St. Thomas, Nevada
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St. Thomas, Nevada, is a ghost town in Clark County, Nevada that was founded by Mormon settlers in 1865 near where the Muddy River flows into the Colorado River. St. Thomas was purchased by the US Federal Government and abandoned as the waters of Lake Mead submerged the town. It is now located within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
Founded by Mormon settlers led by Thomas Smith in 1865, the town grew to become an established town of farms and businesses. The Mormons abandoned St. Thomas in February 1871 due to a shift of the Nevada state line one degree longitude to the east, which put all of the Mormon settlements known as the Muddy Mission in Nevada instead of Utah. The state of Nevada then attempted to collect taxes for previous years payable in gold only from the residents. They chose to leave without paying[citation needed]. The Mormons moved to Utah, where many of them founded new towns in Long Valley (present day Glendale, Orderville, and Mount Carmel).
When the Mormons left, others claimed their abandoned properties. The construction of Hoover Dam and the resulting rise in the waters of the Colorado River forced the abandonment of the town, with the last resident leaving in 1938.
The ruins of St. Thomas are sometimes visible when the water level in Lake Mead is low; they are protected by the National Park Service as a historic site. The cemetery was relocated to Overton, Nevada where there is a St. Thomas interpretive center with a staff archaeologist doing on-going research into the history and settlement of the Muddy River.
