Bullionville
Lincoln County, Lincoln County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Bullionville. Bullionville began early in 1870 when John H. Ely and W. H. Raymond, removed their five-stamp at Hiko and placed it at to this point. The enterprise prospered and during the next two years most of nearby Pioche’s mills were located here because of the proximity to water. The town grew rapidly and by 1875 it had five mills, a population of 500, and the first iron foundry in eastern Nevada. During the same year a water works was constructed at Pioche, which eventually led to the relocation of the mills. Although a plant was erected here in 1880 to work the tailings deposited by the former mills, this failed to prevent the decline of Bullionville.
Erected by Nevada Historical Society
The Story
Bullionville sprang up in 1870 when John H. Ely and W. H. Raymond moved a five-stamp mill here from Hiko, drawn by the water that nearby Pioche lacked. Because ore could be milled beside a reliable water supply, most of Pioche's mills soon relocated here, and by 1875 the town had five mills, 500 residents, and eastern Nevada's first iron foundry. When a Pioche waterworks was built that same year, the mills drifted back, and even a tailings-reworking plant in 1880 could not halt the town's decline.
Why it matters
Bullionville is a case study in how water, more than ore, dictated where mining wealth was actually processed — and how quickly a town could empty when that advantage moved.
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Related people
- · John H. Ely
- · W. H. Raymond
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Panaca Spring
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The steady flow of warm water from Panaca Spring made a green oasis of Meadow Valley in the surrounding desert. First noted by the ill-fated Death Valley party of 1849, the site was briefly cultivated in 1858 by Brigham Young's White Mountain Mission men seeking a refuge from a feared federal invasion of Utah, then abandoned when that crisis passed. Dependent on the spring, Mormon settlers returned to found Panaca in 1864—the first permanent settlement in southern Nevada—and organized the Meadow Valley Mining District that same year.
Panaca Mercantile
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Built of adobe in 1868, this building — long known as the Panaca Co-op — housed the Panaca Cooperative Mercantile Institution, a member-owned venture of more than a hundred stockholders formed to handle the community's barter, merchandising, and marketing. Six-mule teams hauled wagons of goods down from Salt Lake and returned laden with produce from the surrounding region.
Panaca
Lincoln County, NV
Founded in 1864 by Francis C. Lee and fellow Mormon colonists, Panaca became southern Nevada's first permanent settlement—poor in resources but rich in the persistence of its people. Though mines boomed at nearby Bullionville and Pioche, and coke ovens fed their smelters in the 1870s, Panaca stayed an agricultural town. Originally part of Utah, it was transferred to Nevada by Congress in 1866, touching off a bitter tax dispute finally settled in the settlers' favor in 1871. Little changed, the town endures today.
Pioche
Lincoln County, NV
Silver was found in these mountains in 1864, but Pioche did not truly ignite until 1869, when its mines opened and drew a wild rush of prospectors and fortune seekers. Through the 1870s the town earned a hard reputation for gunmen and courtroom feuds even as miners pulled more than five million dollars in ore from the ground by 1872. Boom gave way to bust and near-abandonment by 1900, yet Pioche endured as the Lincoln County seat and supply center, and a lead-zinc revival beginning in 1937 brought two more prosperous decades.