Nevada’s state capital and third largest city, Carson City (pop. 52,457) was named in honor of Wild West explorer Kit Carson. Nestled at the base of the sheer eastern scarp of the Sierra Nevada, the city was founded in 1858—just a year before the discovery of the Comstock Lode riches, and six years before Nevada became a state.
Carson City is a hard place to characterize. Considering it’s the capital, life is very slow, with the main buzz being the Carson Nugget (775/882-1626), at 507 N. Carson Street on the main US-50/395 route through town, which has a million-dollar collection of raw, unprocessed gold on display, along with roulette, craps, and blackjack tables, and an army of old ladies feeding banks of slot machines.
Gambling aside, the one place to stop in Carson City is the excellent Nevada State Museum (daily; $3), which stands across the street from the stately capitol—and catercorner from the Nugget—at 600 N. Carson Street. Housed inside the solid old U.S. Mint, built in 1870 to make coins from Comstock silver, are displays on mining (including a large, full-scale mock-up of a working mine), as well as on Nevada and Great Basin natural history. Also worth a look are the Stewart Indian Museum (daily; 775/882-6929), which has Native American artifacts and a great collection of Edward Curtis’s anthropological photography, on the former campus of a Bureau of Indian Affairs school, off US-395 south of town at 5366 Snyder Avenue; and the old Virginia & Truckee steam engines at Nevada State Railroad Museum, farther south along US-50/395.
Good Mexican meals are the order of the day at El Charro Avitia, south of town at 4389 S. Carson Street, and the specials at the Carson Nugget can be incredibly cheap ($2 steak sandwiches). However, the best and most expensive fare is served at Adele’s (775/882-3353) at 1112 N. Carson Street, where power brokers broker their power. Motels line Carson Street north and south of the capitol; try the classic 1950s-style Frontier (775/882-1377) at 1718 N. Carson.
