Clark County School District Archives

     With continued expansion of the Las Vegas area and the Westside, Kit Carson Elementary School was built. Kit Carson's given name was Christopher Carson. His exploits throughout the West are part of the frontier lore of our country. He was born in Kentucky in 1809 and in 1826 he left for New Mexico. He mostly worked as a trapper and a trader with time out for service in the Union Army during the Civil War. He could not read or write but he was an expert tracker, and John C. Fremont hired Carson to guide his party along the Oregon Trail. He explored the West from New Mexico to California to the Rocky Mountains. He became famous through John C. Fremont’s expedition accounts. He came through Las Vegas and Nevada the first time as part of the Fremont expedition.

     Kit Carson Elementary School opened in 1956. It was a neighborhood school until the Sixth Grade Center Integration Plan when it became a Sixth Grade Center. Eventually, Carson became a Prime 6 neighborhood school and in 2011-12, was converted to a magnet school. It is now Kit Carson College Preparatory Academy of Creative Arts and Technology. Carson is part of the International Baccalaureate (IB) school network. The IB program stresses inquiry learning.