| Roop County | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| County of Nevada Territory | |||||||||||
| 1861–1864 | |||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
• Established | 1861 | ||||||||||
• Disestablished | 1864 | ||||||||||
| Contained within | |||||||||||
| • Country |  United States | ||||||||||
| • Territory | Nevada Territory | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Today part of | United States | ||||||||||
Roop County, known until 1862 as Lake County, was a county of Nevada Territory in the United States from 1861 until 1864. It was created in 1861 as one of the original nine counties of Nevada. In 1864 it was succeeded by Lassen County, California and Washoe County, Nevada.
In March 1861, Congress created the official Nevada Territory, with the Honey Lake Valley and the area to its north included within its provisional bounds. [1] When this occurred, the border between Nevada and California was poorly defined in Nevada's Organic Act. Later in 1861, Lake County was established in northwestern Nevada, creating a boundary dispute with California. Its name was chosen due to the many lakes in the area, including Honey Lake, Pyramid Lake, and Winnemucca Lake. [2] In 1862 it was renamed Roop County after Isaac Roop, governor of the unofficial "Provisional Territorial Government of Nevada Territory," which had previously existed in the same area. [1] [3] Much of Roop County, including Susanville (named after Roop's daughter), was claimed by California as part of Plumas County. [4] This led to an armed conflict known as the Sagebrush War, the War of Injunctions or the Roop County War. [5]
This resulted in the appointment of a joint California–Nevada boundary survey, with Surveyor-General J. F. Houghton acting for the State of California and Butler Ives, for the Territory of Nevada. The final surveyors report, accepted by California on April 4, 1864, and by Nevada on February 7, 1865, proved that the Honey Lake area and virtually all the population of Roop County was in California. The California portion of Roop County became part of the newly created Lassen County, California, in 1864. The remainder was ceded to Washoe County, Nevada. [6]
Nevada is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, the 32nd-most populous, and the 9th-least densely populated of the U.S. states. Nearly three-quarters of Nevada's people live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area, including three of the state's four largest incorporated cities. Nevada's capital is Carson City. Las Vegas is the largest city in the state.
Lassen County is a county in the northeastern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 32,730. The county seat and only incorporated city is Susanville. Lassen County comprises the Susanville, California, micropolitan statistical area. A former farming, mining, and lumber area, its economy now depends on employment at one federal and two state prisons; the former in Herlong and the latter two in Susanville. In 2007, half the adults in Susanville worked in one of the facilities.
Modoc County is a county in the far northeast corner of the U.S. state of California. Its population is 8,700 as of the 2020 census, down from 9,686 from the 2010 census. This makes it California's third-least populous county. The county seat and only incorporated city is Alturas. Previous county seats include Lake City and Centerville. The county borders Nevada and Oregon.
Washoe County is a county in the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 486,492, making it Nevada's second-most populous county. Its county seat is Reno. Washoe County is included in the Reno, NV Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The Territory of Nevada (N.T.) was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until October 31, 1864, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Nevada.
The Susan River is a northeastern California river of approximately 67 miles (108 km) length that drains from an arid plateau of volcanic highlands along the Great Basin Divide to intermittent Honey Lake. The river flows from eastern Lassen County from east of Lassen Volcanic National Park generally east past Susanville and emerging into a ranching valley to enter the north end of Honey Lake. Along with Fredonyer Pass, the Susan River is the northern boundary of the Sierra Nevada.
Peter Lassen, later known in Spanish as Don Pedro Lassen, was a Danish-born Californian ranchero and gold prospector. Born in Denmark, Lassen immigrated at age 30 to Massachusetts, before eventually finally moving to California. In California, Lassen became a Mexican citizen and received the vast Rancho Bosquejo from Governor Manuel Micheltorena. He is best known as the eponym of Lassen County, California, Lassen Peak, and Lassen Volcanic National Park.
The Nataqua Territory was a short-lived, unofficial territory of the United States. It consisted of a portion of what is now northeastern California and northwestern Nevada. Nataqua Territory was the first incarnation of the proposed "State of Jefferson". In 1849, the border between California and the Utah Territory was defined by geographical coordinates that were not surveyed. On April 26, 1856, local residents took advantage of this ambiguity and justified their resistance to tax collectors from Plumas County, California, by proclaiming themselves part of a new "Territory of Nataqua." The twenty men of the Susanville convention who announced the Nataqua Territory had defined a rectangle-shaped territory by latitude and longitude, which inadvertently did not include their own Honey Lake Valley but did encompass most of what soon became western Nevada, along with 600 unsuspecting inhabitants. The Territory of Nataqua was a frontier land club or claim association, designed to protect the property rights of individual settlers until regular government reached the area. The movement was led by Peter Lassen and Isaac Roop. Association with the Utah Territory was unpalatable to the residents due to anti-Mormonism.
Isaac Newton Roop was an American politician, pioneer, and member of the Whig Party. In 1859, he was the first elected (provisional) governor of the newly-proposed Nevada Territory.
The landlocked U.S. state of Nevada has a varied geography and is almost entirely within the Basin and Range Province and is broken up by many north–south mountain ranges. Most of these ranges have endorheic valleys between them.
The 1872 California-Nevada State Boundary Marker marks the initial point for the 1872 survey delineation of the state line between California and Nevada. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The following timeline traces the territorial evolution of California, the thirty-first state admitted to the United States of America, including the process of removing Indigenous Peoples from their native lands, or restricting them to reservations.
During the American Civil War in the early 1860s, the District of Utah was a subordinate district of the U.S. Army's Department of the Pacific. The district was composed of territorial areas that later became parts of the modern U.S. states of Idaho, Nevada, and Utah.
Roop's Fort, also known as Roop's Trading Post, Fort Defiance, and Roop House, is a historic building in Susanville, California. The building, which was built in 1854 by Isaac Roop, was the first building built by white settlers in Lassen County. The fort was originally a trading post for westbound migrants and was the first post west of Fort Hall in Idaho. The building also served as the capitol of the short-lived Nataqua Territory, a territory created in 1856 to avoid California tax collectors. The territory was incorporated into Roop County, Nevada, named for Isaac Roop, in 1861. California and Nevada entered into a border dispute known as the Sagebrush War over the Susanville area in 1863, and Roop's Fort served as a fort for the Nevadans during the skirmish. California won the war, and Roop's Fort became part of Lassen County in 1864.
Levi Newton Breed was an active and early American participant in 19th Century California, where he helped organize Lassen County and was a member of the Los Angeles Common Council, the governing body of that city.
The Sagebrush War was an armed conflict between the California county of Plumas and the now-defunct Nevada County of Roop over the jurisdiction of Lake Honey Valley and Susanville, California.
The Von Schmidt State Boundary Monument was designated a California Historic Landmark (No.859) on April 26, 1973. In 1873 San Francisco civil engineer Allexey W. Von Schmidt built the State Boundary Monument in San Bernardino County, California, near Needles, California. In 1872 and 1873 Von Schmidt did a survey of the border between California and Nevada/Arizona. The California Historic marker is on the dirt road, Pew Road, also called River Road, 2.6 Miles South of the State Line; 14 Miles North of Needles. The marker is not at the current state boundary, as Von Schmidt made an error in his survey. A new survey in 1893 showed that the Von Schmidt line was 1,600 to 1,800 feet off to the west. The marker is at the southern end of the California-Arizona State boundary. In 1872, a dispute arose between Nevada and California about the location of the state's boundary. Nevada wanted the state divide to be the same as the Sierra Nevada mountain range divide. California wanted the line to the east of the mountain range. When California attained statehood in 1850, it adopted 120 degrees west longitude as its eastern border. Between 1855 and 1900 there were six surveys to locate 120 degrees, with each locating 120 degrees of longitude differently. Von Schmidt applied for and was granted the contract to survey the state's frontier border east of the Sierra Nevada. In 1872 Von Schmidt using only a compass, a sextant and dead reckoning process set out with his crew to define the boundary. Von Schmidt was charged to measure and mark the boundary. Von Schmidt and his crew built stone markers and installed cast iron markers about one mile apart on the length of the state's boundary. Not many of the markers had foundations, so fewer remain today. A new survey in 1893 showed that the Von Schmidt line was 1,600 to 1,800 feet west of the actual 120 degrees. However, California and Nevada both recognize the 1872 Von Schmidt survey and the 1893 survey as the state line. Later the 1893 line was used. The exact location of the north-south California-Nevada border, between Lake Tahoe and the intersection of the southern boundary of Oregon at the 42nd parallel, was contentious and was surveyed and re-surveyed many time. One of the few iron markers that has survived is a near Verdi, Nevada, this is a National Historic Landmark called the 1872 California-Nevada State Boundary Marker.
The Superior Court of California, County of Lassen, also known as the Lassen County Superior Court or Lassen Superior Court, is the branch of the California superior court with jurisdiction over Lassen County.
