“The Silver State” nickname dates back to the Nevada silver-rush days of the mid 1800’s. At that time silver was literally shoveled off the ground in Nevada; heavy gray crusts of silver had formed on the surface of the desert over millions of years and were polished by dust and wind to the dull luster of a cow horn.
A big silver bed could be tens of meters wide and more than a kilometer long (worth $27,000 a ton in 1860’s dollars). The territory of Nevada and surrounding states were picked clean of silver within a few decades.
These “surface bonanzas” lasted only a few seasons, long enough to put up saloons and little else. The rough, violent life of many western movies reached its purest state in the Nevada silver camps.