Searchlight

Searchlight was bigger than Las Vegas once. A prospector's gold strike around 1897 set off the boom, and the Quartette Mill became one of the camp's finest producers, drawing a railroad whose first train was met in 1907 by a fifty-piece cowboy band. At its peak that year the town had over forty working mines and some five thousand people, more than the railroad townsite of Las Vegas to the north. The panic of 1907 hit hard, and Searchlight dwindled to a small desert town. It is best known now as the boyhood home of U.S. Senator Harry Reid.

What the plaque says

Initial discoveries of predominately gold ore were first made at this location on May 6, 1897. G.F. Colton filed the first claim, later to become the Duplex Mine. The Quartette Mining Company, formed in 1900, became the mainstay of the Searchlight district, producing almost half of the area’s total output. In May 1902, a 16 mile narrow-gauge railroad was built down the hill to the company’s mill on the Colorado River. On March 31, 1907, the 23.22 mile Barnwell and Searchlight Railroad connected the town with the then main Santa Fe line from Needles to Mojave. By 1919 trains travelled over the B. and S. Railroad only twice a week. A severe washout on September 23, 1923, halted traffic completely. Train service was never restored. Searchlight is the birthplace of U.S. Senator Harry Reid (b.1939) who became the first Nevadan to serve as the Senate Majority Leader, a position he assumed in 2007.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Goodsprings Mining District 1856-1957 — 24 mi
• The Camel Corps — 24 mi
• Eldorado Canyon — 25 mi