When Las Vegas started as a small railroad town in 1905, Armenian farmers, craftsmen, and merchants showed little interest in settling in a place best known for its arid desert, sparse natural resources, and limited trade connections. But over time, Armenians escaping persecution and genocide in their ancestral homeland in the eastern Mediterranean began to settle in Los Angeles, Fresno, and Las Vegas. Though Southern Nevada seemed at first to be an unlikely spot to forge a “new Armenia,” it is now home to 20,000 Armenians.