Edna B. Patterson Research Papers and Interviews

Edna Burke Patterson was born in Kansas on May 18, 1907. She attended two years of the Colorado Teachers College in Greely, Colorado, and decided to test the profession before finishing her formal education. She was hired as a teacher in Lamoille, Nevada, in about 1927. At the end of the first year she married the clerk of the school board, John Malcolm Patterson and within a few years they were living on the Patterson family ranch at Lamoille.

During the years that her oldest son attended high school, Edna and her children lived in Elko on weekdays, where she began to gather notes about life in historical Elko and to interview long-time residents. She started writing for the local newspaper and eventually published several books on the history of northeast Nevada, including Who Named It, Nevada's Northeast Frontier, Sagebrush Doctors, This Land Was Ours, Halleck Country, and Indian Paint Brush. She authored many articles for magazine and historical journals.

Mrs. Patterson was a member of the State Central Republican Committee and the Nevada State Board of Education, on which she served as the first woman president. She was a founder of the Northeastern Nevada Historical Society, was instrumental in the establishment of the Northeastern Nevada Museum, and served on the Museum's board of directors. She was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Distinguished Nevadan Award from the University of Nevada in 1984.