A call to silence Nevada town's siren and its stigma

Every evening at 6 pm in the town of Minden, Nevada, population about 3,000, a siren atop a tower on the firehouse goes off.

Some town officials say the blaring siren that also goes off at noon is sounded to honor its volunteer fire department. Some residents say they think of it as a dinner bell. Others, especially members of the Washoe Tribe, say it is an echo from decades ago when the siren served as a warning for Native Americans to leave the town before sunset.

In the early 1900s, "sundown sirens'' were once popular in so-called sundown towns in the South and Midwest, where non-white residents were ordered to leave town in the evening.

Historians estimate there were as many as 10,000 so-called sundown towns across the US during their peak in the 1970s. Roughly 44 of the 89 counties along Route 66 — stretching from Illinois to California — were sundown towns, some posting signs that read "Don't Let the Sun Set on You Here", accompanied by a racial slur.

The laws often targeted black residents, though in some places were meant to exclude a town's Native American population, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The sirens sounded at 6:30 pm.

In 1908, Douglas County — encompassing Minden and a handful of other municipalities — enacted its ordinance that took aim at Native Americans, requiring them to leave town by 6:30 pm — a half-hour after a town siren sounded each night, under threat of arrest, jail time or fines.

Douglas County remained a sundown town until June 27, 1974, when the law enacted in 1908 was repealed. Minden's siren was briefly turned off in 2006, but it voted to turn the siren on again two months later to honor emergency personnel, the Review-Journal reported at the time. The siren has remained in effect, sounding at noon and 6 pm every day.

Under legislation signed June 4 by Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak that takes effect this autumn, communities are prohibited from sounding signals associated with a past law "which required persons of a particular race, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin or color to leave the town by a specific time".

Assembly Bill 88 (AB88) also requires public schools and charters, universities and community colleges to change any name, logo, mascot, song or identifier that is "racially discriminatory" or "associated with the Confederate States of America or a federally recognized Indian tribe". Exceptions can be made only with tribal approval.

AB 88 passed the state Assembly 36-6. But it barely cleared the Senate, with 12 members in favor, eight opposed and one excused.

Assemblyman Howard Watts, a Democrat representing Las Vegas in the Nevada Assembly, added the sundown siren provision to AB88, according to the Review-Journal, and said it was directed at Minden.

Watts said he introduced the amendment after hearing from members of the Washoe tribe, the native people who were in Minden first, and non-indigenous residents about the history of the Minden siren and its connection to the sundown ordinance.

"There have been jokes made in schools and public spaces where indigenous peoples are present of, 'Oh — it's time for you to go,'" Watts said of the siren sounding.

"It's something that is still deeply hurtful," he told NBC affiliate KRNV. "There are still members of the Washoe tribe and others who know exactly what it means when that goes off."

Minden Town Manager J.D. Frisby told the Reno Gazette that the town doesn't consider the language in AB88 to apply to them since they have stated that the nightly siren isn't related to the sundown ordinance but is rather intended to honor the town's volunteer fire department.

Washoe Tribal Chairman Serrell Smokey said he is only asking that Minden silence the 6 pm siren because of its racist past. "You could play the siren every hour of every single day — except for 6," he told News 4-Fox 11.

In August 2020, he posted a video on Facebook about why his tribe has fought to rid the siren from the town, which is located on the tribe's ancestral land: "It's more than just shutting a siren down. It's about acknowledging the history of this town, acknowledging the fact that there was a huge amount of racism, a huge amount of discrimination towards nonwhite citizens, mainly the Washoe people that lived in this area."

Said Watts: "I think the town very much wants (the siren) to just be about honoring first responders. But the fact that it was routinely sounded, daily, 30 minutes before an ordinance on the town's books told Native Americans they need to get out of town, I don't think is a coincidence."