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The Warm Springs Hotel and Nevada State Prison

The Warm Springs Hotel and Nevada State Prison

The Warm Springs Hotel and Nevada State Prison Overview

Warm Springs Hotel was built near this site in 1860 from a local sandstone quarry inside the old Nevada State Prison complex.

The hotel housed Nevada’s first Territorial Legislature meeting in 1861 and became integrated into the Prison complex which operated until 2012. 

Category

  1. Architecture
  2. Event

Marker Type

Blue Marker

Nevada Historical Marker Number

The Warm Springs Hotel and Nevada State Prison is Nevada Historical Marker #180.

Carson City is home to 26 Nevada State Historical Markers and the links to each are below for you to research to see if you want to add to your exploration list.

  1. #1 Empire and the Carson River Mills
  2. #25 Nevada’s Capitol
  3. #44 Carson City
  4. #70 Bliss Mansion
  5. #71 Methodist Church of Carson City
  6. #72 Nevada State Children’s Home
  7. #75 Federal Government Building (1888- 1970)
  8. #76 Eagle Valley
  9. #77 Dat-So-La-Lee
  10. #78 Orion Clemens Home
  11. #91 Stewart Indian School
  12. #134 Trans-Sierran Pioneer Flight
  13. #175 Stewart – Nye Residence
  14. #179 First Air Flight Over Nevada
  15. #180 The Warm Springs Hotel and Nevada State Prison
  16. #181 Washoe Indians
  17. #193 Historic Flume and Lumberyard
  18. #194 Gardner’s Ranch
  19. #196 The United States Mint Carson City, Nevada
  20. #213 Lakeview
  21. #235 Camp Nye
  22. #243 Corbett-Fitzsimmon Fight
  23. #250 State Printing Building
  24. #252 Rinckel Mansion
  25. #258 Charles W. Friend House, Observatory & Weather Station
  26. #259 The Governor’s Mansion

Click here to view the full list of Nevada State Historical Markers.

County

Carson City, Nevada

GPS Coordinates

39.161333, -119.739001

Nevada Historical Marker Transcription

Built near this site around 1860, Nevada’s first Territorial Legislature met in the Warm Springs Hotel in 1861.  Abraham Curry, noted entrepreneur and co-founder of Carson City, built the hotel from hand-hewn sandstone taken from the quarry southeast of here, now inside the old Nevada State Prison complex.  An imposing edifice in its day, the hotel was one of several buildings throughout Carson constructed of this unique sandstone.

The sandstone quarry remained a significant piece of the prison’s operation from the 1860s to the 1950s as prisoners cut stone for prison buildings and for other nearby state facilities, such as the State Capitol and the U.S. Mint, now the Nevada State Museum.  Prison administrators hoped that work in the quarry, or the prison farm three miles south, would rehabilitate prisoners to return to society.

In 1862, Abe Curry leased a portion of the hotel to the Nevada Territory to hold prisoners.  Two years later, the State of Nevada purchased the property for use as a prison.  The title to the property was disputed for years afterwards and finally settled by the Legislature in 1879.

During 1867, a fire destroyed the portion of the hotel the state purchased from Curry.  After the fire, the State of Nevada rebuilt the prison campus, beginning a tradition of redeveloping the prison that continued into the 1980s.  The prison continued to operate until 2012 and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.

STATE HISTORICAL MARKER NO.  180

STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICE

NEVADA LANDMARKS SOCIETY

References Used

The Warm Springs Hotel and Nevada State Prison