The Grand Dame of Southern Nevada: Helen J. Stewart (1854-1926) | America 250

This excerpt from "The First 100: Portraits of the Men and Women Who Shaped Las Vegas" is presented with permission from the publisher. Copies of the book are available for purchase at LasVegasAdvisor.com.

By K.J. Evans

Hot, sore, and covered in dust, Archie Stewart pulled the freight wagon into the shade of the cottonwood trees on that blistering July day in 1884. He had been away from the Las Vegas Ranch for several days, delivering produce and livestock to miners in Eldorado Canyon. A couple of his hired men approached and began to unhitch the tired team. Stewart jumped down, slapped the dust off his pants legs, wiped his face and neck with his bandana, and walked toward the house.

His wife, Helen, was inside, still trying to decide how to tell her husband about the unsettling incident that had occurred a few days earlier. A ranch hand, Schyler Henry, had announced he was quitting and demanded his wages from Helen Stewart. She explained that she did not know how much he was owed, and that he would have to wait until her husband returned. Henry blustered, threatened, and insulted Helen, but she held firm. 

It is unknown exactly what Schyler Henry said to Helen Stewart. She never repeated it, except to remark that the ranch hand owned a "black-hearted slanderer's tongue." But it was sufficiently provocative that Archibald Stewart saddled a horse, put his rifle in its scabbard, and rode off for the Kiel Ranch, near the present location of Carey Avenue and Losee Road in North Las Vegas. Operated by Conrad Kiel and his son, Edwin, the ranch had a well-deserved reputation as a haven and hangout for various badmen, outlaws, and scoundrels, men like Hank Parrish and Jack Longstreet. 

When Archie Stewart arrived at the ranch, he tied his horse to a tree behind a growth of grapevines and walked slowly to the back of the house. He evidently fired the first shot and missed. A short firefight ensued and when it was over, Stewart was dead with wounds in the chest and head. Schyler Henry received two flesh wounds.

At first, the killing was credited solely to Hank Parrish, who promptly disappeared. Conrad Kiel and Schyler Henry were hauled before a grand jury in Pioche. The jury declined to indict. As for Parrish, he was later tried and hanged in Ely for the last in a long line of murders.

The case remains unsolved to this day. But Helen Stewart believed for the rest of her life that the Kiels, Henry, and Parrish all had a part in her husband's death, and that the whole drama between her and Henry had been a ruse concocted to lure her husband to the ranch and kill him. 
 

Helen Stewart believed for the rest of her life that ... the whole drama between her and Henry had been a ruse concocted to lure her husband to the ranch and kill him. 

The woman who became known as "The First Lady of Las Vegas" was born Helen Jane Wiser on April 16, 1854, in Springfield, Illinois. When she was 9, her parents took their five children west, to Sacramento, California. At age 18, she married 38-year-old Archibald Stewart. The newlyweds were then off for Lincoln County, where Archie had been running a freighting business since 1868. He also had a ranch near Pioche, where he raised cattle and vegetables. He had wisely combined his ranching and freighting operations, so when the inevitable boom and bust cycles rolled through the Pioche mines, he was able to prosper by hauling his goods as far north as Eureka and as far south as Eldorado Canyon.

By 1876, the Stewarts, now with sons William James and Hiram Richard, had moved into Pioche, much to the delight of Helen Stewart, who yearned for a social life. In 1879, Archibald Stewart purchased another local ranch, and he also made a loan that changed the course of Nevada history. 

Octavius Decatur Gass had developed a marginally successful ranching and farming operation around the abandoned Mormon Fort that had been built in 1855 near what is today the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard North and Washington Avenue. In August 1879, he persuaded Stewart to loan him $5,000 in gold at 2.5 percent interest per month, payable in one year. Gass had been trying to sell the place since 1868, and he took the money and ran. Which is how, in 1880, Stewart acquired the 960-acre ranch and set about doing what no one had done before — making it profitable. 

He told Helen he planned to move the family to Las Vegas. She was horrified. She was pregnant and frightened at the prospect of having the child without another woman in attendance, and was concerned about the lack of educational opportunities for her sons. Archie soothed her, saying it was to be only a temporary move. 

In 1886, Frank Roger Stewart, no relation to Archibald, arrived [to the ranch] from Sandy Valley, where he and a partner had operated a store and post office. He proved an unusually valuable ranch hand. He was also a convivial host, and visitors observed that he spent a great deal of time in the wine cellar, entertaining travelers with wine and wit. Helen Stewart and Frank Stewart had a close relationship, based originally on his value as an employee. But the relationship evolved into something deeper and, by 1903, into marriage.

Because of its location, the Las Vegas Ranch had long been a message center for the region, and in June 1893, Helen Stewart was named postmaster of the "Los Vegas" post office. Authorities insisted on the incorrect spelling for fear of confusing the office with Las Vegas, New Mexico.

Stewart decided that the best way to ensure a quality education for her two daughters and her youngest boy, little Archibald, would be to pack them off to boarding school in California. Will and Hiram, having reached adulthood, split the ranch duties. Hiram handled most of the livestock and married the new schoolteacher at the ranch in 1896. Will tended to the crops and became involved in civic duties.

In July 1899, young Archie was chasing wild horses at the ranch. He fell from his own horse, and was killed. His mother took the news harder than she had taken even the news of her husband's death.

Talk of a railroad through the valley had been circulating since 1889, and in 1902, Stewart signed a contract that became the de facto birth certificate for the city of Las Vegas.

Helen Stewart died of cancer on March 6, 1926. The loss of a great pioneer woman was bad enough, and it was aggravated by the fact that her executors sold her treasured basket collection at auction the following year.

Her funeral was one of the largest the city had seen. Mourners from all over the state paid homage to the legendary lady who had wrung a living from a harsh land, suffered hardships modern people cannot imagine, and ultimately prevailed. She was interred in a special vault hammered out of caliche on her "Four Acres." In the 1970s, the burial plot was purchased by Bunker Brothers Mortuary, which owned the adjacent land. The remains of Archie and Helen Stewart, as well as those of their sons Hiram and Will, are now in Bunker's Eden Vale Mausoleum, a stone's throw from the site of the old home place.

Portions of the article have been omitted for brevity and clarity. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of Vegas PBS.