书城外语课外英语-美国各州小知识(七)(双语版)
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第23章 内华达州(6)

8.Pershing County located in Cowboy Country features the only round courthouse(法院,郡政府所在地)in the United States.Update:(the Bucks County Courthouse in Pennsylvania,constructed in 1960,is considered round.Now there are two.)

9.In 1931the Pair-O-Dice Club was the first casino to open on Highway 91,the future Las Vegas Strip.

10.In March 1931Governor Fred Balzar signed into law the bill legalizing gambling in the state.

11.Once the highest concrete dam in the world,Hoover Dam offers guided tours and a museum of artifacts(史前古器物)of the construction and its workers.

12.In Death Valley,the Kangaroo Rat can live its entire life without drinking a drop of liquid.

13.Construction of the Nevada State Capitol located in Carson City was proposed on April 14,1870.Carson City is one of the smallest state capitals in the country.Update:(With current growth,may now be 14th smallest.)

14.The ghost town of Rhyolite([地]流纹岩)still pays homage(敬意)to early pioneers and their dreams.Remains of the depot,glass house,bank and other buildings are on display.

15.In Tonopah the young Jack Dempsey was once the bartender(酒吧间销售酒精饮料的人,酒吧间男招待)and the bouncer(保镖)at the still popular Mispah Hotel and Casino.Famous lawman and folk hero Wyatt Earp once kept the peace in the town.

16.The first recorded white men in the Elko area were fur trappers who trapped beaver in the area starting in 1828.

17.The first community college in Nevada opened in Elko in 1967.Great Basin College was the forerunner of a statewide system associated with the University of Nevada.

18.Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park is constructed around the fossilized remains of ancient,mysterious reptiles within a well-preserved turn-of-the-century Nevada mining camp.

19.The ichthyosaur(鱼龙)is Nevada’s official state fossil.

20.Austin’s oldest church,St.Augustine,requires the establishment’s bells in the tower to be rung by pulling a rope located in the men’s restroom.

21.Nevada takes its name from a Spanish word meaning snow-clad.

22.Most of the state is desert but the Sierra Nevada mountain range near Reno and the Ruby Mountains near Elko has snow for half the year.

23.Locals use terms like The Sagebrush State,The Silver State,and The Battle Born State as nicknames for Nevada.

24.Nevada is the seventh largest state with 110,540square miles,85%of them federally(同盟地,联邦地,联邦政府地)owned including the secret Area 51near the little town of Rachel.

25.Nevada has more mountain ranges than any other state,with its highest point at the 13,145foot top of Boundary Peak near the west-central border.

26.Grammatically,the proper term for the mountains is the Sierra Nevada not the Sierras.Robert Conrad almost called one of his television series High Sierra Rangers but changed it to High Mountain Rangers.

27.Wayne Newton owns a home in the Las Vegas area,and it was a real location for the film “Vegas Vacation”.

28.The longest running show in Las Vegas is the Follies Bergere at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino.It opened in 1959.The production numbers in “Showgirls”were written specifically for the Paul Verhoeven film and shot in the Horizon Hotel at Lake Tahoe.The bulk of the movie used locations located at the Luxor and the Forum Shops at Caesars.

29.You see the name Hughes on numerous locations and developments.Howard Hughes bought up considerable Nevada property before he died in 1976,including the following hotels and casinos:Castaways,Desert Inn,Frontier,Landmark,Sands,Silver Slipper,and Harold’s Club.Part of the Hughes legend was recounted(叙述)in Jonathan Demme’s “Melvin and Howard”.

30.Misfits Flats off Highway 50near Stagecoach takes its name from the John Huston film.Huston used the privately owned area to film a complicated wild horse round up with Clark Gable,Marilyn Monroe,Montgomery Clift and Eli Wallach.

31.Nevada is the largest gold-producing state in the nation.It is second in the world behind South Africa.

32.The state has about 50,000miles of paved road,much of it featured in films like “Vanishing Point”,“Breakdown”,“Rainman”,and “Lethal Weapon 4”.

33.Hoover Dam,the largest single public works project in the history of the United States,contains 3.25million cubic(立方体的,立方的)yards of concrete,which is enough to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York.The dam face was used in an amazing stunt for Roland Emerich’s “Universal Soldier”and has been seen in such films as “Viva Las Vegas”and “Fools Rush In”.

34.The Virginia City steam train still operates and was featured in the Imax project “Mark Twain’s America”.The “steam train”is a modern-day tourist train and does not link back to the original Virginia &Truckee RR which had its last run to Virginia City in 1938.

35.The state’s Highway 50,known as the Loneliest Highway in America,received its name from “Life”magazine in 1986.There are few road stops in the 287mile stretch between Ely and Fernley.

36.Frank Sinatra once owned the Cal-Neva at Lake Tahoe’s Crystal Bay.It is possible to stand in both Nevada and California inside Cal-Neva’s building.

37.Nevada’s smallest incorporated city is Gabbs located about 140miles southeast of Reno.Update:(Gabbs,what was Nevada’s smallest city was disincorporated on May 8,2001)

38.Nevada tribes include the Shoshone,Washo and Paiute.Tribal lands have been used in such film projects as “Misery”,and “The Greatest Story Ever Told”.

39.The Las Vegas Strip is actually under jurisdiction of Clark County and can be seen in just about any film set in the city.

40.Nevada is the only state with an entire museum devoted to the life and time of entertainer Liberace.

41.Writer and commentator(评论员,讲解员)Lowell Thomas called Elko the last cowtown in America.Elko is the home of the annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering.

42.Area 51is acknowledged with State Route 375officially christened(命名为)“The Extraterrestrial(地球外的,宇宙的)Highway”in a ceremony featuring the director and cast of the movie “Independence Day”.The highway runs between Alamo and Tonopah.There is a tiny restaurant stop at the Little Ale’Inn at Rachel.

43.The only Nevada lake with an outlet(出口)to the sea is man made Lake Mead.

44.Camels were used as pack animals in Nevada as late as 1870.