Carving a Strong Union out of a Rugged Frontier:
The Rise of Local 1245 at Sierra Pacific Power Co.
By Eric Wolfe

Nevada hardly provided an ideal climate for union organizing. Historically, the state was a bastion of rugged individualism. Dreams of wealth and adventure drew people to the mineral-rich state, not the prospect of harsh toil.

But harsh toil was what many newcomers found waiting for them in frontier Nevada, especially in the mines. For miners, dreams of quick wealth were transformed into a more tangible goal: getting a fair wage for their labor. According to one 19th Century Nevada miner, the legendary William "Big Bill" Haywood, it was in Nevada that the nation’s first union of miners—the Virginia City Miners’ Union—was born in 1867, just three years after Nevada became a state.

The earliest roots of Sierra Pacific Power can be found in Nevada’s mining industry. The Eldorado Canal Co. was established in 1852 to provide ditches for hydraulic mining. Springing up alongside the ditch companies to service the mining industry in the 1860s and 1870s were various gas companies, including the Virginia City Gas Co.

In the late 1880s electric utilities were established in both Carson City and Virginia City and construction began on an electric distribution system that would benefit not only the mines but also residents. Shortly thereafter, in 1891, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers was organized in St. Louis, Mo. to represent the interests of workers in this promising--and dangerous--new industry.

But the union would be a long time in coming to Nevada.