Early History
9000 BC to 1776 AD
Early inhabitants of the Springs include the
Pueblo Peoples, Patayan and Numa.
Photo courtesty of the UNLV Lied Library
Special Collections Department.
After the last glacial age ended in the Las Vegas Valley some 12,000 years ago, this area slowly became a desert. Small streams and springs provided life-sustaining water to the few people who lived here.
Spanish maps of the period called this area "The Land of Northern Mysteries." American map makers simply put the word "unexplored" on the territory.
The area was not completely uninhabited, though. The Pueblo Peoples, Patayan (ancestors of the Yuman groups) and Numa (Paiutes) used the Las Vegas Springs and Las Vegas Creek until Anglo-European settlers began ranching in the valley in the 1860s. They left behind remains of their campfires, stone tools, clay pots, houses and foodstuffs.
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