Rafael Rivera

The valley was found by a man who wandered off looking for water. On Christmas Day 1829, while Antonio Armijo's party camped northeast of here, a scouting party rode west, and a young Mexican scout named Rafael Rivera left the others and pushed alone into unmapped desert. He became the first person not native to this country to view and cross the Las Vegas Valley, and he blazed a route on to the Mojave River by way of the Amargosa. Rivera's path became a vital link in the Old Spanish Trail. Legend credits him with naming the meadows—las vegas.

What the plaque says

This historical marker commemorates the valor and service of pioneer scout Rafael Rivera, the first Caucasian of record to view and traverse Las Vegas valley. Scouting for Antonia Armijo's sixty man trading party from Abiquiu, N.M. in January 1830. Young Rivera ascended Vegas Wash twenty miles east of this marker and blazed a route to the Mojave River in California by way of the Amargosa River. Rivera's pioneering route became a vital link in the Old Spanish Trail, with Las Vegas Springs a most essential stop on this popular route to southern California. John C. Fremont mapped the trail in 1844. Three years later, following an extension of the course to Salt Lake Valley, the route became known in this area as the Mormon Trail. Today the Old Spanish Trail closely parallels inter-state route #15.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Las Vegas Strip — 6.0 mi
  Four and a quarter miles of engineered spectacle — the most famous street in America (and it isn't in Las Vegas)
• Fremont Street — 7.1 mi
  Glitter Gulch — the neon canyon where Las Vegas actually began
• The Mob Museum — 7.2 mi
  Organized crime, told in the downtown courtroom that first exposed it
• Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historic Park — 7.3 mi
  The 1855 adobe fort where Las Vegas began — a mile and a world away from the neon

More markers nearby

• The Morelli House — 6.7 mi
• Original Home of “Pop” Squires (1865-1958) — 6.8 mi
• Las Vegas Mormon Fort (Nevada’s Oldest Building) — 7.5 mi
• Old Spanish Trail — 7.5 mi