Ormsby County, Nevada was a
county of Nevada from 1861 until 1969. It contained
Carson City, the
county seat, and later, the
state capital, founded two years earlier. It was named after Major
William M. Ormsby, one of the original settlers of Carson City, killed along with seventy-five other white men in 1860, in an unsuccessful attempt to subdue a perceived uprising of Paiute Indians near Pyramid Lake, Nevada, which was at the time part of
Utah Territory.