HORACE LANGFORD JR. / PVT Harry Ford, at left, directs crews as they deposit the old Bowman Ranch house at the Pahrump Museum Tuesday morning. Advertisement

There is a new house on the block at the Pahrump Museum on East Basin Avenue.

This house, however, isn't new but another historic addition to what's being billed as Pahrump's Old Main Street, behind the museum's main building.

The Focus Property Group, which bought 230 acres of the Bowman Ranch, agreed to foot the $14,800 bill for transporting the old ranch house to the museum site. The old, wooden house constructed of railroad ties made the trip from South Hafen Ranch Road to the museum Tuesday morning without a problem.

The Bowman Ranch house, built in 1948, was set down next to the old Pahrump one-room school house and the general store, which was formerly located off Highway 160 and 372. Those two buildings were moved to the museum site last year.

"We see regular dwelling units but this one was unusual. We did more research into it and found out that the house was constructed in the 1940s as part of the Bowman Ranch at the time," said Tom Cardin, Focus vice-president of community development. "We heard about the Pahrump Museum and a lot of the things they were doing and thought it would be an excellent organization to be involved with."

Mark Bowman, whose father, Perry Bowman, built the house two years after arriving in the Pahrump Valley, was looking on as the house was set down. The Bowmans moved to the valley from Logandale. Mark Bowman was born in 1952 and lived in the ranch house with his brother Gary and sisters Janet, Karen and Laraine, who all slept in one bedroom until 1959, when his father built a new home.

Ranch workers then lived in the home until about five years ago, Bowman said.

"It's in good company here. These are buildings that I remember as a kid which extends an interest and appreciation for the museum part of what this valley is becoming. On behalf of our family, we would like to show our appreciation," Bowman said.

"When you go through a town, they have this central historical area, you see these little homes and things that portray the early days of a town. You don't really think that's going to happen for you," he said.

Harry Ford, also a resident of Pahrump Valley since 1946 and the curator of the Pahrump Museum, spent 18 years developing the museum project. Ford initially donated 1.8 acres for the original museum site, then another 1.8 acres on which the old Bowman ranch house sits.

Ford spent six years in the old red school house on the museum grounds. Concrete pads have been installed beneath the old buildings.

"When it's all finished the gate will be open and the fence will be done, and you'll be able to start up at the top (of the museum) and start at the one little house and the museum building, and when you come on down you'll come down to Pahrump's Old Main Street," Ford said.

An asphalt parking lot and concrete walk will be paved in front of the three historic buildings. The six-foot chain-link fence from the main museum site will be extended south to include the Main Street area. Some landscaping is planned. Two old silos sit farther south of the buildings.

Ford, however, said he prefers to take things one at a time. He couldn't say when the public would be able to tour the three buildings. The Bowman family is paying for the restoration of the ranch house, Ford said.

"It's just trying to protect and preserve the old buildings of Pahrump, and we just about have to put them all together," Ford said. 'It's such a great thing because in Southern Nevada they bulldoze everything, and this house would've been bulldozed."

The weather Tuesday was unusually mild compared to the hot summer days when the Bowmans farmed cotton in the Pahrump Valley up until the 1970s.

"There was a cistern outside, it'd bring water into the sinks and the bathroom. We did have a septic system," Bowman said of his early childhood in the ranch house. "The building had a diesel generator which ran it. We'd run it in the day, then turn it off at night, lights out."

The family tended to ranch chores after dark as well, tending to the animals and the irrigation system, but they always sat together at the dinner table.

"When cotton kicked in, it was a very good cash crop," Bowman said. But he added, "The cultivation part of it produced a huge amount of dust. Mom and dad said we're going to build a house that's kind of out of that stream."

That led to Perry Bowman building a house that still stands on Highway 160 and CAAS Road.