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Archaeological Site · Partly submerged (museum)

Pueblo Grande de Nevada, the Lost City

300 to 1100 AD · partly flooded 1930s, Moapa Valley, near Overton, Nevada
RECOVERED
Evidence status: Historical tradition. no documented source (historical tradition); legal status unknown (manual verification recommended). This account is presented as historical tradition, not verified fact. Manual verification recommended. Repository evidence: 0 sources · 0 timeline events · 0 media items · legal unknown · view on the Map Evidence on file: historical tradition

Pueblo Grande de Nevada, the Lost City: still unexplained.

An Ancestral Puebloan city, salt mines and all, under the lake's edge

The law of this ground: NPS / Nevada heritage, the Lost City Museum at Overton holds the finds; the ground is protected.
The subject
developing the photograph…
Of note
An Ancestral Puebloan city, salt mines and all, under the lake's edge
The account

For eight centuries Ancestral Puebloans farmed the Moapa Valley, hundreds of pithouses, rock shelters, and ancient salt mines strung along the river, a settlement so large the diggers of the 1920s called it the Lost City. They raced to excavate it in the 1930s before Lake Mead rose and swallowed the richest part. What they saved fills a museum; the rest lies under the water's edge.

Leads, where the trail points now
  • Pin down the most specific last-known position in the record before going; the search centers on Moapa Valley, near Overton, Nevada.
  • What you are chasing is An Ancestral Puebloan city, salt mines and all, under the lake's edge. Work the documented record of Pueblo Grande de Nevada, the Lost City back to primary sources and separate what is attested from folklore.
  • NPS / Nevada heritage, the Lost City Museum at Overton holds the finds; the ground is protected.
What the record holds

What remains open

  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
What we know, and what we don't
Established

No documentary claim is yet established. The account rests on tradition.

Still open
  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
The evidence room

No documentary or visual exhibits have been located yet. The trail below and the open leads are where this dossier grows next — every exhibit that enters here carries a source.

Where the trail points now
  • Pin down the most specific last-known position in the record before going; the search centers on Moapa Valley, near Overton, Nevada.
  • What you are chasing is An Ancestral Puebloan city, salt mines and all, under the lake's edge. Work the documented record of Pueblo Grande de Nevada, the Lost City back to primary sources and separate what is attested from folklore.
  • NPS / Nevada heritage, the Lost City Museum at Overton holds the finds; the ground is protected.
  • Search Library of Congress + DPLA (IIIF) for period cartography of the site.
  • Run Chronicling America for dated newspaper mentions.
  • Query NARA for archival records tied to the site.

Have a source, a map, or a clipping? Add a lead and it enters the record with its citation.

Start the hunt here
The first leads, so no one walks in cold.
Sources and the record
Related case files

The full hunt kit

Starting brief, what's known and disputed, evidence timeline, source list, map card, coordinate-confidence and legal-access summaries, and a field checklist, free with a Fellowship account.

Latest Word From the Newswire

Context, not proof. The dossier's own sources remain the evidence record.

Checking the wire…

Chart position 36.500°, -114.430° (approx.) View on the Map