O.D. Gass & the start of Las Vegas

While reading an article titled, The First 100 Persons Who Shaped Southern Nevada one name stood out from the others, not because of the person’s fame, but because I just liked his name...Octavious Decature Gass.

    He was born in 1829 in Richland County, Ohio of Scottish-Irish descent.  At 18 Gass began searching for a way to make a fortune.  Unfortunately his timing wasn't very good.  He’d arrived at the right places where either gold or silver deposits had been discovered, but always a little too late.  Since his mining claims never paid off, he decided to look elsewhere.  A friend asked him to be a partner in a store and ranch, which happened to be halfway between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles on the Mormon Trail in a valley that travelers in 1829 had named Las Vegas, which is Spanish for the meadows.  The valley was green and lush because of the many artesian wells. 

    In 1855 Mormons had built a fort and established a post office, which they named Bringhurst, in honor of the Mormon missionary who was directed by Brigham Young to establish a colony in the valley.  Two years later the site was abandoned because of political disagreements between the colony’s leadership.  Gass occupied the fort, renamed the site Los Vegas Rancho and built a ranch house using part of the fort's foundation and a wall.  He changed the spelling on purpose so as not to be confused with Las Vegas, New Mexico, a Mormon settlement 500 miles to the east.  The year was 1865.  

    Gass’s search for his fortune didn’t come from the pick and shovel work of mining; it came from selling to travelers and boomers (people who live in a boomtown) their daily necessities.  He and his partners restored and made many improvements to the old fort, hiring friendly Paiutes as laborers and soon it was a thriving way station.  Eventually Gass bought out his partners, which gave him sole ownership of 640 acres, to which he eventually added more acreage.  The ranch prospered, because it had sufficient water to support enough livestock, fruit trees and vegetable crops.  It kept O.D. in business for nearly twenty years.

    By the time Gass was 50 years old, he had all the appearance of a successful man.  He had expanded the ranch to 960 acres and had employed 30 men, which included a veterinarian, blacksmith, barn keeper, several Indian women to handle laundry and a cook.  O.D. was the Justice of the Peace of Lincoln County and had married the niece of U.S. Grant.  But he was also very much in debt, so he tried to sell the ranch.  At about that time  what was to be a bumper crop failed.  Gass had hoped it would bring in enough money to pay off his debts.  That was the last straw, so in 1881 he pulled up stacks and with his wife and children and 1,500 head of cattle abandoned the rancho and headed for California and oblivion.

    It would have been impossible in the late 1800s for O.D. Gass to imagine that his Los Vegas Rancho would eventually become a mega tourist attraction with high-rise hotels and all that glitz.  Ironically the man and the ranch are long forgotten, but there is a street downtown that bears his name.  And what would Gass say about not being well remembered?  I really don’t think he’d mind, because according to the article I read, apparently he didn’t care much for Nevada, anyway.