Original Nevada Constitution Prohibited Gambling

In October 1864, with the nation embroiled in civil war, the world's longest telegram was dispatched west to east across the United States. Its content was the Constitution of Nevada and it was an urgent transmission: the Constitution – required for Nevada Territory to become a state – had originally been sent to Washington by post, but had not arrived. Anticipating Nevadan support, the incumbent president, Abraham Lincoln, was keen to grant statehood in time for a crucial election on 8 November, a deadline met with just days to spare on 31 October. This picture essay takes Nevada as a case study in which many of the broader themes of US history have played out: the taming of the ‘Wild West'; the displacement of native peoples; the pursuit of wealth; exploitation of the land; freedom and the federal system; the Atomic Age; boosters, bravado and, in the leisure pursuits for which the state enjoys notoriety, the lucrative wages of sin.