State Government Records: State Resources

Minutes

1984, 1989-1995

1 cu. ft.

Minutes of meetings include agendas, minutes, and some meeting packet materials. Minutes do not include applications from employee members for emergency withdrawal of funds. Those materials were discarded in a secure manner according to the Nevada State Records Center schedule RDA#1997016. Arranged chronologically.

Deferred Benefits Plan Administration

1987-1995

1 cu. ft.

This series includes correspondence regarding fund vendors, plan documents, contracts, analytical reports, Committee member certificates of appointment, Committee membership lists, and general plan information. Arranged by type of material and by date.

Records

1953-2009

22 cu. ft.

• Personnel Commission Meeting Files     1983-2005     7 c.f.
• Personnel Administrator Correspondence     1957-1984     0.5 c.f.
• Intergovernmental Personnel Advisory Committee Files     1972-1982     0.5 c.f.
• Merit Award Board Files     1993-1999     0.25 c.f.
• Employee Management Committee Files     1971-1986, 1997-2009     0.75 c.f.
• Hearing Officer Files     1973-2009     9 c.f.

Board Meetings

1947-1979

2 cu. ft.

Some files include just minutes of the meetings, while others include supplemental material for the meetings as well. Also, there are Capital Plaza Building files which PERS administered as an investment for the System.

Executive Officer Correspondence

1947-1977

2 cu. ft.

Alphabetically arranged by employer group. These records include interesting files such as correspondence with the University of Nevada, the Retired Public Employees of Nevada, and the actuarial firms employed by PERS.

Correspondence

1955-1999

27 cu. ft.

These records include correspondence from the Governor's Office, from the divisions of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, from the Legislative branch, and correspondence regarding the budgetary process. Arranged chronologically overall and within each year by type of record (correspondence, budget), and then alphabetically by division.

Tahoe Regional Planning Agency

1975-1998

6 cu. ft.

These records were gathered as a result of the Director's membership on the board of the TRPA. The records include correspondence, meeting material and minutes. Arranged chronologically.

• Correspondence, 1975-1977
• Meetings, January-June 1989
• Meetings, June-December 1989
• Exhibits, 1989
• Correspondence, 1990
• Meetings, January 1990
• Meetings, January-October, 1990
• Meetings, October-December, 1990
• Exhibits, 1990
• Correspondence, 1991, 1992-1996
• Meetings, Jan.-May, 1991
• Exhibits, 1991

Boards and Commissions

1978-2001

2 cu. ft.

These records were gathered as a result of the Director's membership on various boards and commissions. The records includes meeting material and minutes from various boards and commissions including the Advisory Board on Natural Resources and the Advisory Board for Water Resources. Arranged chronologically.

Correspondence

1869-1945

34 boxes

This series includes both incoming and outgoing correspondence, much of it concerning applications and payments for lands, availability and status of lands, and disputed claims. Some of the types of correspondence include:

• Incoming and outgoing correspondence from/to Nevada state agents in Washington, D. C., pertaining to the selection of state lands from the public domain
• Letterpress copybooks of outgoing correspondence, 1887-1895
• Incoming correspondence from the General Land Office, Department of the Interior, 1870-1915.
• State Land Register correspondence, arranged alphabetically, 1909-1954
• Letterpress volumes containing records of "Contests Certified to Court,"1890; and correspondence from the State Land Register to Nevada county assessors, 1891-1934.
• Letterpress copybook of outgoing correspondence from the Register of the U. S. Land Office in Carson City, 1867-1868
• Incoming letters from the Carson City District of the U. S. General Land Office, 1894-1900
• Letters to and from the U. S. Surveyor General's office in Reno, 1887-1934
• Letters to the U. S. Land offices at Eureka and Carson City
• Plates, maps, clippings, and photographs. Found in individual files.

Land Patents

1865-1990

24 vols.

Official records of patents for lands issued by the Nevada Surveyor General/State Lands Office. Each includes name of patentee, description/location of land granted by patent, patent number, and date. Arranged chronologically/numerically by date of patent/patent number.

The State Lands office compiled a searchable data base for the land patents, available here. The data base is searchable by name of patentee, township and range, and patent number. The official land patent records are at the Nevada State Archives.

Surveys

1863-1913

The first surveys of Nevada lands were undertaken to determining boundaries - between California and Nevada and between individual counties. The first survey, conducted by Butler Ives in 1863, was to determine the boundary between California and Nevada. A second California/Nevada boundary survey was conducted by Allexey W. von Schmidt and Willis Drummond in 1872. The Nevada State Archives has a copy of the original map which is part of the National Archives, entitled "Map of Eastern Boundary of the State of California as Surveyed ...20 July, 1872..." Map room.

Other surveys in the State Archives include:

• Field notes of a survey of a part of the eastern boundary of Washoe County made February 1869 by Andrew J. Hatch, Washoe County Surveyor. SECSTATE-0969, file 15
• Field notes of Section 19, T3N, R58E, September 23, 1881. No author. NSLO-0117, file 4
• Field notes of the survey of the county line between Humboldt and Churchill [Counties] surveyed October 1, 1888 by W.E. Bowen, County Surveyor, Humboldt County. NSLO-0257
• Survey of the boundary line between Nye and Esmeralda and Mineral Counties, November 7, 1913 by W.J. Moran, E.A. Byler, and W.P. McCarthy

Maps

1861-1929

229 sheets + assorted folders

An important responsibility of the U.S. Surveyor General was compiling maps of lands in new territories and states. Contracts were let to several dozen surveyors to map out the territory and state of Nevada beginning in 1861. Copies of the resultant maps were deposited with the Nevada State Surveyor General's office. Maps not transferred to the State Archives remain with the State Lands Office.

Miscellaneous Records

Other kinds of records include the following which often reflect complicated financial procedures between the State Land Registrar, State Controller, and State Treasurer for receiving and distributing monies from the sale of land patents:

• Clear lists ("Abstract of Certified Lists of Lands Granted to the State of Nevada by the United States")
• Alphabetical Index Listing Contract Numbers
• Payments on Contracts Certified to Controller
• Daily Total of Interest Payments on Land Certified to Controller
• Applications Certified to Controller
• Contracts on Prior Deposit Certified to Controller
• Contracts on Prior Deposit Certified to Treasurer
• Completed Sales
• Withdrawal Deposits
• Patent Certificates
• County Assessors' reports
• Carey Act files, indexes, applications
• "Chapter 633" forms (Nevada Statutes, 1979)
• Remittances
• Indexes to applications
• Cash books
• Abstract books

The records of the State Lands office include those representing functions later assigned to other agencies:

• State officials and agencies represented in these records include: Treasurer; Controller; Department of Public Instruction; Board of Regents; Board of Immigration; Commission on State Land Law; State Multiple Use Advisory Committee on Federal Lands; Commission of Industry, Agriculture and Irrigation; State Engineer.
• Records pertaining to the Surveyor General's membership in the Association of Executive Officers of Land Departments of Public Land States, formed in 1931.
• State Forester-Fire Warden, Assistant State Forester-Fire Warden, and Federal-State Forest Fire Control Cooperation records.
• Legal papers
• Deeds
• Mineral affidavits
• Grand jury report, 1956\
• Taylor Grazing Act materials
• Clippings
• Camp fire permits
• Supplementary Studies and Agreements, Lake Mead Fish Hatchery, 1971-1972

General Files

1930-1950

3 cu. ft.

Arrangement: mostly by subject and thereunder chronologically.

Evidently these files came from those of the Extension Forester of the University of Nevada's Agricultural Extension Division. From 1942 to 1957 the Extension Forester was designated as Assistant State Forester Fire Warden. This is confusing because it was not until 1945 that the Legislature created the position of State Forester Fire Warden. The Surveyor General of Nevada served in this capacity ex officio until the creation of the Division of Forestry in 1957.

Much of the correspondence is to and from the men who held the post of Extension Forester/Assistant State Forester Fire Warden. These and other materials reflect the wartime concerns of state and federal forestry and fire control. For example, there is information on the threat posed by Japanese incendiary balloon bombs. Other files relate to the Forester's civil defense obligations, such as overseeing the work of the Forest and Range Fire Fighters Service, which was a division of the federal Office of Civil Defense and, in Nevada, a component of the Nevada Council of Defense.

Several files explicate the Forester's role in implementing the Clarke-McNary Act of 1924,

which provided federal aid to states for the prevention and suppression of forest fires. There is correspondence (arranged by county) regarding various Clarke-McNary matters, such as the Nevada Emergency Rural Fire Protection Project, Rural Fire Board, and Area and Cost reports. Other correspondence is with county extension agents and Extension Service personnel of neighboring states.

Besides correspondence, there are annual reports of the Extension Forester, fire reports, inspection forms, memorandums, land use planning reports and agreements, invoices, [press releases, and statistics. Printed material includes articles, pamphlets, Forest Service publications, and newsletters.

Other subjects covered include: tree planting; windbreaks, shelterbelts, and woodlots; seed distribution; Arbor Day; 4-H Club forestry projects; the fire prevention campaign of 1947; fire control equipment; legislation; training; the President's Fire Prevention Conference of 1947; and the Nevada Transient Relief Camp at Zephyr Cove, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, 1933-1934.

The records of the Surveyor General of Nevada document some of the state's involvement with forestry and fire control before 1941 and after the end of World War II. From 1957 onward records of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources' Division of Forestry contain material about these activities.

Activities documented in these files show the cooperative relationship in the areas of forestry and fire control between Nevada and various federal agencies. The latter include the Forest, Grazing, Fish and Wildlife, and Soil Conservation Services. The National Archives and Records Administration--Pacific Sierra Region, San Bruno, California, houses regional records of these agencies.

Park Commission

1934-1960

1 cu. ft.

This box consists of the files of the State Park Commission which was almost dormant from its inception in 1935 to its reactivation in 1955. The first twenty years of correspondence are from the office of Robert Allen who was also the State Highway Engineer and Chairman of the State Planning Board. The files from the 1950's include a transcription of the October 1957 meeting of the Park Commission, as well as correspondence from the Executive Director of the Parks System.

Parks Division

1955-1994, bulk 1961-1994

16 cu. ft.

These records consist of files of the Park Division of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The majority of the records are from the office of the Administrator of the Division who, for many years was John Richardson.

The first box consists of correspondence from the 1960s and early 1970s and quarterly reports from the early 1970s. The correspondence is filed by subject, including state and federal agencies and state park organizations.

The other 15 cubic feet of records are arranged by the State Parks filing system developed in the early 1970s and followed by the Division into the early 1990s. The filing system was retained when the records were processed by the State Archives.

Included in the files of the Division are year-end reports from 1980 to 1992, Park Advisory Commission meeting minutes from 1955 to 1992, and records of the Nevada Natural History Association-a group that ran the concessions in the parks. Also included is correspondence regarding the Tahoe Rim Trail and the Young Conservation Corps.

In this collection are records regarding potential park projects and voluminous correspondence related to park planning, including master plans for Nevada state parks. Lastly there are files on real property acquisition and disposal for park units which include land appraisals, title documents, maps, and drawings.