A Brief History of Mineral County Mineral County, Nevada, was created out of the northern portion of Esmeralda County on February 10, 1911. Nevada's earliest maps show the presence of Walker Lake, a prominent feature of Mineral County and a noted landmark to early explorers. Jedediah Smith, first non-native explorer into Nevada, passed near Walker Lake in 1827 during his remarkable trip from west to east across the state. Peter Skene Ogden, another noted earlier explorer of the region now known as The Great Basin, was here in 1829, then Fremont in 1845 with his guides Kit Carson and Joseph Walker, for whom the lake was named.

The town site of Hawthorne was selected in 1880 by H.M. Yerington, president of the Carson and Colorado Railroad Company, as a division and distribution point for the new railroad. Yerington named the new town Hawthorne after a lumberman friend in Carson City. On April 14, 1881, the first train arrived at the town's site, loaded with prospective buyers for the new town. Hawthorne's location at the southern end of Walker Lake, was adjacent to the important Knapp's Station and Ferry Landing on the busy Esmeralda toll road from Wadsworth to Candelaria. Radiating roads ran to all of the surrounding mining areas, adding importance to this area and its development as distribution point. In its early years the county and many well known mining towns such as Aurora, Belleville, Candelaria, Rawhide and others congregated to exchange merchandise and news. In 1883, Hawthorne took the Esmeralda county seat from declining Aurora, but later lost it to booming Goldfield. In 1911, Hawthorne again became a county seat, this time for the newly formed Mineral County. Image-Walker Lake

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Mineral County is located in the west-central portion of Nevada and borders the State of California on the southwest. Mineral County is the sixth smallest county in Nevada, covers approximately 4,019 square miles, (9,938 square kilometers) and accounts for approximately 3.5 percent of Nevada's total surface area of 110,540 square miles (285,298 square kilometers).Presently, Hawthorne is a central point for desert travelers and for the vacation, sporting, and recreational activities on nearby Walker Lake. Walker lake, along with Pyramid Lake located in Washoe County to the north, represents one of two remaining lake remnants of Ice Age Lake Lahontan, which some 12,500 years ago covered approximately 8,600 square miles and a large portion of northwestern Nevada. Due to upstream irrigation diversions and drought, Walker Lake’s surface elevation and volume have declined significantly since the early 1900’s, increasing the salinity of the lake’s waters and jeopardizing its fishery. Mineral County is also home to the Walker River Paiute Indian Reservation, which occupies over 200,000 acres and is located in the northwestern portion of Mineral County, spilling over to the north into Churchill County and to the west into Lyon County. Although the area around Walker Lake in the Utah Territory was set-aside for “Indian Purposes” in 1859, it was not until 15 years later that President Grant signed the executive order formally establishing the Walker River Indian Reservation on March 19, 1874. In 1906, after many years of pressure from state and federal government officials, and particularly local mining interests, the Walker River Paiute Tribe ceded 268,000 acres of reservation land to the federal government, including all lands surrounding Walker Lake. It was first believed that the ceded lands contained extensive mineral deposits, although later exploration failed to find significant ore bodies. Later, on several occasions the federal government added to the reservation lands, first in 1918 (34,000 acres), then again in 1928 (69,000 acres), and finally in 1936 (171,200 acres), eventually increasing the reservation’s total acreage to its current level of 232,902 acres.

Historical photos: Wikepedia The reservation's land area is 529.970 square miles (1,372.616 km²) and a population of 853 persons was reported at the 2000 census. Schurz is the only town on the reservation. Weber Reservoir, an impoundment of the Walker River, is located upstream of Schurz and provides irrigation water for farms on the reservation. Most of the reservation is cattle range. The reservation belongs to the Walker River Paiute Tribe, a Northern Paiute tribe. Their Paiute name is Agai-Ticutta. The English translation means "Trout Eaters."