CHURCHILL

county, west-central Nevada, U.S. An original Nevada county, Churchill was created in 1861. The county seat, Fallon, is about 60 miles (100 km) east of Reno. The Carson-Truckee Project (completed 1903) and Lahontan Dam (completed 1914), built on the Walker, Truckee, and Carson rivers, provided the reclamation and irrigation that changed much of the county from a desert into a major agricultural area, producing various crops, poultry, and honey. Area 4,929 square miles (12,767 square km). Pop. (1990) 17,938. northernmost seaport of Canada, in northeastern Manitoba. It lies on the west coast of Hudson Bay at the mouth of the Churchill River. It was named after John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, who was governor of the Hudson's Bay Company (168591). The company's original wooden Fort Churchill, built on the site in 1688, burned in 1689 and was replaced in 1718; it was superseded (173171) by the stone Fort Prince of Wales (partly restored as a national historic site). After completion in 1931 of the Hudson Bay Railway from The Pas (550 miles [885 km southwest]) to Churchill, it became a major grain-exporting port (JulyOctober) with the advantage of a short sea route to Europe. Fort Churchill military base, used by Canada and the United States to engineer test equipment under Arctic conditions, is located to the southeast. Akudlik, a community of Eskimos, was established nearby in 1955. Churchill has no road links and can be reached only by rail, air, and sea. Its Eskimo Museum houses one of Canada's finest collections of Eskimo art. Pop. (1991) 1,143.