Yount's Sawmill

Clark County

Disclaimer: I'm going to post this here, just so everybody sees it first. The sawmill is on public land. Everybody is welcome to go look at it legally and respectfully. Just beyond the sawmill is a big, metal, LOCKED gate with NO TRESPASSING signs all over it. Beyond that gate is about 600 acres of private property belonging to a good friend of mine. He is an upstanding, law-abiding individual. He also knows how to handle himself and has absolutely zero tolerance for trespassers and criminals on his land. First and foremost, there is nothing of value up there worth trying to haul down off that mountain. The last guys who tried stealing from him up there, were caught, convicted and served lengthy prison sentences. The last tweekers that were caught trying to dismantle the sawmill for scrap, got federally charged for antiquities act stuff. Again, he's a fantastic guy, but he will NOT tolerate any bad deeds or illegal activity on his land. The remnants of the logger's cabins are on PRIVATE PROPERTY. I will not disclose where. And it's not worth getting caught trying to find them. Please be respectful. And please stay off of his land unless given permission.

Joseph Yount first ended up in the Pahrump Valley in 1876 or 1877. He started a ranching operation that would be known as Yount's Ranch or Manse Ranch. He is one of the most prominent individuals in early Pahrump history. Manse Road is a major thoroughfare in Pahrump today. He fed and took care of travelers coming through the area. It has been said that until the Johnnie boom in the 1890's, Yount's nearest neighbor was 50 miles away in Las Vegas. These neighbors were other ranchers with well-known Las Vegas names today. The Gass and Stewart families. In 1891, the first post office in the Pahrump Valley operated at his ranch. I'm not sure of a specific year, but during this specific period of time, Yount and Nehemiah Clark built a sawmill high up in the timber filled Spring Mountains above the ranch. The sawmill operated for many years. It supplied timber to the area mines, as well as to the railroads. The railroads used it to make railroad ties for the tracks going to Rhyolite and Bullfrog. Freight haulers and the Ivanpah-to-Bullfrog stage drivers utilized Yount's Ranch as a stop for several years in the early 1900's. Yount sold the ranch to Harsha White in 1905. Yount died in 1907. The sawmill finally stopped operations in 1915.

If you go to the mining park in Death Valley located at Furnace Creek, you can still see a couple pieces of original equipment used in the logging operations at Yount's Sawmill.

The photographs of the sawmill are public property. The photos of the log miner's cabins are private property- NO TRESPASSING. The photos of the old equipment used at Yount's Sawmill in the 1800's are from the Death Valley Mining Park in Furnace Creek.

Last Trip/ Road Conditions: I spent many Fall days up there cutting firewood on the private property for years. This is located in Clark County on the Pahrump side of the Spring Mountains, just across the Nye County line. This area is very remote and a long way from town. The roads aren't horrible, but they are definitely truck roads. They also change and are highly impacted by the weather. This is high elevation, big timber country, sitting at 7,800 feet. Once the snow hits, it's brutal up there.