Located in the northwestern part of the state of Nevada and a city in Washoe County and is situated in the Truckee River. Sparks is geographically adjacent to the city of Reno and is part of the Reno-Sparks distribution center that is mainly residential. Sparks was originally named Harriman after the railroad company’s president and was then founded as a switching road and a repair center in 1904 for the Southern Pacific Railroad. The city was immediately renamed as Sparks in honor of the then Governor John T. Sparks of Nevada, who owns a nearby ranch and who unsuccessfully opposed the legislation to regulate the tariff of the railroads. Sparks then grew slowly until 1950 after a postwar building boom has seen its conversion into a suburb of the nearby Reno. And at the start of the 21st century, Sparks then became Nevada’s fourth-largest city.