Native American groups such as the Anasazi settled the area that is now Las Vegas about 2300 years ago. The Anasazi abandoned the region in about 1150, making way for the Paiute people. In the late 1820s early Spanish explorers searching for water discovered an oasis in the region that now contains the city. They named the oasis “Las Vegas,” Spanish for “the meadows.” These expanses of wetlands, once irrigated by artesian waters carried under pressure from the nearby mountain ranges, were a main draw to southern Nevada until the 1940s.
Las Vegas was an important stop along the Old Spanish Trail between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and southern California for much of the 19th century because the oasis enabled Spanish traders to shorten their route to Los Angeles by cutting directly across the desert. Descriptions of the lush valley, made in 1829 and widely circulated, generated much interest. In 1844 explorer John C. Frémont camped in the Las Vegas Valley and described the fertile landscape in his journals. Missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church) began an intermittent settlement of the Las Vegas Valley in 1855. This settlement served as a link to California and the Pacific Ocean. The coming of the railroad in 1905 stabilized the Las Vegas Valley, and an era of slow growth ensued. In the early 1900s Nevada passed laws allowing divorce after only six months' residency in the state. By 1931 the requirement was reduced to six weeks, and Las Vegas gained a reputation as an easy place to get a divorce.
