They did the statehood thing during the war, that's a little too involved.
I was thinking Oregon.
For many of the soldiers the Civil War in Oregon was a monotonous, numbing assignment. In their monthly post returns, officers recorded desertions, suicides, and bouts in the brig because of drunkenness and misbehavior. The Indians were quiet on the Siletz and Grand Ronde reservations. The rain was predictable and depressing. "Nothing transpired of importance," recorded Royal A. Bensell, a soldier at Fort Yamhill. Too many days brought that refrain in his Civil War diary.
Sounds peaceful.
Nevada being admitted as a state (let alone territory) at the time it was was a bit dubious as its population was so incredibly low and prone to massive (as a percentage) fluctuations. It had only about 6,900 people at the time it was made a territory (!) in 1861 (although the Dakota Territory, also organized the same year, had about the same amount, a little less even).
When folks started flooding into the Bonanza Country (around Virginia City), Lincoln & Congress jumped the gun with admitting it as a state in ‘64. Besides the obvious intention of adding a Republican state (and 3 EV’s to Lincoln’s column), there was also the presumption it would have spectacular growth in the mining areas and that Virginia City in particular would become a large metropolis. For the first 15 years, it looked like it would... that was until the big bust came along and Virginia City was effectively looted for its wealth which was then sent down to San Francisco. Virginia City became a near ghost town (which it still is today) and in many other areas of the state other boom and bust towns sprang up, but between 1880 and 1890, NV’s population (after growing at 600% between 1860-70 and 50% between 1870-80) plummeted by nearly 25%. The state pols then embraced economic radicalism, becoming Free Silverites (and they, in turn, became Democrats after 1900 — indeed, only 5 Republicans were elected Governor from 1890 up until 1978).
Not until 1910 did the state recover its previous losses (and had a more stable population center at Reno — Las Vegas was little better than a hamlet and didn’t take off until the 1950s), but not until 1940 did the state even reach 100,000 and remained the least populous state until Alaska was admitted in 1959.
Anyway, yes, Nevada was certainly not the most ideal place to relocate to during the 1860s. The heat, the rowdy and dangerous primitive mining towns... Just getting out there could get you killed, between the Indians and unscrupulous land speculators giving you fictitious maps to get you where you were going. This was scarcely less than 15 years after the Donner Party came through, barely getting out of the area into California.
As for Oregon, it, too, was very isolated, although not nearly as hot as NV (although there are sections in the SE part of the state that are no different, but those areas then, and today, have almost no one living there). If you weren’t mining or trying to farmstead there was little to do but drink (or if you were lucky to be near a settlement such as Virginia City, you could go whoring with women that would make the ugliest FReeper “Guilty !” hag look like Adriana Lima or Miranda Kerr).
Those were definitely hardy types in those days that could just pull up stakes either alone or with family and move into a dangerous and largely unsettled territory to spread civilization. Hard to believe we’re descended from these folks, they’d be embarrassed at how good we have it these days and the things we routinely complain about... nothing like what they had to endure without a big coddling Socialist nanny-state government.