated community home to a geothermal power plant, this town derives its name from the Paiute word for “gate,” referring to the shape of nearby hills.
Washoe – Located on the state’s northwest border with California, this county is named after the Washo peoples, the ancestral inhabitants of the area around Lake Tahoe. They refer to their ancestral home as “Da ow,” or “lake.”
Spirit Mountain – On March 21, 2023, President Joe Biden officially designated the 506,000 acre area around Spirit Mountain in Southern Nevada as the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument, providing it federal protection. The site is sacred to the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe’s “spiritual ideology and in Mojave creation beliefs.”
Moapa Southern Paiute Solar Project – Built in 2017 across 2,000 acres of the Moapa River Indian Reservation, around 30 miles northeast of Las Vegas, the solar array is the first large-scale solar project to receive construction approval on a tribal land in North America.
Las Vegas Paiute Colony – Established in 1911 after being deeded to the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe by Helen J. Stewart through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Las Vegas Paiute Colony is located within downtown Las Vegas. Until 1983, this was the Tribe’s sole land in the area.
Snow Mountain Reservation of the Las Vegas Tribe of Paiute Indians – Located eighteen miles northwest of their original settlement in downtown Las Vegas, the 4,000 acres in-between Mount Charleston and the Sheep Range were returned to the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe in 1983. Today, the land includes golf courses, a gas station, and housing.
Moapa River Indian Reservation – Located near Valley of Fire State Park, the Moapa River Indian Reservation was originally intended to be 39,000 square miles, but was vastly reduced to just 1,000 acres in 1875. In 1980, Congress returned over 60,000 acres to the Tribe. Today, it is the site of the Moapa Southern Paiute Solar Project.
Tribal economics in Nevada
Children in regalia at the Snow Mountain pow wow. Image courtesy of Las Vegas Review Journal
In Nevada, there are 20 federally recognized tribes, made up of 27 separate reservations, bands, colonies and community councils. 97% of these tribal nations are rural.
- As of 2019, over “50,000 people who self-identify as Native American live in Clark County,” with less than 1,000 living “on reservations for the county’s two federally recognized tribes, the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe and the Moapa Band of Paiutes.”
- In 2016, the Moapa Band of Paiutes saw about 300,000 acres of “their ancestral land northeast of Las Vegas designated as the Gold Butte National Monument.”
- Governor Brian Sandoval proclaimed August 9th as Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Nevada, beginning in 2017.
- Currently, the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe operates a cannabis dispensary, a minimart, and the Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort. The Moapa Band of Paiutes have established the Moapa Southern Paiute Solar Project to provide electricity to approximately 111,000 homes with the creation of a 250-megawatt solar array on 2,000 acres of their ancestral land (as noted on the map). This is the first large-scale solar project of its kind to receive construction approval on tribal land in North America.
- In the 1970s, the Las Vegas Paiutes adopted a written constitution and established a tribal council. Additionally, the 1970s saw the establishment of businesses on reservation that brought money into the area. This allowed the Las Vegas Paiutes to request more land at the foot of Mount Charleston in 1983.
- In the 1960s, the Las Vegas Paiutes joined with other Southern Paiutes across the American Southwest to successfully sue the federal government for “illegal seizure and sale of tribal land to non-Indians without either treaty or due process of law.” They were provided a settlement of $8.25 million dollars in 1968, which the Southern Paiutes chose to distribute in even, per-capita payments.
- During the Great Depression, the construction of the Hoover Dam resulted in an influx of laborers coming in from across the country, further economically displacing the Paiute peoples who relied on these labor opportunities.
- Historically, the Paiutes have engaged in early forms of collectivist social organization: “Without fixed rules of residence or rigid group membership, they found intergroup reciprocity and social openness to insure greater security than private ownership of property would have provided. They traveled lightly, avoiding personal possessions and distinctions of rank based on wealth. Individuals, male and female, were valued for the skills they had to share, whether to hunt, cure, mediate a dispute, or tell a good story on a winter evening.”
