Sesquicentennial greetings pour in from city sharing Nevada name

By Steve Moyer

Nevada Daily Mail

Nevada has a rich history, one that residents are celebrating this year during Nevada's sesquicentennial year. One area resident is trying to initiate a new chapter in that history.

Melissa Earll wrote to the Union newspaper in Grass Valley, Calif., which serves Nevada City, Calif., to ask readers of that publication to send birthday greetings to the citizens of Nevada.

That request has generated mail not only from that city but from others across the country as well, Wednesday morning the Nevada/Vernon County Area Chamber of Commerce received a card from Denver, Colo.

Kathi Wysong, chamber director, is hoping for more.

"We already have several unique cards from Nevada City and we hope to get a lot more," Wysong said.

Readers of the California paper are also aware of one of Nevada's oldest institutions as this example from the Union shows -- This comes from reader Kara Menghini-Sandgren of Grass Valley.

"In reading your column about Nevada, Mo., I was surprised to read that Cottey College was nearby (who ever heard of it?). My mother, Myrna Menghini, who lives in Marysville, is a graduate of Cottey College, and I called her to ask about it and Nevada, Mo. (She of course told me it was Ne-VAY-da), to which I told her I knew (because of your column). She asked me to mail your two columns about Nevada, Mo., to her, as her best friend -- in Yuba City, Joan Buchanan, is in the PEO Sisterhood and she thought Joan would find it interesting that you're writing about it."

Earll wrote to the Union that she hoped the mail generated by her request would be the start of preparations for the bicentennial.

"It's my hope that the Nevada, Mo., chamber of commerce receives enough birthday postcards and/or letters from the citizens of Nevada City, Calif., that they'll be able to permanently preserve them for display at the bicentennial that will take place in 2055."

Nevada began as Nevada City in 1855.

According to a story in the Nevada and Vernon County Family History book published in 198, by the Nevada Daily Mail, Col. Dewitt C. Hunter was the county and circuit clerk at the time the city needed to be named. County commissioners wanted to keep the name the city had been known by, Fairview, but Hunter pointed out a post office by that name already existed. Commissioners gave Hunter the job of naming the new city.

Hunter had recently returned from the gold fields and carried pleasant memories of Nevada City, Calif. On being given the assignment Hunter proposed the name Nevada City but (as local lore has it) his memory was not up to the task of remembering how to pronounce the name, thus he pronounced it Ne-vay-da, the way Nevadans do to this day.