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
- Architecture
- 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 Empire and the Carson River Mills
- #25 Nevada’s Capitol
- #44 Carson City
- #70 Bliss Mansion
- #71 Methodist Church of Carson City
- #72 Nevada State Children’s Home
- #75 Federal Government Building (1888- 1970)
- #76 Eagle Valley
- #77 Dat-So-La-Lee
- #78 Orion Clemens Home
- #91 Stewart Indian School
- #134 Trans-Sierran Pioneer Flight
- #175 Stewart – Nye Residence
- #179 First Air Flight Over Nevada
- #180 The Warm Springs Hotel and Nevada State Prison
- #181 Washoe Indians
- #193 Historic Flume and Lumberyard
- #194 Gardner’s Ranch
- #196 The United States Mint Carson City, Nevada
- #213 Lakeview
- #235 Camp Nye
- #243 Corbett-Fitzsimmon Fight
- #250 State Printing Building
- #252 Rinckel Mansion
- #258 Charles W. Friend House, Observatory & Weather Station
- #259 The Governor’s Mansion
Click here to view the full list of Nevada State Historical Markers.
County
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