Yes, there are.
First of all, the Nevada State Prison (NSP) is originally a small part of the story of Abraham Curry, the founder of Carson City and the man single-handedly responsible for Carson City becoming the capital of Nevada. (See QoD 1/6/08).
Curry was Carson City’s first major landowner, saloonkeeper, contractor, hotelier, and road builder; he was also the first unofficial sheriff, a delegate to an early constitutional convention, and an aide to Nevada’s first territorial governor, James Nye.
He set up a quarry at a nearby deposit of sandstone, building Carson City’s first two hotels, the Warm Springs and the Great Basin. He donated the hastily constructed Warm Springs to serve as the first territorial legislature; as the hotel was two miles from downtown, he transported the legislators in his own horse-drawn streetcar, Nevada’s first.
Next, Curry sold his second hotel, the sturdier Great Basin, to the territorial government to serve as a courthouse and the second legislative building.
That freed up the Warm Springs building to become Nevada’s first prison; the Legislature bought it, and 20 acres of surrounding scrub, from Curry for $80,000 in 1862, appointing him the first prison warden at the same time. The prison has been in continuous operation since then and over the decades, prison labor quarried the stone for many of Carson City’s distinctive buildings, some of which stand to this day.
The original structure burned down in 1867. Rock from the quarry was used to build a new facility, the same one still in use 140-odd years later.
At one time, Nevada’s lieutenant governors served as the wardens of the State Prison. In 1872, the lieutenant governor got so comfortable as the prison warden that he refused to turn over the position to the new lieutenant governor, prompting the governor to dispatch 60 men armed with rifles and artillery to force him to do so.
Since 1928, all license plates issued in Nevada have been manufactured at NSP. Today, the license plate shop is one of two industries at the prison, employing 18 inmates. The other is a state bookbindery and print shop employing 35.
With gambling legalized in 1931, a prison known as the Bull Pen operated legally from 1932 through 1967. It was shut down in a scandal involving Joe Conforte, owner of the nearby legal brothel the Mustang Ranch, when it came to light that Conforte was supplying to the prison prostitutes who operated under cover of the casino. That incident earned the prison the nickname of the Graybar Hotel.
Part of the four-story main cell block dates back to the 19th century and houses about 300 inmates, two to a cell. Those cells have the old-fashioned iron bars associated with prisons; the more modern-style cells use solid doors with windows.
A sandstone cliff left over from the quarry is still in use as one of the prison walls. Caves in the cliff were once used as the "hole" for internal punishment, though they’re now closed off.
Nevada State Prison operated as maximum security until the Ely State Prison opened in 1989. Inmates under a death sentence are incarcerated at the Ely State Prison, though executions are conducted at the Nevada State Prison.
In mid-May, Nevada legislators voted to shut down the prison by April 2012, allowing enough time to relocate the 700 inmates and for the 100 or so prison employees to find new jobs.
