Panaca Ward Chapel

The oldest building in Lincoln County is a plain adobe meetinghouse, raised in 1867 and 1868 from mud dug out of the swamps west of town. It was built as a Mormon chapel but did the work of a whole community — schoolhouse on weekdays, recreation hall when needed, church on Sunday — exactly the kind of all-purpose building that anchored small Mormon settlements across the Great Basin. That it still stands, a century and a half on, says as much about the people as about the adobe.

What the plaque says

Oldest building in Lincoln County, constructed in 1867-1868 of adobe from the swamps west of town. Built as a Mormon chapel, used also as a school and recreation hall, it is typical of the development in small Mormon pioneer communities in the intermountain west during the mid 1800’s.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cathedral Gorge State Park — 2.4 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 Mercantile — steps away
• Panaca — steps away
• Panaca Spring — 0.3 mi
• Bullionville — 1.5 mi