The information below has been compiled from a variety of sources. If the reader has access to information that can be documented and that will correct or add to this woman’s biographical information, please contact the Nevada Women’s History Project.
At a glance:
Born: April 30, 1925, Billings, Montana
Died: October 14, 2013, Baker, Nevada
Maiden Name: Josephine Anne Brown
Race: Caucasian
Married: Donald E. Garrett, m: Sept. 20, 1946; div: Jan 1971; partner Joe Griggs,1972
Children: Mark, Dianne, Carolyn, David
Primary cities and counties of residence and work: Baker, Nevada
Major fields of work: Environmental activism
Environmental activist opposed MX missiles, Yucca Mountain waste site
Jo Anne Garrett went for a walk in a snowstorm near her Baker, Nevada, home on October 10, 2013. She was 88 years young and never returned. She was reported missing the following day. Search and Rescue personnel and local residents combed the area for several days before discovering Garrett’s body in a wooded area on October 14. She was pronounced dead at the scene. So ended the life of an environmental activist devoted to protecting the Great Basin.
“Jo Anne was best known for her devotion to the environment, especially that of the Great Basin and eastern Nevada,” wrote her friend Denys Koyle. “She and her partner, Joe Griggs, were part of the movement to stop the MX missile program proposed by the Carter administration. Her work with that grass-roots effort led her to become a board member of Citizen Alert and active in opposition to Yucca Mountain.”
Jo Anne was born April 30, 1925, in Billings, Montana, to Harold J. Brown and Mary L Mullowney Brown. The couple had four other children: Harold Patrick, Dean, Jo Anne, Donald, and Barbara. Jo Anne grew up on a dairy farm. The family sold their milk in town. As a girl, she made money as a seamstress, saving money for her education. Her father and older brother, Harold Patrick, were killed in a train accident in 1937, when Jo Anne was 12.
The family moved to southern California and Jo Anne married Donald Garrett in 1946. She graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature in 1950. Her four children, Mark, Dianne, Carolyn and David, were born between 1946 and 1964.
Jo Anne lived in Claremont, California for many years, where she and Donald operated a chemical company, Garrett Research and Development. She also headed the local Planned Parenthood office. She and Donald divorced in 1971.
Jo Anne moved to Baker, Nevada, in 1972 with partner Joe Griggs. They designed and built a house with materials from the land in the shadow of Mount Wheeler. Friends recalled her making elegant meals. They said her house was a gathering place for environmental advocates.
She was an active opponent of the MX missile once proposed for eastern Nevada. At a January 1980 protest in Las Vegas, Jo Anne told the Las Vegas Review Journal that the MX missile project would bring economic inflation to the area, and the project could be destroyed by Russian missiles.
Jo Anne opposed the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility in southern Nevada and protested against Las Vegas’ plan to import water from eastern Nevada. She also opposed the founding of Great Basin National Park, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported in 1986. She said the added visitors would damage the area’s environment.
She was a founding member of the board of the Great Basin Water Network (GBWN) and spoke often about the devastating effects that would follow if the Las Vegas project went forward. She also was a board member of the environmental group Citizen Alert.
“There was a lot for her to fight,” Abby Johnson, Bob Fulkerson and Patrick O’Driscoll wrote High Country News on November 28, 2013. “First was the Cold War ‘shell game’ of the MX missile system. This wacky scheme envisioned confusing the enemy by continuously trucking real and fake nuclear weapons through dozens of remote valleys across Utah and Nevada. Next came the Yucca Mountain repository in southern Nevada, which would be used to bury deadly radioactive waste after it was trucked in from nuclear plants all across America,” the trio wrote.
“After tireless organizing by Garrett and many others helped defeat the first threat and shelve the second scheme, a third menace loomed. This is the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s multibillion-dollar plan to drill wells and pipe away east-central Nevada’s most precious and irreplaceable resource – its groundwater. She helped mobilize the earliest local and regional opposition to the plan.”
In 2005, Jo Anne received a Golden Pinecone Award from Environmental Leadership in an event titled “The Pinecone Ball.” The award is presented for environmental excellence by regional advocates.
Jo Anne Garrett loved where she lived, the trio wrote. Her high-desert retreat fueled her intense drive to protect the landscape and people of the Great Basin.
Garrett, however, was no firebrand, they said. She delivered precise criticisms against project promoters with such grace and civility that they often failed to realize she’d left them bleeding, for they had yet to even feel the cut.
Jo Anne passed away October 14, 2025. She is buried in the Baker City Cemetery, in Baker, Nevada.
Researched by Patti Bernard and written by Susan Mullen, 2025. Posted December 10, 2025.
Sources of Information:
- Ancestry.com. Montana, U.S., State Deaths, 1907-2018 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2001. [Harold Joseph Brown and Harold Patrick Brown, 1937]
- Ancestry.com. Montana, U.S., Birth Records, 1897-1988 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2017. [Josephine Anne Brown]
- Ancestry.com. California, U.S., County Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1849- 1980 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2017. [Jo Anne Brown to Donald E Garrett]
- Ancestry.com. California, U.S., Divorce Index, 1966-1984 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007. [Josephine A Brown from Donald E Garrett]
- Ancestry.com. U.S., Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. [Josephine Anne Garrett]
- Ancestry.com. Year: 1930; Census Place: Lockwood, Yellowstone, Montana; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 0042; FHL microfilm: 2340999. [Josephine A Brown]
- Ancestry.com. Year: 1940; Census Place: Billings, Yellowstone, Montana; Roll: m-t0627- 02234; Page: 5B; Enumeration District: 56-5B. [Jo Ann Brown]
- Ancestry.com. Year: 1950; Census Place: Contra Costa, California; Roll: 3276; Page: 8; Enumeration District: 7-67A. [Jo Anne Garrett]
- Brean, Henry. “A remote pocket of solitude where quiet beauty reigns. Great Basin, Nevada’s only national park, lies 250 miles from Las Vegas.” Las Vegas Review-Journal (Las Vegas, Nevada), 29 June 2014, p.1B,11B.
- Brean, Henry. “Defeated commissioner says county can’t win water fight.” Las Vegas Review Journal (Las Vegas, Nevada), 13 Sept 2004, p.1A,6A.
- Brean, Henry. “Great Basin National Park Celebrates 20 Years.” Las Vegas Review-Journal (Las Vegas, Nevada), 30 Oct 2006, p. 1B,9B.
- Brean, Henry. “Groundwater Pumping: Pipeline obstacle looming. Water board seeks hearing on Snake Valley watershed. Las Vegas Review-Journal (Las Vegas, Nevada), 2 June 2008, p. 1B,7B.
- Brean, Henry. “Water authority hires state’s former top water regulator. Turnipseed to advise Southern Nevada agency about rural resources.” Las Vegas Review-Journal (Las Vegas, Nevada), 26 April 2005, p.2B.
- Brean, Henry and Ed Vogel. “Rural residents oppose water pipeline. Goshute members, others plead for conservation.” Las Vegas Review-Journal (Las Vegas, Nevada), 8 Oct 2011, p.1B,5B. “Deaths.” The Billings Times. (Billings, Montana), 4 March 1937, p.1. [Harold J. and Harold P. Brown]
- “Ely residents hostile to Air Force about MX.” Las Vegas Review-Journal (Las Vegas, Nevada), 15 Jan 1980, p.14A.
- “Great Basin National Park the site of a new ‘skirmish’.” Elko Daily Free Press (Elko, Nevada), 27, June 1992, p.12.
- Griffith, Martin. “Environmentalists battle over Great Basin park.” Reno Gazette-Journal (Reno, Nevada), 21 June 1992, p.8B.
- Griffith, Martin. “Experts debate plans for park.” Las Vegas Review-Journal (Las Vegas, Nevada), 26 June 1992, p.1B,5B.
- Johnson, Abby, B Fulkerson, and Patrick O’Driscoll. “A Remembrance of Jo Anne Garrett.” High Country News (Paonia, Colorado). 28 Nov 2013.
- Josephine Anne “Jo Anne” Brown Garrett. The Ely Times (Ely, Nevada), 1 Nov 2013.
- “Longtime Nevada Environmental Activist, Jo Anne Garrett dies at 88.” Nevada Appeal (Carson City, Nevada), 18 Oct 2013.
- “Longtime Nevada Environmental Activist, Jo Anne Garrett dies at 88.” Las Vegas Review Journal (Las Vegas, Nevada), 18 Oct 2013.
- “Missile base.” Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada), 30 July 1979, p.4. Sec: The Journal Forum. Readers Voice Opinions.
- “Plan to pipe water to Vegas spurs recall drive in White Pine County.” Reno Gazette-Journal (Reno, Nevada), 14 April 2004, p.11C.
- Riley, Brendan. “BLM, company devise water deal.” Reno Gazette-Journal (Reno, Nevada), 13 March 2008, p.3A.
- Riley, Brendan. “Developer again seeks water rights. Critics, agency oppose request for Whittmore’s Coyote Springs.” Las Vegas Review-Journal (Las Vegas Review-Journal), 8 Aug 2007, p.5B.
- Riley, Brenden. “Groups sue over rural water.” Reno Gazette-Journal (Reno, Nevada), 24 Aug 2006, p.7A.
- Riley, Brenden. “Official sets water hearing for next year. Coyote Springs developer wants use changed from irrigation to domestic.” Las Vegas Review-Journal (Las Vegas, Nevada), 31 Oct 2007, p.12B.
- “The Pinecone Ball.” Reno Gazette-Journal (Reno, Nevada), 11 Oct 2005, p.6C. Wingard, Laura. “Debate on Nevada national park centers on size.” Las Vegas Review-Journal (Las Vegas, Nevada), 28 April 1986, p.1B.