Winnemucca

The Humboldt River winds west through a dry country of valleys and mountains in the northern Great Basin. Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone communities lived along its course and used the plants, animals and waters of the surrounding country. In 1828 the Hudson's Bay Company trader Peter Skene Ogden reached the river during an expedition into the interior. Unsure where its waters led, he called it the Unknown River; its course would become familiar to other fur traders in the years that followed.