Nevada was a Territory in 1861 and became a State in 1864 when it joined the Union side in the Civil War. The reason it was made a State, was that Abe Lincoln needed one more state vote to allow him to go fight for the Union. Interesting, the first senator from Nevada was an uncle of mine. William Sharon was a banker in San Francisco, but spent a bunch of time in Nevada fleecing the miners. He was elected senator from Nevada, never went to Washington, never went back to Nevada as best I can figure. Just looked good on his resume. By the way, he didn’t try for re-election.