JARBIDGE (Elko). A Nevada post office, established
March 5, 1910, and town (the most isolated mining camp in the
state) … According to Jarbidge legend, the name … comes from a
Shoshone Indian word Jahabich, meaning “devil,” or from
Tswhawbitts, the name of a mythical crater-dwelling giant who
roamed the Jarbidge Canyon for many years.
*
Helen Carlson,
Nevada Place
Names
Here are the answers to
all of those idle road-trip questions: Isn’t there an “r” missing
in Jarbidge? Were the Ruby Mountains named after a jewel, a
sweetheart, or a daughter? Is the swimming really that bad in Puny
Dip Canyon? A brand-new edition of Nevada Place Names untangles the
stories behind Nevada’s quirky and not-so quirky place names – from
Deeth to Providence, God’s Pocket to Devil’s Throat – and, along
the way, tells the many-layered history of the state. Native
American names like Tonopah and Pahrump are still on the Nevada
landscape, thanks to a very few people like Captain James Simpson,
who made a practice of preserving Shoshone and Paiute place names
during his explorations in the 1850s. Mormon settlers and hopeful
miners have also left their mark on the state, with names like
Emigrant Valley, Mission Canyon, and Lucky Hobo and Burning Moscow
mines. It took author Helen Carlson nearly 14 years of research to
complete the original 1974 edition. Fortunately, she persevered,
and her painstaking work has produced a book that’s as delightful
as a dictionary can possibly be.
*Michelle
Nijhuis
Nevada Place Names, by
Helen S. Carlson, University of Nevada Press, Reno, 1999, 282
pages, $21.95 paperback.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Nevada names.
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