Roop County, Nevada Genealogy

United States Nevada  Roop County

Roop County was created 2 December 1862 by renaming Lake County. Roop County was discontinued and split between California and Nevada 7 February 1865.

At the time the California-Nevada border was in dispute. Utah had claimed most of the Great Basin including the east slope of the Sierra Nevada in 1849. California claimed the border was the present border, dozens of miles east of the crest of the Sierra Nevada. In 1856 residents of Honey Lake Valley (Susanville) began the Nataqua Territory movement that eventually led to the creation of Nevada. The Nataqua Territory convention said their valley was outside California and thereby implied the Sierra Nevada crest was their border. Roop County was one of the names given to the Nataqua (later Nevada) claims which also included the Great Basin parts of present-day California. The land that became Roop County straddled the eventual border and underwent several name changes:


 * Nataqua Territory 26 April 1856
 * Nataqua County, Nevada 8 August 1857
 * Lake County, Nevada 2 March 1861
 * Roop County, Nevada 2 December 1862. The Nevada legislature used this name to assert jurisdiction to the crest of the Sierra Nevada.

On 7 February 1865 the Nevada legislature accepted the findings of an official survey that set the California-Nevada border at the 120th degree west longitude. This split Roop County with the most populated Honey Lake Valley part going to Lassen County, California, but the bulk of the Roop County land was consolidated into Washoe County, Nevada.

was created in 2 March 1861 by renaming Nataqua County. At the time the California-Nevada border was in dispute. Lake County was partially in California and partially in Nevada. Most of the Lake County residents were in Honey Lake Valley (Susanville) on what a few years later was decided to be the California side of the border. But at the time they believed they were in Nevada because they lived on the east side of the Sierra Nevada. The bulk of the land of Lake County was in present-day Nevada.

On 2 December 1862 the Nevada legislature asserted their jurisdiction over Honey Lake Valley by changing the name of Lake County to Roop County. In late 1864 an official survey set the border at the 120th west longitude, splitting Roop (formerly Lake) County. Both the California and Nevada legislatures ratified this settlement by January 1865. Honey Lake Valley went to Lassen County, California but most of the Roop (formerly Lake) County land was consolidated into Washoe County, Nevada.

For Roop County records see:


 * Lassen County, California
 * Washoe County, Nevada