PHILLIP GOMEZ / PVT Two ditches and dirt berms mark the outlines where a permanent chain-link fence is soon to go up near the corner of highways 372 and 160. The fences are to keep vandals, arsonists and vagrants out of the 19-acre parcel where, until recently, No To Abuse had its offices. The area was recently cleaned up and is slated for future development as a site for warehouses. Advertisement

The old town center of Pahrump from the 1940s and earlier -- now a desert wasteland where people dump their old washing machines, sofas and cars -- is scheduled to undergo a face-lift, and the work already has begun.

Nevada Meridian of Las Vegas, the property owner of some 19 acres of undeveloped scrubland at the location, plans to fence the property to keep out vagrants, vandals and firebugs.

The area is the site of several historic buildings in the process of being relocated to the Pahrump Valley Museum for rehabilitation and preservation. The old Pahrump Store is scheduled to be moved within two weeks, according to historian John Weisser at the museum.

Nevada Meridian, which acquires and sells properties, donated the historic structures to the museum.

A month ago the old schoolhouse was relocated. The decrepit and abused No To Abuse building, a surviving ranch house from Pahrump's ranching days, is slated to be moved later.

Don Suttles, managing member of the corporation that acquired the property in 2004, said his company has plans to construct warehouses on the site "some day." But a chain-link fence is slated to go up "pretty quick," Suttles said.

"People put themselves in danger in cutting across there," he explained.

Already no-trespassing signs and three ditch berms, presumably where the fences will go, barricade dirt roads at cul-de-sacs, preventing entry into the vast wasteland bordered by Pahrump Valley Boulevard and Dandelion Street, Highway 160 and Honeysuckle Park.

"We've had three fires started there," said Suttles. "It's dangerous. It's just not a good idea to leave it open like that." Reports reached him of vagrants using the old buildings to stay in, he said, including a report of youths in a car throwing a Molotov cocktail into the old Pahrump Store.

"Fortunately, they only started a small grass fire, which was quickly extinguished by the fire department," Suttles said.

"The main concern is the (historic) buildings," he said. "They're priceless. They cannot be replaced."

Nevada Meridian began the clean-up of the property last week, the results of which can be seen in the large piles of weeds, tree limbs and debris scattered across the landscape. The company plans to remove the heaps of debris and a few remaining sheds due to the fire hazard.

The appropriately named Firebird Circle, until recently a dirt road to the east of Nevada Meridian's property, was blacktopped just a month or two ago, with two outlets blazed to Highway 160.

The area comprises an old Preferred Equities subdivision yet to be developed. But the parcel appears to be recently staked out and surveyed for lot build-out.