Arizona is 100, but where is the love?

One hundred years ago today, Arizona was admitted to the union as the 48th state.

To mark the centennial of our southeastern neighbor, we called up historian Dennis McBride from the Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas to talk about the rich history between our two states.

McBride's response: "I can't say Arizona has given us much of anything."

OK. That seems a little harsh for Valentine's Day. Surely there must be something that unites us as a people.

Well, McBride said, the states are certainly more connected now than they were a century ago, when the comparatively tiny populations of Southern Nevada and northwestern Arizona seemed hopelessly divided by harsh desert, steep canyons and the untamed Colorado River.

"There was some mining, but it was isolated on both sides of the river," he offered. "There was a lot of bootlegging on the Arizona Strip and rum-running into St. Thomas."

Seriously? Illegal booze? Is that all you've got?

"Anything significant has come (here) from Southern California and from the mobs in the Midwest when they came out," McBride explained. "There was hardly any reason for people in Arizona to come to Nevada before Hoover Dam was built, and there's still hardly any reason for it."

Come on, Dennis, you're killing us. Please, just give us something -- anything -- to make this century-old relationship seem worth the bother.

Two words, McBride said: "Lottery tickets."

Happy birthday, Arizona!

Here's a look at our cross-border bond by the numbers:

48: years between Nevada's admission to the union in 1864 and Arizona statehood in 1912.

145: The number of years that have passed since the area including present-day Clark County was removed from the Arizona Territory and added to Nevada.

2,700,551: The total population of Nevada, according to the 2010 census. More than 72 percent of the population lives in the Las Vegas Valley.

4,192,887: people living in the Phoenix metropolitan area, which accounts for about 66 percent of Arizona's total population.

0: ways of driving across the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona before the highway across the top of Hoover Dam opened in December 1935. Until then, motorists had to drive to Needles, Calif., or cross the river by ferry.

15,000: The rough number of vehicles that now cross the river every day using the Hoover Dam bypass bridge, which opened in 2010.

$330 million: How much the Southern Nevada Water Authority agreed to pay in 2004 for Arizona to bank water from the Colorado for future use in Nevada.

22.5: The average number of flights each day from McCarran International Airport to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Las Vegas' second-most popular destination behind Los Angeles.

7: percent of Las Vegas visitors who come here from Arizona, according to the most recent data from tourism officials. California accounts for 30 percent of our total visitor volume. Southern California accounts for 26 percent.

30-17: UNLV's combined record in men's basketball against Arizona, Arizona State and Northern Arizona universities.

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.