Pioche

Lincoln County

Most of the Nevada mining camps that are written about on this website were small and short-lived. It can be tough to find much information on them. You can find books from a few authors like Hall, Paher and Patera. You can also find a few websites like NVExpeditions, Ray Dunakin, Forgotten Nevada and NVTami. But beyond that, it gets tough to find further information. That's why I am also writing about them on this website. With that said, towns like Austin, Battle Mountain, Beatty, Belmont, Caliente, Dayton, Elko, Eureka, Goldfield, Manhattan, Pioche, Tonopah and Virginia City (Comstock/ Gold Hill & Silver City) are NOT those camps. These places were massive mining towns with expansive and long-spanning mining histories. Each of these towns had populations in the thousands. A simple internet search will reveal a long list of websites that have written about these places. These towns are also still populated to this day. From a couple dozen in Belmont, to 2,500 in Tonopah, and 15,000 in Dayton. Therefore, I am not going to re-write the same history that can already be found in great detail on the internet. I am going to post extensive historical photographs for each of these towns though. Each one of these towns also has its own Nevada historical marker from the Nevada- State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). Each one of these towns will have their historical quote posted to its page.

Also see the following pages: Caselton; Pioche Boot Hill Cemetery (Pioche was an incredibly violent town in its earlier years. Some say that it was one of the most violent towns in the west. Check out the inscriptions on some of the grave markers at Boot Hill); Pioche Catholic Cemetery; Pioche City Cemetery; Pioche IOOF (Odd Fellows)/ Masonic Cemetery; Pioche- Aerial Tramway; Pioche- Godby Mill; Pioche- Raymond & Ely Mine.

Nevada Historical Marker #5- Pioche:
"Silver ore was discovered in this range of mountains in 1864, but no important development took place until 1869 when mines were opened and the town of Pioche appeared. Pioche soon became the scene of a wild rush of prospectors and fortune seekers and gained a reputation in the 1870's for tough gunmen and bitter lawsuits. Over five million dollars in ore was taken out by 1872, and by 1900 Pioche was nearly a ghost town. Designated as the seat of Lincoln County in 1871, Pioche survived hard times as a supply and government center for a vast area. In later years, notably World War II, profitable lead-zinc deposits were developed."