Spring Lecture Series: John Howell at Big Springs

Archaeology of a Dugout House: John Howell at Big Springs

Nathan Harper, Preserve Archaeologist, Springs Preserve

In September 1870, a federal census enumerator rode into Las Vegas Valley to count its inhabitants and record their names and particulars.  He found four households sheltering eight people. Three of these eight were women, indigenous people who were likely native to Las Vegas Valley. The five men all were born elsewhere. Four of them came to prospect and mine in southern Nevada's El Dorado Canyon early in the 1860s. The fifth man, John Howell, was unique.  He was a southerner of mixed African and European ancestry, he could not read or write, and he was not among the miners of 1864.  How he came to be in Las Vegas Valley is still not known, but the family name persists today.

100-years later, in 1972 archaeologists from UNLV surveyed the area of Big Springs for evidence of its previous inhabitants. They identified prehistoric Ancestral Puebloan habitations, an early adobe house, and a dugout house that dated between 1870 and 1890. As we reflect on the 50 years of archaeological research at the Springs Preserve, join Nathan Harper, Preserve Archaeologist to hear how excavations and archival research helped to identify the home of one of the first African-American pioneers of Las Vegas.