Hawthorne

Hawthorne is a town that lost everything and came back as something else. The Carson and Colorado Railroad laid it out in 1881 as a division point, named for a pioneer lumberman; it took the Esmeralda County seat in 1883, then lost both the railroad and the seat by 1907 when the line was rerouted and Goldfield boomed. Mineral County's creation in 1911 made it a seat again. The lasting rescue came in 1926, when a New Jersey munitions disaster sent the Navy looking for an empty inland site—and chose here.

What the plaque says

Present Mineral Co. Seat -- Former Esmeralda Co. Seat Townsite 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 location was adjacent to the important Knapp's Station and Ferry Landing on the busy Esmeralda Toll Road from Wadsworth to Candelaria Radiating roads ran to all of the surrounding mining areas. Yerington named the new town Hawthorne after a lumberman friend in Carson City and on April 14, 1881, the first train arrived, loaded with prospective buyers for the new town lots. In 1883, Hawthorne took the Esmeralda County seat from declining Aurora but later lost it to booming Goldfield. In 1911, it again became a county seat, this time for the new Mineral County. In 1926, a destructive munitions explosion in the east caused the military to select Hawthorne for a new site. In 1928, Governor Balzar, former citizen of Hawthorne, turned the first shovel of dirt and dedicated the new depot which officially opened in 1930. Hawthorne is a central point for desert travelers and for the vacation activity on nearby Walker Lake.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Carson and Colorado R.R. Freight Depot — 0.6 mi
• Mineral County — 13 mi
• Belleville — 32 mi