36 years ago this month

Several new books about Nevada have come out in time for the Christmas season, including Stan Paher's "Las Vegas, As It Began-As It Grew."

More than 208 photos, about 95 percent of them believed to be published for the first time, illustrate Paher's history, taking Las Vegas from its Spanish Trail days, past 1906 when Ed Von Tobel Sr. decided that his lumber yard located five blocks from Fremont St., was too far from town, on through the construction of Boulder Dam in the '30's and up to the early '40's when El Rancho Vegas was the most elegant casino in town.

It's cotton pickin' time, with clear skies and a snow-capped Charleston Peak in the background. Bucho Alcaala, working for the Mizpah Ranch in Pahrump Valley, fired up his John Deere 699 cotton picker and went to work.

Adverse weather conditions, including a cold snap around Nov. 5, are expected to drop last year's yield of about 1-1/4 bales per acre to one bale per acre. The price of cotton is higher this year and farmers expect to average about the same profit margin.

30 years ago this week

Nevada Bell will begin installation in February of a new cable along Pahrump Valley Boulevard capable of handling 1,200 new main telephone stations. The $250,000 project will cover about five miles from the central office to Gamebird.

The cable will be "plowed" into the earth about three or four feet deep. Work is expected to be completed by April. In 1977, 110 new main station phones were installed in Pahrump Valley with about five more expected before the end of the year. That is a 21 percent increase in hook-ups for Pahrump during the past year.

What do you do with 700 pounds of loose leaf marijuana?

Well, if you're the Nye County sheriff's office, you use up a lot of space in the storage vault holding it for evidence.

The 40-some garbage bags full of weed are being held as evidence in the case of the two men arrested Dec 8 in Tonopah. The pair, Randy Komko, 29, Upper Lake, Calif., and Doug Scherer, 29, Austin, Texas, are awaiting extradition. What will happen to the marijuana? District Attorney Peter Knight said some of it will be kept as evidence but most of it will probably be destroyed soon.

20 years ago this week

The Pahrump Valley Times begins its 18th year of publishing with this Christmas issue. The first issue of the paper had not yet appeared when the late Tom Parsons engaged the publisher in conversation one night at his Denny's Café on East Street. Tom was concerned that the newsstand cost might be too high. When told that the paper would be circulated to begin with "free of charge," Tom said that probably wouldn't be too much.

Opponents of building the nation's first high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain won't find much support from the Pahrump Town Board. None of the five members of the board oppose the repository.

"I think it's a good idea," said board member Chuck Connely. "They had all those shots and they didn't hurt a thing. I think finding a site has been political."

Connely feels Nevada could have made out better, "I think we should have told them, sure, we'll take it -- but we want some of the good projects, too."

For many years, the sites of crashes by Tonopah Army Air Field aircraft during World War II have been known to many of the older residents and recorded in the annuals of Central Nevada history. Now a project is under way to make those sites better known to the public.

The Central Nevada Historical Society currently is placing plaques marking the crash sites, according to a story in the society's journal. As of now, plaques have been placed on Thunder Mountain, Mexican Butte and at the site one mile southeast of the field. The plaques list the dates and times of the crashes which involved B-24 bombers, and the names of those involved.

10 years ago this week

Pahrump won't have a beery Christmas or a happy new beer. Octoberfest celebrations have come and gone with no local brew to raise a toast with.

Proposed start-up dates have been targeted and then have vanished as more pages have been torn from the calendars. Much has changed since the summer ground-breaking more than two years ago on Oakridge off Manse in south Pahrump, including the name.

What started out as Black Sheep Brewery is now going to be the Silver Strike Brewery.

According to Nye County auditor-recorder Naoma Lydon, many county residents have received a homesteading application form from an Arizona company. Not only does Lydon want residents to know the application was not sent by her office, she warns it is "somewhat misleading in content."

Lydon said her office has been inundated with phone calls from residents concerned with the notice, particularly in Pahrump. The application is being mailed by a company in Phoenix and is soliciting a $30 processing fee from residents.

The people of Pahrump have given more than ever this Christmas season to what seems to be an ever-growing group of needy families in the valley, according to No To Abuse Director Kathy Scott.

No To Abuse serves as the home base of the newly formed Salvation Army, which has contributed greatly to the effort to provide Christmas dinner and presents for those in Pahrump who otherwise would not be able to afford them.