Massacre Lake Explained

Massacre Lake
Location:	Washoe County, Nevada
Coordinates:	41.6533°N -119.605°W
Elevation:	1704m (5,591feet)
Pushpin Map:	Nevada
Pushpin Map Alt:	Massacre Lake

Massacre Lake is a lake in the northwest of the U.S. state of Nevada. It was named in commemoration of a supposed 1850 massacre of a party of pioneers.^{[1] [2] [3]} However, a later study suggested that the supposed massacre never took place, due to it being absent in contemporary records.^[4] The lake is the site of the oldest known mastodon remains in North America, dating to 16.5-16.4 million years ago.^[5]

Notes and References

1. Book: Origin of Place Names: Nevada . W.P.A. . Federal Writers' Project . 1941 . 70.
2. The Origin of Place Names cites: Book: Mack, Effie Mona . "Nevada: A History of the State from the Earliest Times Through the Civil War" . Effie Mona Mack . 1936 . May 24, 2023.
3. Mack cites News: Nevada Section is Weird Land . May 24, 2023 . March 11, 1931 . Sacramento Bee.
4. Thomas N. Layton, "Massacre! What Massacre? An inquiry into the Massacre of 1850," p 241-251, Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, Winter 1977.
5. Koenigswald, Widga & Göhlich (2021): New mammutids (Proboscidea) from the Clarendonian and Hemphillian of Oregon – a survey of Mio-Pliocene mammutids from North America