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At seventeen, Floyd Burton Loveless became the youngest person ever executed by the state of Nevada. What led him to that end was just as tragic. Following a series of family catastrophes, Loveless was a petty thief by age twelve and a confessed rapist at fifteen. Sentenced to seven years at an Indiana state boys" reformatory, he escaped after a month in custody. The ruthless teen robbed his way to Carlin, Nevada, where he shot and killed a constable who spotted the stolen car he was driving and confronted him. After a protracted legal battle, Loveless died in the gas chamber on September 29, 1944. Author Janice Oberding recounts the sordid details that sparked national controversy over the constitutionality of juvenile capital punishment.

Perched on the side of a mountain in the Nevada desert, Virginia City existed for one reason only: to make money. The mining frenzy of the mid-nineteenth century uncovered veins of precious metals that would be expressed in billions today, attracting the enterprising madam Cad Thompson, the charismatic highwayman Nickanora and a plethora of swindlers. Miners, flush with their wages, supported a healthy economy of gambling, drinking and prostitution and even launched a few political careers. Sam Clemens, who became Mark Twain while reporting for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, called it "the livest town that America had ever produced.'? Join author Peter B. Mires as he explores the seamy side of this quintessential mining boomtown.