Although Nevada has found an international identity in its role as a gambling mecca, the state includes many friendly small towns and sprawling ranches, as well as scenic backcountry, historic ghost towns, farms, mines, and a diverse population of hard-working people. Pershing County, Nevada’s youngest county, was created in 1919. As it celebrates its centennial, the county looks back on the long history of its land and people, and ahead to its enduring role as one of Nevada’s most important agricultural and mining centers.

The four contributors, all with deep roots in Pershing County, offer an engaging account of the county’s settlement, which spans many millennia from the wandering hunter-gatherers of ancient times to more recent arrivals from Europe, China, and Latin America. Here are stories of mining booms, ghost towns, and bustling twenty-first-century mines; Native Americans and pioneers; community leaders, ranchers, and eccentrics, and the development of Lovelock, the county’s administrative seat and one of the most charming and livable small towns in the West. The authors also tell of a varied and often stunningly beautiful landscape that includes snow-covered mountains, lush wetlands, and Pershing County’s Black Rock Desert, one of North America’s largest deserts, the site of the annual Burning Man countercultural gathering, and the book includes a first-person account of the event and commentary on the cultural mission of Burning Man and its attendees.