Place:Sparks, Washoe, Nevada, United States

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source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Sparks is a city in Washoe County, Nevada, United States. It was founded in 1904, incorporated on March 15, 1905, and is located just east of Reno. The 2020 U.S. Census counted 108,445 residents in the city. It is the fifth most populous city in Nevada. It is named after John Sparks, Nevada Governor (1903–1908), and a member of the Silver Party.

Sparks is located within the Reno–Sparks metropolitan area.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Euro-American settlement began in the early 1850s, and the population density remained very low until 1904 when the Southern Pacific Railroad built a switch yard and maintenance sheds there, after moving the division point from Wadsworth. In 1902, The Southern Pacific purchased a large tract of swamp-like land near its newly built railyard, and gave everyone clear deed to a lot for the grand sum of $1. They also offered to pick up and move — free of charge — every house in Wadsworth and reassemble it in this new town. As the population increased, a city was established, first called Harriman, after E.H. Harriman, president of the Southern Pacific, and then renamed Sparks, after John Sparks, then governor of Nevada.^[1]

Sparks remained a small town until the 1950s, when economic growth in Reno triggered a housing boom north of the railroad in the area of Sparks. During the 1970s, the area south of the railroad started to fill up with warehouses and light industry. In 1984, the tower for the Nugget Casino Resort was finished, giving Sparks its first, and currently only, high-rise casino. In 1996, the redevelopment effort of the B Street business district across from the Nugget that started in the early 1980s took a step forward with the opening of a multi-screen movie complex and the construction of a plaza area. This area, now known as Victorian Square, is a pedestrian-friendly district that hosts many open-air events.

Under direction of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a comprehensive dynamic water quality computer model, the DSSAM Model, was developed (Earth Metrics, 1987) to analyze impacts of a variety of land use and stormwater management decisions throughout the Truckee River basin; this model was used to develop a set of surface runoff stormwater management measures for Sparks in the 1980s.

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