In 1829, Antonio Armijo, traveling to Los Angeles, attempted to shorten the route by going through the desert instead of around it. While traversing the Old Spanish Trail, he discovered water and named the site Las Vegas—"The Meadows." Here, Spanish traders eased the rigors of desert travel, but it was not until 1844 that the areawas actually charted by John C. Fremont, an explorer after whom much of downtown Las Vegas came to be named. Ten years later, Brigham Young sent Mormon missionaries from Salt Lake City to colonize the Las Vegas Valley. They built an adobe fort and began converting the local Paiute Indians, but desert life soon proved too harsh for them and they abandoned their outpost in 1857.
Nevada became a state in 1864, but it was not until 1904, as America expanded its borders from "sea to shining sea," that Las Vegas saw significant activity. That was the year when the San Pedro-Los Angeles-Salt Lake Railroad began laying track through the valley. The company bought up prime land and water rights from the remaining homesteaders and operated a dusty watering stop that soon attracted the development of hotels, saloons, a few thousand residents, and the inevitable red-light district.
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