Hawthorne

Hawthorne was selected in 1880 by H. M. Yerington, president of the Carson and Colorado Railroad Co., as a division and distribution site for the new railroad. The townsite stood beside the important Knapp's Station and Ferry Landing on the busy Esmeralda Toll Road from Wadsworth to Candelaria, with roads radiating to surrounding mining areas. Yerington named the town after a lumberman friend in Carson City, and on April 14, 1881, the first train arrived carrying prospective buyers for the new town lots. In 1883 Hawthorne took the Esmeralda County seat from declining Aurora, later lost it to booming Goldfield, and in 1911 became the county seat of the new Mineral County. After a destructive munitions explosion in the east in 1926, the military chose Hawthorne for a new site; in 1928 Governor Balzar, a former citizen, turned the first shovel of dirt and dedicated the new depot, which officially opened in 1930. Hawthorne also became a central point for desert travelers and for vacation activity on nearby Walker Lake.

Hawthorne, Nevada · United States