Panaca Mercantile

The adobe store on the corner went up in 1868 as the Panaca Cooperative Mercantile Institution — the co-op, everyone called it — owned by better than a hundred local stockholders who pooled what they had to handle the town's buying and selling at once. Six-mule wagons ran the long haul to Salt Lake and back, carrying out produce and bringing in goods. It was cooperative economics of the strict Mormon kind, and the building it left behind is one of the oldest still standing in Panaca.

What the plaque says

This building, popularly known as the Panaca Co-op, was constructed of adobe in 1868, by the (Mormon) "Panaca Cooperative Mercantile Institution" comprising more than one hundred stock holders -- to meet barter, merchandising, and marketing needs. Wagons from Salt Lake drawn by 6-mule teams, carried stock to, and produce from Panaca and way stations.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cathedral Gorge State Park — 2.3 mi
  A drained ancient lakebed eroded into buff-colored spires and narrow slot "caves" — one of Nevada's first state parks, and the gentle, otherworldly counterweight to the Silver Trails' ghost towns.
• Pioche — 10 mi
  The silver camp that, by legend, out-killed the Old West — Boot Hill's boots-on graves, the graft-ridden Million-Dollar Courthouse, and an aerial tramway still slung over Main Street.

More markers nearby

• Panaca Ward Chapel — steps away
• Panaca — steps away
• Panaca Spring — 0.3 mi
• Bullionville — 1.4 mi