CLARA DUNHAM CROWELL

Titular “sheriff” of Austin worked as hospital matron

Clara Crowell has been touted as the first female sheriff in Nevada. She was given the title to legitimize an allowance from the city of Austin to help her to survive as a widow when her sheriff husband unexpectedly passed away and she was left with two young children to raise and no income to do so.

During her two-year tenure as acting sheriff, she did conduct some sheriff-type duties but documentation shows she also worked occasionally in low-paying jobs as a waitress, nurse and a matron at the local hospital.

 In later years, stories circulated about Clara, but her reputation as a “crime-fighter with a tough reputation” seems a bit misleading. Other than the two-year appointment as sheriff, the author found that Clara Dunham Crowell collected a monthly $25 “mother’s allowance” from the county and that she worked at the Lander County Hospital, first in nursing and then as a matron.

Clara Dunham was the fifth of seven children born to Edward G. Dunham, originally from the state of New York, and Julia Gula Dunham, born in Vermont. Clara began her life on April 7, 1876, in Austin, Nevada where her father was employed as a house painter and her mother a homemaker. Clara’s six siblings were: Almira, Catherine, Julia, Minnie, Edward, and Will. According to a biography written by Phillip L. Earl in the Humboldt Historian, Spring 1983, Clara Dunham grew up in Austin, Nevada.

Austin was mapped out in 1862 as a result of a silver boom which ended by 1887. The town became the county seat of Lander County. The Nevada Central Railroad was built to connect Austin with the transcontinental railroad in Battle Mountain, Nevada in 1880, but by 1880 the silver boom was almost over. Census records and Phillip I. Earl document that she completed the 6th grade in a town where schooling was most likely a luxury.  Earl wrote that Clara worked as a waitress prior to her meeting and marrying George Crowell in 1898. Clara was 22 years of age at the time of the marriage, and her husband was 34 years of age. The Crowells had two children, George Jr., born in 1900, and a daughter, Dolly Ruth, who was born in 1907. It is this author’s opinion that life for Clara Crowell was often very hard. She had two children to care for and not much in the way of resources to ease the burden of living in a mining town in the early 1900s.

In 1911, son George died at the age of 11 from pneumonia. Her husband George had been self-employed operating a stage line during the marriage while at the same time running for various elective offices. He had been elected to the Lander County Board of Commissioners in 1904 but had suffered defeat when running for sheriff in 1908 and 1912.  In 1918 he was finally elected sheriff of Lander County, but shortly after being sworn in as sheriff in January of 1919, health issues surfaced and “he was taken to Oakland, California for further medical treatment.”

On February 24, 1919, Clara became a widow with no apparent means of support. The citizens of Austin petitioned the Board of Commissioners in Lander County to name 42-year-old Clara Crowell to the position of sheriff, which they did. Clara became sheriff in March 1919 with no experience and little backing from her subordinates. She would be a “place holder” and the actual job of sheriff would fall to Deputy Thomas White. However, there is an article in the Eureka Sentinel of December 1919, that tells of Clara going to Battle Mountain to transport Teddy Hansen to Austin. He plead guilty of “beating a board bill at the International cafe” and was sentenced to thirty-days in the county jail.

In a 1980 article, Phillip Earl tells of Clara’s work as a sheriff.

“Over the next year and a half, she broke up fights in saloons, took in bootleggers, apprehended an Austin merchant who had been selling liquor to the Indians and traveled to Battle Mountain to assist Deputy Jack Phelps in his duties. When Phelps was wounded in taking a bootlegger into custody in June of 1920, she aided the Nevada State Police in the capture of his assailant and saw to the appointment of Jack Madison as Phelps’ temporary replacement. She also investigated an outbreak of dog poisoning in Austin, gathered evidence for the prosecution of a burglar and conducted a Sheriff’s Sale of the assets of a defunct mining company.”

During her two years in office, Clara would take a leave of absence to care for her ailing mother and another when she traveled to San Francisco due to a “nervous disorder,” according to Phillip I. Earl.

In later years, stories circulated about Clara, picturing her as a crime-fighter with a tough reputation. This author could find no documentation to back up these claims. Instead, the author found that Clara Dunham Crowell collected a $25 a month “mother’s allowance” from the county and that she worked at the Lander County Hospital, first in nursing and then as a matron. By the 1930 census, Clara Dunham Crowell, age 54, was listed as not working. In the 1940 census, at age 63, she was listed as a matron at the Lander County Hospital. According to Phillip I. Earl, Clara resigned her position at the hospital due to health reasons in July of 1940 and moved to Reno to live with a sister.

She died on June 20, 1942. She and George, and their son George, Jr. are buried in the Austin, Nevada, Calvary Cemetery.

Researched and written by Marcia Cuccaro. January 2016, updated 2025.