36 years ago this month

New Projects Get Underway - Calvada Park, Parsons Lodge, Miller - Brown Sand and Gravel. Plans for a new building to house a lodge, restaurant and realty office have been announced by Tom Parsons, operator of the Pahrump Café.

The project "High Chaparral Lodge and Restaurant" is expected to be constructed by August on seven acres with 1060 feet of highway frontage.

Work on Calvada's Comstock mobile home park is underway. Early fall is the target date for completion of 140 spaces (with a total of 670 units).

The Manse Ranch, six miles south of the community of Pahrump and located near the Nye-Clark County line, is not much of a landmark anymore.

Around the turn of the century it was a busy place where ranchers, teamsters and railroad men mingled with hard-rock miners and Indians. The Manse was in fact, sort of a "dude ranch" for miners and prospectors.

30 years ago this week

Pahrump Valley seniors recently dismantled and moved a building from Indian Springs AFB for restoration as a senior citizen center.

Land on which to build the center was donated by Carl and Bea Floyd located east of their home on Basin Road.

Grants from the state and county for the Pahrump Valley seniors facility, will be presented to representatives at a July 1 ceremony; a picnic will follow at the Community Center Park.

Last weekend, members of the Pahrump Valley Volunteer Fire Department opened their fireworks sale booth on the east side of the fire station for their annual fund-raising campaign.

Profits from this year's sales are ear-marked for the purchase of a water tanker to add to the department's fire fighting equipment, according to Fire Chief Ron Perry.

With the building dedication and open house still a week away, some occupants of the Nye County Complex have already moved into the new building. Sheriff's Deputy Larry Massoli and dispatcher Helen Halstead gave a short guided tour through the portion of the complex devoted to the sheriff's sub-station and jail facilities.

20 years ago this week

Six thousand acres burned north of Mt. Springs Summit. It was a fire that Mountain Springs residents will be talking about for years - and one that has already drawn the attention of federal officials over its cause and the way it was fought.

The blaze covered some 6,000 acres and burned for over two days before finally being brought under control.

Actor Martin Sheen and 196 other nuclear testing opponents were arrested during an early morning protest Monday at the Nevada Test Site. Nye County Sheriff's Department officials in Mercury said that while there were 197 arrests, many of them were arrested twice for repeating the violation after being picked up the first time.

A suit seeking to establish whether the sheriff should be a voting member of the Nye County brothel licensing board has been filed by the Chicken Ranch brothel.

The ordinance passed June 6 makes the sheriff a non-voting member of the board. D.A. Phil Dunleavey said the sheriff investigates issues relating to brothels and so should not pass judgment on his own investigative work.

$160 Million Drug Bust in Sandy Valley - Federal drug agents had some good news . . . and some embarrassing bad news . . . recently following the largest drug bust in Nevada history.

On the one hand, the officials of the Drug Enforcement Administration were popping their buttons over the Sandy Valley raid that netted 675 pounds of cocaine - with a street value of about $160 million - but apparently the pilot who flew in the drugs escaped custody.

10 years ago this week

Taco Bell finds right ingredients in Pahrump Valley, Hang on to your burritos, folks, Pahrump's fast food corridor is about to get a little more crowded.

Restaurant franchise company Las Cal Corp. has announced plans to build a "new-look" Taco Bell restaurant on Highway 160 in front of Smith's Food and Drug. Taco Bell will join Burger King, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Blimpie, Baskin-Robbins, Kenny Roger's Roasters and Domino's Pizza.

Women's softball team sweeps twinbill. H and M Pipe and Supply are within striking distance of Starfire Realty.

H and M - the only team to beat first place Starfire this season in the Pahrump Women's Softball League - swept its doubleheader at Petrack Park June 4th to maintain its hold on second place.

H and M hammered Nationwide Homes 18 - 6 and crushed Cabinet West 30 - 10.

Radioactive gas found in contaminated soil on the site of U.S. Ecology near Beatty three years ago has increased its level seven-fold in one year. The recent federal monitoring report reveals the low-level radioactive waste dump is contaminated with tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen.

The good news: scientists and federal environmental officials are not concerned with potential health issues at the Mojave Desert site, citing the relative short radioactive half life of tritium of 12 and-a-half years. The gas decays to safer levels in time.

U.S. 95 has received special attention from the Nye County Sheriff's Office and the highway patrol in recent weeks that has resulted in a number of arrests and citations.

On May 30, 10 deputies and two troopers combined for saturation patrols from Beatty south to the county line near Mercury. During the interdiction from 4 to 10 p.m. there were 69 traffic stops, 32 citations issued and three arrests - one for DUI and two for driving with a suspended license for previous DUI's.