1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nevada (Missouri)

NEVADA, a city and the county-seat of Vernon county, Missouri, U.S.A., in the south-western part of the state, about 90 m. S. by E. of Kansas City. Pop. (1900) 7461, of whom 235 were foreign-born and 168 negroes; (1910) 7176. It is served by the Missouri Pacific and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railway systems. The principal public buildings are the county court house, the federal building and the high school. Nevada is the seat of Cottey College for girls (Methodist-Episcopal, South, 1884) and of a state hospital for the insane, and there is a state camp ground for the National Guard of Missouri. There are three parks, one of which, Lake Park, is a pleasure and health resort, with a lake and chalybeate and sulphur springs. The smelting of lead and zinc and the manufacture of paper, lumber, sheet metal and bricks are among the city's industries. Nevada is a trading centre for the surrounding country, and a fine farming and stock-raising region, in which Indian corn, oats, wheat, clover, timothy and blue-grass are grown; coal is mined in the vicinity. The city’s water-supply is drawn from artesian wells. Nevada (“Nevada City” until 1869) was platted in 1855, was burned down in 1863 during the occupancy by the state militia in war time, was incorporated as a town in 1869, was entered by the first railway in 1870, and was chartered as a city in 1880.