The Library of Congress provides access to Statutes at Large 39th Congress 1st Session page 43 "An Act concerning the Boundaries of the State of Nevada" which was approved May 5, 1866. This offered the State of Nevada land from the territories of Utah and Arizona that bordered Nevada on the east and south. James Warren Nye who served as Governor and then as U.S. Senator from the State of Nevada, served on the Committee on Territories which recommended passage of S. 155 (39th Congress, 1st Session) which took land from both Mohave and Pah-Ute counties in the Territory of Arizona. The triangular section of land bounded by 37 degrees north latitude and running to the California border now forms the southern tip of Nevada where Las Vegas is located.

• The subject of Statehood was first broached in 1877, when [Arizona Territorial] Governor A. P. K. Safford, in a measure to the Arizona Legislature, predicted that the Territory "will soon become a State."