LAS VEGAS - May 22, 2009 - Small-town life during the rise and fall of Southern Nevada's mining industry is chronicled through rarely seen newspaper clippings, photographs, maps, mining company records and letters in a new digital library collection housed by UNLV University Libraries. "Southern Nevada: The Boomtown Years 1900-1925," online at <a href=", is a collaboration between University Libraries Special Collections, the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society and Clark County Heritage Museum. More than 4,000 digitized items are easily searchable on the interactive site.
Funded through a $95,000 grant from the federal Library Services and Technology Act through the State of Nevada, the online library - launched this month - provides a glimpse into the lives of families, ranchers, railroad agents, speculators and miners who embarked on a journey to the West either to strike it rich or create a new life.
Peter Michel, Director of University Libraries Special Collections, said the Web site is helpful in drawing parallels between frontier communities and today's society, especially when the stock market collapsed in 1907 and the railroad industry went on strike in 1922.
"This is such an important part of the history of Southern Nevada and helps explain why Las Vegas grew into the city it is today. The transient culture of people moving to the West to make their fortune and then leave is deep-rooted in Las Vegas history," Michel said.
The digital collection also houses a section for teachers of grades kindergarten through 12. Organized by subject areas and grade levels, suggested educational activities aim to engage students in learning about Southern Nevada history.
Frontier stories include the life of Cleveland A. Earle Rinker, a young Indiana man who traveled cross-country to work in the Goldfield mines. Caught up in the excitement of a mining camp, Rinker speculated in the stock market, attended social parties, gambling saloons, parades and sporting events; but always remembered to write about these experiences in letters to his mother. Minutes of the Goldfield Women's Club depict a life of its members who recited Shakespeare and organized piano recitals.
"One of the goals in designing the Web site was to give people as many points of access to browsing material as we could," Michel said. "It is a way to give more meaning to the impressions many have of Nevada's ghost and mining towns."
Technical features of the site include a searchable toolbar, a homepage section with popular keywords, zoom-in features to view scanned-in documents, as well as a drop-down menu which provides full text to the digitized letters and documents.
University Libraries staff spent more than a year and a half sorting through sources of information located at the Nevada State Museum, Clark County Museum and UNLV libraries to compile the digital collection. For more information, please visit: <a href=". The public may call Special Collections at (702) 895-2234.
