Helen J. Stewart
1854-1926
Known as "the first lady of Las Vegas," Helen
Jane Wiser was born on April 16, 1854, in Springfield, Illinois. She married
a man named Archibald Stewart in 1872 and moved with him to Lincoln County,
Nevada.
Inheriting the Old Mormon Fort
One day, a man name Octavius Decatur Gass
asked to borrow some money from Archibald. Gass owned the Las
Vegas Rancho. Bad weather had destroyed his crops and he needed the
money to plant new ones. He promised to pay it back in one year.
But bad weather hit again and Gass could not pay back
the loan, so Archibald moved the family to Las Vegas in 1882 to take over
the ranch. Travelers often stopped to rest at the ranch. It had a cool
creek and huge, shady cottonwood trees where people could escape from
the hot summer sun.
Life on the fort
In 1884, Archibald Stewart was killed in a gunfight with a worker from
a nearby ranch. Helen Stewart was left alone with her four children and
another on the way. She had to take care of the farm, the ranch and the
orchards. Travelers came to the ranch every day in need of food, water
and rest. Helen managed to care for her family and all the travelers who
visted the ranch. For the next 20 years, Helen Stewart ran the ranch which
eventually became the center of a great city.
The fort and the railroad
In 1902, Stewart sold the ranch to Senator
William A. Clark of Montana. He was building a railroad in town and
needed the land and water from the ranch. Some people say that sale helped
create the city of Las Vegas. Once the railroad was in place, the population
boomed.
Stewart bought some land near the ranch and built a
new house. She lived in Las Vegas for the rest of her life, becoming the
first woman elected to the Clark County School Board in 1915, and the
first woman to sit on a jury in Las Vegas in 1916.
Stewart saw her little ranch become a town. In 1905,
the railroad sold pieces of her land to the public. That sale created
the downtown core of Las Vegas which now includes Stewart Street.
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