FIRST OF A SERIES Sources for the information in this series were the Nevada West Pahrump Valley Times (a monthly publication from 1971 to 1976), the Pahrump Valley Times (weekly from 1976 to 1981), the Pahrump Valley Times-Star (1981-1986) and the Pahrump Valley Times (from 1986 to the present). Other series dates are July 9-11, 16-18, 23-25 and 30-Aug. 1, then on a regular basis thereafter. How Beatty and Tonopah High Schools -- already in existence in 1973 -- related with Trojan teams will be included in this series. There will be continuing commentaries on how important golf and rodeo were in the Pahrump Valley. Advertisement

In 1971, what is now Pahrump was dominated by cotton and alfalfa farms, small country stores, and ranches, where hired hands worked and lived without any idea that just 30 years later, the valley located in southern Nye County would be one of the fastest-growing communities in Nevada.

"The kids used to hang out at the cotton gin ... there would be stacks of cotton seeds ... we would jump into them ... it was like landing in a giant bean-bag chair," said Sherry Allison, nee Thrailkill, in describing life in those early years. Her family had moved to the valley in 1968.

"The boys would ride to school in their trucks, with their guns mounted in racks inside the cab," said Allison. "Some of us would jump into the irrigation canals to see how far the current would take us. Sometimes, we drifted as far as a mile ... then have to walk back!"

Said Allison, the athletics department secretary at PVHS and married to Ron Allison, one of the school's all-time great athletes, "there really wasn't much to do here. We could go to Mankins Corner (where the Bank of America is) to the market ... it had gas pumps and was like a convenience store. And there was the Calvada Inn ... it had a restaurant, a market and a lounge.

"It's where Preferred Equities conducted business; they would fly people into town (and land at the Calvada strip, located between Highway 160 and Calvada Boulevard, not far from the Saddle West).

"Or, there would be tour buses, to show people the property they could buy," said Allison. "Or we could go through the pass into Las Vegas and go shopping at Lucy's on Rainbow. Back then, there was nothing west of Rainbow, except the desert."

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Even the Nevada West Pahrump Valley Times did not have an office in Pahrump; that was located at 1111 Las Vegas Blvd. South in Las Vegas. The Times' first permanent location in Pahrump was in the Charlotta Inn, a hotel run by Ray and Charlotte Floyd.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Preferred Equities had already begun to buy out ranchers in southern Nye County, with the intent of converting the valley into 15,000 lots that some day would house at least 50,000 people.

Cotton was the major crop, with as many as 6,700 bales produced annually. The richness of the land had attracted the ranchers and eventually Preferred Equities.

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A modest settlement was already burgeoning, with as many as 70 valley high school age boys and girls being bused to Death Valley High School. In the early years, they had attended a one-room school house at the south end of the valley. Later, Manse Elementary was instructing children at its site located at the edge of town. Community Park had already been developed, but the only thing between the school and the park were sand dunes. "We would ride through the dunes on our dirt bikes," said Allison.

When children grew up and were ready for high school, they had to endure a 60-mile round trip on a school bus, which took a lot of the fun out of the educational experience. High school-age boys and girls in the Pahrump Valley in the late 1960s and early 1970s were bused to Shoshone, Calif., where Death Valley High School -- created in 1947 by the Inyo County district -- operated.

Beatty, Tonopah and Gabbs already had educational systems that included high schools; those communities, along with Goldfield in Esmeralda County, had benefitted in the early 20th century by the discovery of gold and silver and the influx of miners and the businesses designed to equip and house them.

The Pahrump area was believed to have had settlements as early as the 1860s; the Paiute Indians lived in the area and men seeking wealth in the Gold Rush of 1849 were believed to have trekked through the valley.

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In 1862, according to a Nevada Travel Network history report, "the Pahrump Valley (Big Spring in the lingo of the southern Paiute) attracted great attention when prospecter George Breyfogle appeared in Austin, far to the north, and showed amazingly rich gold samples from a huge deposit he said he's found here."

That find, for years, was believed to be in the Johnnie area; for decades, prospectors worked the area, unsuccessfully seeking Breyfogle's golden treasure.

The story continues. "An assay confirmed the richness of the ore, and the excited Breyfogle hurried south at the head of an eager mob of gold seekers. But storms of the vagaries of memory had played over the landscape to such an extent that the confused man could not find where the gold was waiting.

"The disappointed crowd returned to Austin in disgust, but Breyfogle and other determined prospectors prowled the Pahrump Valley for years in search of the gold. You may be the one to find it; no one else has."

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Aaron and Rosie Winters were the first permanent residents of note, the NTN said. "They had enriched themselves by discovering a vast deposit of borax in Death Valley and established a ranch here with the proceeds.

"To everyone's surprise, they planted wine grapes which flourished in the dry sunshine. Pahrump Valley wines were sold in southern Nevada saloons for many years afterward. By the time the ranchers in the valley managed to attract a post office in 1891, most of them had given up on wine grapes and switched to growing cotton.

"And for the last several decades, lettuce, putting greens and retirement real estate have been the main cash crops," the NTN report says. According to a Western Nevada Times report, a cotton gin was first constructed in the Pahrump Valley in 1959, more than 10 years after cotton farming ranked as the major economic reason the area flourished.

In 1963, a record 6,773 bales of cotton were produced on 2,400 acres allotted to growing the crop in the Pahrump Valley. There were 10 major cotton farms, with Bob Ruud, L.O. (Digger) Anderson, Perry Bowman, Ted Blosser, Lyle Christensen, Hollis Harris and Al Bee's Bell Vista Ranch the leading producers.

After 1963, cotton steadily declined as a major cash crop and by 1983, the decision to discontinue growing it was discussed. In 1979, only 1,376 bales were produced on 1,300 acres, with the payback only 60 cents per pound that year. In 1978, the rate was 70 cents per pound on 58.6 tons.

So, when Preferred Equities decided to invest millions by buying extensive property rights in the valley, the mood was right for that financial enterprise to succeed.

Preferred Equities had its offices in the Circus Circus complex in Las Vegas in those early years; the corporation eventually moved into the former Clark County Teachers Credit Building on Maryland Avenue. Among their early development ideas for the Pahrump Valley was constructing two golf courses and a country club hotel, with $3 million to be invested.

The idea for a high school in Pahrump was first presented in 1971 by Tim Hafen, Nye County's sole representative in the Nevada State Assembly.

The school was one of three major projects Hafen pushed; the others were designed to protect water sources in rural Nevada and a bill to protect land buyers.

The prospects for a new high school being constructed in the Pahrump Valley improved greatly in June 1972. That is when Nye County won its suit claiming that equipment used by private contractors at the Nevada Test Site should be subject to county property taxes.

Almost $8 million in back taxes, which had been accruing since 1965, would be awarded to Nye County, with $3 million going to Clark and Lincoln counties.

The 1970 decision of District Court Judge Kenneth Mann was upheld in the Nevada Supreme Court in February 1972. The right to take that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court expired in May.

An estimated $1.5 million of the back taxes went to the Nye County School District, with the construction of a new high school in the Pahrump Valley designated the first priority.

In June 1972, the Nye County school board met to discuss its welcomed tax windfall. The board had unanimously agreed in May that Pahrump would get its new high school.

Hafen, a prominent Pahrump Valley rancher, believed the cost of a building for 7th to 12th graders would cost $775,000. Eventually, a bond issue for $1.5 million was approved, with the first Pahrump Valley high school building to open in August 1973. The 45-acre site chosen -- at the corner of Calvada and Mt. Charleston -- was in the center of the former Pahrump Ranch. Construction continued through 1973, with the building being dedicated on March 16, 1974.

Thus began the saga of Pahrump Valley High School.