Fernley, Nevada: Built by Water in the Desert

Fernley emerged from the Nevada desert in nineteen oh four, created by two forces arriving at the same moment: the Southern Pacific Railroad and the federal government's first major reclamation project. Congress passed the Newlands Reclamation Act in nineteen oh two, authorizing what became the Bureau of Reclamation to divert the Truckee River through a canal toward the dry land south of Fernley. Work on the Truckee Canal followed in the years after, and the Southern Pacific put in a siding here.

Desert land that had grown nothing suddenly grew alfalfa and grain. The Newlands Project was among the first federally funded irrigation systems of its kind in the nation, a New Deal for the arid West decades before the New Deal existed. Fernley stayed a quiet farm and rail town for most of the twentieth century before suburban growth from Reno transformed it into one of Nevada's fastest-growing cities.