Nevada State Museum Carson City

The Nevada State Museum in Carson City occupies the original U.S. Mint building, a magnificent mid-Victorian structure where Nevada silver was struck into coins for two decades after statehood. As a Smithsonian-affiliated institution, the museum maintains exceptional collections of Nevada Native American art and artifacts alongside natural history and mining exhibits documenting the Comstock Lode silver rush. The building's original coining press — still operable — is the centerpiece of an experience that connects the visual arts of Nevada's Indigenous peoples with the state's extraordinary history of geological wealth and the cultural transformations that followed the discovery of silver in 1859.