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is the capital of the State of Nevada. The population was 52,457 at the 2000 census. Carson City is now an independent city and is its own Metropolitan Statistical Area. Like many towns in Nevada, Carson City was founded in the early boom days of mining. A center of silver mining, Carson City was the county seat of the former Ormsby County and was named for explorer Kit Carson.
Carson City has the distinction of being the smallest of the 363 Metropolitan Statistical Areas as designated by the United States Census Bureau (as of July 1, 2007).
The largest nearby city to Carson City is Reno, about to the north. Carson City is one of only two capital cities in the United States that borders another state (California); the other is Trenton, New Jersey (bordering Pennsylvania). Alaska's capital city, Juneau, borders British Columbia, Canada.
The first Europeans to arrive in what is known as Eagle Valley were John C. Fremont and his exploration party in January 1843. Fremont named the river flowing through the valley, Carson River, in honor of his famous mountain man scout, Christopher "Kit" Carson. Prior to Fremont's expedition, Washoe Indians inhabited the valley and surrounding areas.
By 1851 the Eagle Station ranch located along the Carson River served as a trading post and stopover for travelers on the California Trail's Carson Branch which ran through Eagle Valley. The trading post and valley received their named from a bald eagle, hunted and killed by one of the early settlers, featured on the wall of the post. In 1858 Abraham Curry bought Eagle Station and named the settlement there Carson City after the Carson River and indirectly after Kit Carson.
As Curry and several other partners had Eagle Valley surveyed for development. Curry had decided for himself that Carson City would someday serve as the capital city and left a plot open in the center of town for a future capitol building.
Following the discovery of gold and silver on the nearby Comstock Lode in 1859, Carson City's population began to rise. Curry built the crude Warm Springs Hotel a mile to the east of downtown. As he predicted Carson City was selected as the territorial capital, beating out Virginia City and American Flat. Curry loaned the Warm Springs Hotel to the territorial Legislature as a meeting hall. The Legislature named Carson City to be the seat of Ormsby County and selected the hotel as the territorial prison with Curry serving as its first warden. Today the property still serves as part of the state prison.
The advent of the Civil War made statehood an almost certainty. Nevada became a state in 1864, Carson City was confirmed as permanent capital. Carson City's development was no longer dependent on the mining industry and instead became a thriving commercial center. The Virginia & Truckee Railroad was built between Virginia City and Carson City. A wooden flume was also built from the Sierra Nevadas into Carson City. The current capitol building was constructed from 1870-71.
Carson City's population and transportation traffic plummeted when the Southern Pacific Railroad built a line through Donner Pass, too far to the north to benefit Carson City. The city was slightly revitalized with the mining booms in Tonopah and Goldfield. The U.S. Federal building (now renamed the Paul Laxalt Building) was completed in 1890. Carson City resigned itself to small city status advertising as "America's smallest capital." The city slowly grew, and by 1960 it had reached its 1880 population. Portions of Ormsby County had been given over to neighboring counties and by this time the county was not much larger than the city itself. In 1969 Ormsby County was officially dissolved and Carson City took over all municipal services with an independent city status. With this consolidation, Carson City absorbed former town sites such as Empire City, which had grown up in the 1860s as a milling center along the Carson River and current U.S. 50. Carson City could now advertise itself as one of America's largest state capitals with its of city limits.
In 1991, the city adopted a downtown master plan, specifying that no building within 500 feet (152 m) of the capitol is allowed to pass it in height, which prohibits future high-rise development in the center of downtown. The Ormsby House is currently the tallest building in downtown Carson City, at a height of 117 feet. The structure was completed in 1972.