The artifacts discovered in the Tule Springs Preserve date human activity in the area we now call Clark County, Nevada to as early as 10,000 years ago. Around 600 CE, the area was an important thoroughfare for the Anasazi, Yuman, and Southern Paiute Indigenous peoples who called the Great Basin their home. The Southern Paiute, especially, revered the Las Vegas Valley and southern Nevada as their sacred lands.

White influence first came to the region by way of European explorers, and American fur trappers and traders. They traveled overland to arrive in the area via the Spanish Trail, from Santa Fe to Los Angeles.

By 1855, the Mormon Church had begun to settle the area, needing an outpost in the middle of their settlements in the growing cities of Salt Lake and Los Angeles. They built a 150-square-foot Mission but later abandoned it and retreated to Salt Lake, because, as it turns out, creating new infrastructure and irrigation where there once was none is really hard. Especially in the desert.

The popularity of southern Nevada continued to grow, however, and the federal support of the American Westward Expansion reinvigorated the previous efforts to get more water to this part of the desert. By 1902, the railroad had come, and the Santa Fe, Los Angeles, and the Salt Lake railroads began to unlock the Clark county region.

In 1909, the county became official, comprising land that was at first, part of Lincoln County, and then became Clark. The City of Las Vegas was growing too, at first a stop along the railroad and then an important outpost where weary desert travelers could find water that was piped in from nearby wells.

Hoover Dam sealed the deal for Clark County. In the 1930s when the dam was being constructed, entire towns sprung forth from the laborious efforts—creating not only boomtowns in the region but now what is also a booming place to recreate. The massive Lake Mead Recreation Area, a human-made reservoir that is the result of the damming of the Colorado River, is not only a great place to spend the day in the county but is also a body of water that is vital to the area's water supply. Southern Nevada gets 90% of its water from the Colorado River/Lake Mead.

William Andrews Clark, Montana Senator

Clark County derives its name after copper magnate and Montana Senator, William Andrews Clark. Clark enlisted the help of another mining magnate and Utah Senator, Thomas Kearns to ensure the completion of three important railroads that passed through the Las Vegas Valley in the early 1900s. William Andrews Clark is cited as one of the founders of the City of Las Vegas and was instrumental in helping to shape the city into what it is today: a great place to live, no matter the dwelling type, and a place where manufactured and mobile homes for sale in Clark County can be found in abundance. William A. Clark, a shrewd businessman, would be proud.