Pahranagat Valley
Coordinates: 37 ° 17 ′ 35 " N , 115 ° 7 ′ 28" W.
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The Pahranagat Valley is located in the central part of Lincoln County (Nevada) . A fictional article by humorist Dan DeQuille in the Territorial Enterprise newspaper entitled The Rolling Stones of Pahranagat made the valley world famous in 1862.
The Crystal Springs region , now used as a water sports and camping area, was once an important stopover on the Mormon Trail alternative route .
Silver ore was found at Mount Irish in 1865 and what is now the ghost town of Logan flourished briefly. The ruins of a mill in Hiko that used to process the ore are still there today .
In the late 19th century, the Pahranagat Valley was primarily an agricultural community.
The fertile part of the valley in a narrow green belt (no wider than 1.5 kilometers) that lies like an oasis in the vast Mojave desert . The valley is approximately 60 kilometers long in a north-south direction and is fed with water by three large springs ( Hiko Springs , Crystal Springs and Ash Springs ) and several small ones. It has four lakes, two in the north of the valley ( Nesbitt Lake and Frenchie Lake ) and two in the south ( Upper Pahranagat Lake and Lower Pahranagat Lake ). The southern half of the valley was declared the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge in 1963 .
In the west of the Pahranagat Valley two mountain ranges border - the Irish Range and the Pahraganat Range . In the east the valley is bounded by the Hiko Range . The Nevada State Route 318 and US Highway 93 through the entire length of the valley.
The more populated areas of the Pahranagat Valley are Hiko, Ash Springs, Richardville and Alamo . Of these, the Alamo is the largest, as all the schools in the valley are located. The closest major city to the Pahranagat Valley is the town of Caliente, 75 kilometers away .
The Pahranagat Valley is home to several rare animals such as the freshwater snail Fluminicola merriami , the toad Bufo nelsoni , the freshwater fish Gila robusta jordani and Rhinichthys osculus velifer, and the vole Microtus montanus fucosus .
