Minden

History

It was founded in 1906 by Heinrich Friedrich Dangberg Jr., who named it after the town of Minden, in the German state of Prussia, which was near his father's birthplace. A large share of the first settlers were Germans. Minden was founded on company land of the Dangberg Home Ranch and Dangberg commissioned most of the town's early buildings. Minden has had a post office since 1906. Minden sounded a "sundown siren" at 6pm almost every evening from 1917 until 2023, originally signifying that members of the Washoe Indian tribe were required to leave town by 6:30pm or face jail or fine. Douglas County fully repealed its sundown ordinance in the mid-1970s. In 2021, the State of Nevada passed a law that prohibits communities from sounding signals associated with a past law "which required persons of a particular race, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin or color to leave the town by a certain time." Minden Town Manager J. D. Frisbee claimed the law doesn't apply to them stating, "There’s a (Minden) ordinance in place right now that says that the siren sounds every day in commemoration of our first responders. … It never went off at 6:30, when the county had an ordinance to get Native Americans out of town." After another Nevada law targeting sundown sirens, S.B. 391, was passed in 2023, Minden finally silenced the siren. Marty Meeden, a retired elementary school teacher of Washoe descent, expressed relief, saying, "Did you hear about the partially deaf senior woman who was verbalized for being in town after sunset? Did you hear about the routine picking up of our young men who were beaten and then left out in the fields?... This is the history we as children learned in regards to the siren."

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the census-designated place (CDP) of Minden has a total area of , of which is land and (0.5%) is water. The Carson Valley and Minden are considered one of the top gliding spots in the world. Flights of over have been made on sailplanes from this location. Its location, east of the Sierra Nevada range, favors lee wave formation. East of the Pine Nuts mountains is the Nevada desert, one of the best thermal generators in the world. U.S. Highway 395 runs through Minden. It is also the terminus of State Route 88, which becomes California State Route 88 on the west side of the state line. Minden has a cool semi-arid climate (Köppen BSk) with huge diurnal temperature variations during all seasons. Summers are hot to very hot during the day, with 68.5 afternoons topping and 5.7 afternoons getting over . However, mornings even in summer are very cool to cold and between June and August, an average of 1.2 mornings will fall under freezing. Rainfall is very rare during the summer as the monsoon practically never reaches this far north: in July more than four years in ten record no measurable precipitation and only one in twenty expects . Winter afternoons are cool and frequently sunny, but mornings are freezing to frigid. Temperatures of or below can be expected on two mornings each winter, although all but 4.7 afternoons each year can be expected to top freezing, whilst during the three winter months 45.9 afternoons will typically top . The hottest temperature on record is on July 6, 2007 and the coldest , which occurred on January 21, 1916, January 26, 1949 and February 7, 1989. The coldest afternoon was on January 9, 1937 when the temperature did not top and the hottest minimum on August 28 and 29, 1906; June 25, 1927;…

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Steller's Jay

  Cyanocitta stelleri (Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  2,800
• Canada Goose (canadensis Group)

  Branta canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,635
• Mountain Chickadee

  Poecile gambeli (Ridgway, 1886) · Aves
  2,619
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  2,617
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  2,421
• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  2,393
• Northern Flicker

  Colaptes auratus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,249
• Red-tailed Hawk

  Buteo jamaicensis (Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  2,171

Most recent

• M 2.63 — 2026-09-13
  18 km SE of Silver Springs, Nevada
• M 2.71 — 2026-09-13
  18 km SE of Silver Springs, Nevada
• M 2.7 — 2026-08-24
  3 km W of Walker, CA
• M 2.65 — 2026-08-22
  20 km ESE of Silver Springs, Nevada
• M 2.54 — 2026-08-18
  20 km ESE of Silver Springs, Nevada
• M 3.29 — 2026-08-05
  22 km NNE of Yerington, Nevada