William D. Rowley Papers

Born on August 4, 1939 in Chariton, Iowa, William D. Rowley graduated Lincoln High School, Tacoma, Washington, 1957. He attended the University of Puget Sound, graduating with a B.A. in History in 1961. That same year, he began graduate education in history at the University of Nebraska, courtesy of a 3-year National Defense Fellowship that resulted in an M.A. in 1963 and Ph.D. in 1966. Rowley taught one academic year (1966-67) as a temporary assistant professor at the University of Nebraska before moving to the University of Nevada in the fall of 1967. Subsequently, he taught summer school at the University of Nebraska in 1976 and 1989. In 1971, he was granted promotion to associate professor and tenure at the University of Nevada, Reno, and became a full professor in 1985. From 1988 to his retirement in 2015, Rowley served as the Griffen Chair in Nevada and the West.

Over his many active years in history, Rowley taught a variety of classes in the History Department from Nevada history to Westward Movement in American History, Environmental History, and U.S. Government – Native American Relations. He also spent a great deal of time in research and writing both book-length histories as well as articles, government publications, and professional presentations. Some of his major books include M. L. Wilson and the Campaign for the Domestic Allotment Plan (University of Nebraska Press, 1970), Reno: Hub of the Washoe Country (Woodland Hills, California: Windsor Publications, 1984), and Reclaiming the Arid West: The Career of Francis G. Newlands (University of Indiana Press, 1996).

Outside of his position at UNR, Rowley also served widely within the larger history profession, serving on committees, working with conferences, and acting as an expert witness in court cases. He served seventeen years as Executive Secretary of the Western History Association (1974-1990) and local arrangements chair for three local conferences of the Western History Association in Reno and Lake Tahoe (1970, 1990, 2010). He also brought other historical organizations to Reno for their academic conferences, especially the Agricultural History Society. Rowley served as expert witness on several important cases concerning water rights and grazing questions in the American West for the U.S. Department of Justice. Most prominent was the in-stream water rights case in Greely, Colorado and the Wayne Hage Case over grazing issues with the Bureau of Land Management tried in Reno, Nevada in 2011-2012.

From 2002-2009, Rowley was a key figure in applying for and implementing cooperation with the Washoe County School District to win five Teaching American History Grants from the U.S. Department of Education. The grants totaled nearly five million dollars and enabled academics from the university’s History Department to work with American history teachers in the Washoe County School District to improve their American history knowledge and teaching skills. On two occasions summer institutes were held in Elko, Nevada to serve teachers across northern Nevada.