Storey County, Nevada

Storey County is a county located in the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2010 census, the population was 4,010, making it the third-least populous county in Nevada. Its county seat is Virginia City.

Storey County is part of the Reno, NV Metropolitan Statistical Area.

History

Storey County was created in 1861 and named for Captain Edward Farris Storey, who was killed in 1860 in the Pyramid Lake War. It was the most populous county in Nevada when organized in 1861. Virginia City is the county seat. It was originally to be named McClellan County after General George B. McClellan, who later ran unsuccessfully against Abraham Lincoln for President in the 1864 election. Storey County benefited from the discovery of Comstock Lode silver.

In 1969, the actor Dick Simmons played W. Frank Stewart, a silver mining operator who served from 1876 to 1880 as a state senator for Storey County, in the episode "How to Beat a Badman" of the syndicated television series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Robert Taylor not long before Taylor's own death. In the story line, Senator Stewart is determined to gain at a bargain price a silver claim being worked by two young former outlaws (Tom Heaton and Scott Graham).