Nevada State Library and Archives

The Nevada State Archives does not have a prison file for every person incarcerated at the Nevada State Prison, especially for historical files dated prior to about 1910.  However, there are ways to find information about prisoners.

The Nevada Department of Corrections maintains a webpage to assit in locating information for prisoner case files not in the State Archives and for prisoners currently incarcerated.  http://www.doc.nv.gov/info/index.php

The 1865-1917 Biennial Reports to the Legislature, specifically those of the Warden of the Nevada State Prison, enumerated all the prisoners by name, age, nativity, occupation, crime, county received from, sentence, date of receipt and date of discharge.  Copies of the Biennial Reports are available in bound paper format in the Nevada State Library (call number 29-P93/1:year) or on microfilm (call number 29-L61A/8:91-6).

Pardons granted by the Board of Pardons Commissioners were listed in the Governors' messages to the Legislature from 1865 until 1959.  Those messages appear in the first volume of each Appendix to the Journals of the Nevada State Senate and Assembly and are available in paper form or on microfilm at the Nevada State Library.

The Warden's Reports and Governors' Messages are also available on microfilm or in paper copies at the Nevada Historical Society, the libraries at the University of Nevada in Reno and Las Vegas, and most of the county law libraries.

Criminal court cases are on file with the county clerk of the county where trials were held. NSLA has nineteenth century district court criminal case files for Douglas, Storey and Washoe Counties on microfilm.

Some criminal court case were appealed to the Nevada State Supreme Court.  Those cases were indexed in Alphabetical List of Nevada Supreme Court Cases, and in Volume IV of the Nevada Revised Statutes.  The cases were reported in Reports of Cases Determined by the Supreme Court of the State of Nevada (available in the Nevada State Library, call no. 29-Su7/5:year).

Nevada Supreme Court case files are available on microfilm at the Supreme Court Clerk's Office at the Supreme Court Building, 100 N. Stewart Street, Carson City, Nevada; and at the Nevada State Library (call no. 29-Su7/12:year). The original Supreme Court case files from 1862 to 1935 are in the State Archives.