Nevada Press Association The best in Nevada journalism since 1924
Related Articles
Nellie Mighels Davis was the first woman to cover the Nevada Legislature, reporting on the assembly in 1877 and 1879, when her husband Henry Rust Mighels owned the Nevada Morning Appeal. When he died in the spring of 1879, Nellie assumed ownership and took over as publisher of the Carson City paper at the age of thirty-five.
She hired Samuel Post Davis as editor; they were married the following year on July 4. Davis assumed management of the paper after the wedding and the family retained ownership of the Appeal until 1945, when Nellie died at 101.
One of her seven children, Henry R. Mighels Jr., was named editor of the Appeal in 1898 and remained in the position for at least 30 years.
In 1897, Mighels Davis also became the first woman ever to report a prize fight, when the Corbett-Fitzsimmons fight was held in Carson City. Nevada was then the only state in the U.S. where professional boxing was legal. She was paid $50 for the story by a Chicago newspaper. “I was for Fitzsimmons and I had a bet on with Mr. Woodburn,” Mighels Davis recounted. According to the Nevada Women’s History Project, she was one of only a few women – mostly prostitutes – in the audience. She used her maiden name on the story to avoid “disgracing” herself and her friends by revealing she had been present at the fight.
In 1899, during the Spanish-American War, Mighels Davis organized the Red Cross in Nevada and became the first State President.
More on Mighels Davis:
