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January 26, 2005
The 10 most important events in Nye history
By BOB McCRACKEN I thought it might be fun, perhaps even instructive, to make a list of the 10 most important events in Nye County history. It goes without saying that such list making is a highly subjective undertaking, with potentially huge differences between people's lists. I define "important" here as "consequences for the time period of the event as well as for the future of Nye County." Number 1: I believe Jim Butler's discovery of the great deposit of silver at what came to be Tonopah in May 1900 was the most important event in Nye County history. His fabulous find led to a huge prospecting boom, which in turn resulted in the establishment of nearly 100 new mining camps in the area, including Goldfield, Manhattan and Round Mountain. Butler's good luck ushered in the last magnificent flowering of the Frontier West in the United States. Number 2: For this position, I combine two events, both the result of federal actions associated with military activities in World War II and its aftermath. The Tonopah Army Air Force Base, located just east of Tonopah, dates to 1940. During World War II, it had a large impact on the people and economy of Central Nevada. Its general liquidation came in 1948. Establishment of the Nevada Test Site began in 1950 and, between 1951 and 1992, 928 nuclear tests (100 atmospheric, 828 underground) were conducted there. Activity at the test site has had an enormous economic impact on Nye County, especially from Tonopah south, and played a major, though generally unacknowledged role in the development of Las Vegas from 1950 through the 1970s. Test site economic impact continues to this day. Number 3: The capture and use of energy is the basis of all human activity. The more complex and elaborate a society, the more dependably available energy it requires. Prior to the early 1960s, Nye County pioneers in the Pahrump and Amargosa valleys had to either generate their own electricity or do without. Sparked by community leaders like Elmer Bowman, Walt Williams, Tim Hafen, and Ted Blosser in the Pahrump Valley and Hank and Robert Records, Ed Mankinen, Ralph Dalton, and Gene Eastabrooks in Amargosa Valley, the Valley Electric Association, an electrical cooperative, was formed. Unlimited supplies of relatively inexpensive electric power became available in the valleys and in Beatty in 1963. That power made possible the modern development of those communities. Number 4: Pahrump's transformation from a desert valley to a big town whose future size seems to be limited only by availability of water started slowly and has been relentlessly picking up steam since the late 1960s. More than anything else, one event gave this growth an enormous boost. In 1970, Preferred Equities Corporation, owned by Leonard Rosen, a former Florida land developer and marketer of products on television, purchased, with his family, the 10,000 acres that remained of the Pahrump Ranch from Walt Williams and began subdividing the property and selling lots. Subdivision of the Pahrump Ranch served as a catalyst and other valley landowners soon followed suit. Number 5: For years prior to 1906, Round Mountain was prospected for silver, not gold. People walked right over rich crystals of gold, thinking they were worthless iron. There are several versions of the story of how the gold was finally discovered in 1906. The most fanciful account says that Laura Stebbins, daughter of a local cowboy, was out searching for a stray cow one day, found a pretty rock, and took it home. Her dad asked her where she found it, and the rest is history. Ms. Stebbins's fancy for a "pretty rock" resulted in the discovery of one of the largest deposits of gold on the face of the earth. Number 6: On Aug. 4, 1904, two prospectors, Frank "Shorty" Harris and Ernest "Ed" Cross found "gold-speckled green rock" in the Bullfrog Hills not far from the present Nye County town of Beatty. The discovery led to a huge gold rush to the area. By 1907, the population of Rhyolite, the largest community to spring up in the area as a result of the discovery, was said to have numbered 7,000. But Rhyolite went down as fast as it sprang up. By 1911, Rhyolite, the "prettiest, coziest, mining town in the Great American desert, a town blessed with ambitious, hopeful, courageous people, and with a climate second to none on earth," as the local newspaper editor put it, was a ghost town. Number 7: In 1957, Walter J. Williams purchased the 12,000-acre Pahrump Ranch, including 16,000 acres of leased grazing land, for about $400,000. Williams became a driving force in the Pahrump Valley when cotton was king there. Number 8: Prior to the arrival of Euro-Americans in the early 1800s, the Western Shoshone Indians occupied all of Nye County north of the Pahrump Valley. The influx of miners and ranchers into their territory between 1860 and about 1910 led to them being pushed aside on their own land and killed or forced to either subsist on scraps or adopt Euro-American ways. Between 1940 and 1944, the federal government purchased 3,785 acres of ranchland at the north end of Railroad Valley at Duckwater and established the Duckwater Reservation for the Western Shoshone. Although comprising only a fragment of the grand domain that once was theirs, the reservation did provide them with a secure homeland. Number 9: This event - or, more accurately, series of events - might eventually be counted as the most important event in Nye County history. Only time will tell. In 1982, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was signed into law. In it, Yucca Mountain, located in Nye County, was designated as one of several candidates for permanent storage of the nation's high-level nuclear waste ("spent nuclear fuel" is a more accurate, less negative term). In 1987, the Act was amended to designate Yucca Mountain the prime and only candidate for storage of this material. Nevada, through its state government officials and Congressional delegation, has vigorously opposed placement of the facility in the state from the beginning. Critics of the state's actions say that such opposition has resulted in years of delay for the program, the waste of billions of dollars, and an increased worldwide reliance on fossil fuels - the main cause of current global warming. Moreover, such opposition has cost Nye County untold numbers of jobs and community development dollars. But the world is changing. Humanity is on the fast track to potentially catastrophic energy shortages in the coming decades (note Number 3). With a Yucca Mountain repository looming ever more likely in the county's future, the focus may well become not just spent nuclear fuel, but energy in general. Nye County could become a world center for energy research and production, with the wealth generated from this activity far surpassing anything now imaginable. Number 10: You pick it. Possible contenders include magnesium mining at Gabbs during World War II; John C. Fremont's travels in Northern Nye County on his third expedition in 1845; the discovery of gold at Manhattan in 1905; the shooting of Nye County Sheriff Thomas W. Logan April 6, 1906; construction and operation of the Tonopah & Tidewater, Las Vegas and Tonopah, and Tonopah and Goldfield railroads around 1905. Do you have your own candidates for the list? McCracken is the author of A History of Pahrump, Nevada and 11 other books about Nye County published by the Nye County Press. Send questions and comments to rdmassociates@yahoo.com. |
