Roundup: November 12, 2014

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Speaker: Mark Hall-Patton
Subject: It’s Nevada’s Sesquicentennial, but not ours; How Clark County became part of Nevada

Nevada became a state in 1864, providing Abraham Lincoln with two more votes in the Senate and one more in the House of Representatives. However, the state as it came into the Union, and the state as it exists today are quite different in size and shape.

What happened to give Nevada more territory?, which states were forced to cede territory?, and when did the state constitution acknowledge the boundary changes? The answers to these questions will be the subject of this talk.

From 1864 to the 1980s, Nevada’s boundaries have been subject to confusion, relocation, and litigation (especially with California). Between politics (both regional and national), geography, surveyors, and lawyers, the boundary lines took years to stabilize, and every time they were considered stable, they took years to be finalized. While Nevada celebrates its birthday, we will look back at what went into giving it the boundary it has today.

Mark Hall-Patton has been a member of the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners for a long time. He is a Nevada historian. He lives in Nevada and is the Museums Administrator for the Clark County museum system, where he oversees the Clark County Museum, the Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum, and the Searchlight History Museum. He has been with Clark County for twenty years, and was previously the Director of the San Luis Obispo County Historical Museum in California. He has worked for both public and private non-profit museums, and has consulted with numerous start-up and established museums and museum boards.

He is a MAP surveyor for the American Alliance of Museums, and the author of two books, over 400 published articles, and has written and produced 48 local history videos. In 2009, he hosted a live interview program on C4 television in the Vegas valley, and is regularly seen on the History Channel’s Pawn Stars as a visiting expert. He has also appeared on American Restoration, The United Stuff of America, America, Facts and Fallacies, and Mysteries at the Museum.

In addition to 14 years as a Board member of the Nevada Museums Association, where he served as President from 2000-2002 and 2008-2010, he has served on the California Association of Museums and Western Museums Association boards. He is a member of the board of the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation, and the Nevada Aerospace Hall of Fame. He has been in the museum field for over 37 years, having also worked with museums in California and South Dakota. He holds a BA in History from the University of California at Irvine, and did graduate work in Museum Studies at the University of Delaware.

He is married to Dr. Colleen Hall-Patton, professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at UNLV, and they are the parents of Joseph and Ellen Hall-Patton.