39 years ago

Can anyone tell us what the NERVA project was at the Nevada Test Site?

Seriously, if you know, give us a call or drop us an e-mail.

Whatever it was, layoffs due to its mothballing at the Jackass Flats were continuing. From a high of 431 employees March 6, 1971, perhaps 100 were likely to be left at the beginning of the fiscal year in July.

At the adjoining Nevada Test Site, of about 5,000 employees as many as 300 might be laid off with half that number to be rehired when testing resumed later in the year.

Up in Tonopah Bob Perchetti was inviting potential customers to come "raise a little hell at the Tonopah Belle."

Stanley Pahor, author of "Nevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps," contributed an interesting story about the death of Jim Clayton, whose Death Valley grave was marked by the bones of six horses who died with him "when he misjudged the Valley's man-killing temperatures."

Clayton died in the summer of 1900, having crept under a mesquire bush. His horses died in their traces. Amazingly, his dog -- name and breed unknown -- somehow survived the ordeal.

30 years ago

One or two Highway Patrol officers may be stationed in the Pahrump Valley if the state budget is approved, the PVT noted.

The officers were recommended due to increasing growth in the town.

By omitting some minor matters, the Nye County Commission approved $160,000 for the county complex here. That was up from the amount originally approved but down from the low bid submitted by Fremont Construction.

Demand for electricity really leaped, up from the 1978 estimate "to the level originally planned for 1991." New substations in Sandy Valley, Fish Lake Valley and Beatty were also planned, with a larger substation transformer to be installed in Pahrump.

The site for a Catholic Church was cleared and staked on Gamebird off Pahrump Valley Boulevard. It had been donated by "Digger" and Imogene Anderson.

20 years ago

The check for $815,000 that fulfilled a 30-year dream was at hand. It would help ensure completion of the road between Pahrump and Amargosa Valley and have a significant impact on both communities.

A meeting about zoning indicated a split audience, with about half of the 300 present supporting a rewritten zoning ordinance and the other haldindicating "they opposed zoning under and cirucmstances."

A perjury charge against Leslie "Bill" Mankins was dropped. Meanwhile, in an unrelated case, DA Phil Dunleavy was set for a hearing before the state bar association regarding charges brought against him by Sheriff Harold "Stick" Davis.

A total of 6,572 voters were eligible to vote in the special May 2, 1989, election. The Nye and Esmeralda County commissioners as well as Round Mountain Gold Corp., FMC Gold, Sunshine Mining and Cyprus Foote Mineral Co. backed a measure that would "increase the net proceeds taxes which mines in Nevada must pay by over 150 percent."

Lorie Van Gorder discovered a pile of balloons that had been let loose in Canyon Country, Calif., just outside Santa Clarita, at a young man's birthday party. She planned to contact the sender about her find.

10 years ago

An oil shortage was hindering efforts to pave 17 miles of Highway 160 near the Sandy Valley turnoff.

Pahrump prepated to begin its own ambulance service in hopes of offering improved emergency care and bringing in more revenue.

Fire Chief Vern Long was set to take charge of it as well as the fire department.

Work was proceeding on the addition to the Shoshone, Calif., Museum addition that would hold the remains of Milton the mammoth.

The Columbian mammoth was unearthed between Shoshone and Tecopa in 1983 and was believed to have weighed around seven tons when it died as a teenager.

"Scientists believe the Columbian mammoth walked the Earth more than 100,000 years ago, when southern Nevada and eastern California looked more like an African savannah than a desert," The PVT related.

The RPC was preparing to create a three-member committee to prepare a billboard and sign ordinance.

"For some, the item ... is a day late and dollar short, if recent letters to the editor of the Pahrump Valley Times are any indication," wrote the PVT.