Utah people in the Nevada desert

the long version

Between 1909 and 1915, two groups of migrants settled and began to farm railroad and public lands in eastern deserts near Wells, Nevada. One group, mostly Mormons, the other mainly non-Mormon, first generation Irish and German Americans from urban Salt Lake City, established the four small communities of Metropolis, Afton, Tobar Flat, and Independence Valley. The processes that produced their migration, the economic and social life that developed in the new settlements, and the migration streams that they followed when things did not work out in Nevada are identified and described.