Pahrump growth boosts Nevada’s Nye to one of nation’s fastest growing counties

Robert Macy

Thursday, March 11, 1999 | 10:11 a.m.

PAHRUMP, Nev. - When Jack Sanders migrated here in 1985, he found it to be a great place to grow grapes.

Turns out, it's becoming a prime spot to grow people, too.

Situated between booming Las Vegas and California's Death Valley, Pahrump's population has grown nearly sixfold since Sanders came here from Marin County, Calif., looking for a more rural lifestyle.

The same can be said for thousands of people moving here to escape booming Las Vegas and California's crush.

New figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau this week rank Nye County 10th among the fastest-growing counties in the United States, fueled by the growth of this sprawling community 65 miles west of Las Vegas.

Nye County's population increased 6.1 percent from 1997 to 1998, according to the Census Bureau. The Nevada State Demographer's office estimated Nye County's population as of July 1, 1998, at 29,730, with 20,080 of them residents of the Pahrump Valley. Forsyth County, Ga., ranked No. 1, growing at a rate of 13 percent.

Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, ranked No. 5 in the Top 10 counties in terms of numeric gain, adding 55,229 residents between 1997 and 1998. Los Angeles County topped the list with 97,027 additional residents.

Sanders, owner of the Pahrump Valley Vineyards, remembers another time when his adopted home was a fraction of its current size.

"The population was about 3,500 when I came here in 1985," he recounted, while workers poured wine for some of the 110,000 tourists who visit his winery annually. "I found grapes grow well here, so I built a winery. I've seen it grow from a trickle to an international business."

Nye County Commissioner Dick Carver remembers another time, as well.

"I can remember back when I was young, I thought Pahrump was the garden spot of the world, the ideal climate," said Carver, 54. "I never dreamed when I was a kid that you'd see anything but cotton fields and alfalfa fields in the Pahrump Valley. The cotton fields are a thing of the past."

Taking their place are subdivisions, new roads, schools, commercial strips - and growth headaches. Highway 160, the town's main drag, is lined with real estate offices and mobile- and manufactured-home dealers. On the outskirts, construction crews are busy turning the winding two-lane highway to Las Vegas into four lanes to expedite the exodus from the gambling capital.

"We can't keep up with the law enforcement, and we don't talk about numbers of classrooms anymore, we talk about how many schools we need," Carver said.

Sanders thinks Pahrump could eventually reach 100,000 population.

Therein lies the problem.

Pahrump, which now accounts for two-thirds of Nye's population, lies 170 miles from the county seat of Tonopah.

Carver took some heat earlier this year when he suggested that the state trim the size of his domain. At 11.6 million acres, Nye is the largest of Nevada's 17 counties and the second-largest in the United States.

Carver blanches at the suggestion his county be cut up, preferring the term realignment. He's suggested that Tonopah, population 3,100, become a part of adjacent Esmeralda County. Esmeralda County currently has about 1,400 residents, most of them in the county seat of Goldfield, which was once Nevada's largest city before a gold boom went bust.

"Is it realistic to have two county seats (Tonopah and Goldfield) 25 miles apart when they are both having difficulty surviving?" Carver asked Thursday.

Bob Little, a real estate agent, discussed the growth problems Wednesday as Highway 160 traffic swept by his office on the outskirts of town.

Northern Nye County commissioners are slow to recognize the needs of the booming southern half of the county, he contends.

"We have seven intersections that need traffic signals, and no money to do it," he said. "We've got people coming from everywhere in the world.

"The people in northern Nye County should wake up and realize there's a world out there," Little said. "It's like the guy trying to sell you a buggy whip in today's world."

Pahrump and Tonopah are, in many ways, two different worlds.

For years, Pahrump was best known as the home of the Chicken Ranch, the closest legal brothel to Las Vegas. Tonopah, a boom-bust mining town, is also the home of the Tonopah Test Range, where pilots of the once-secret F-117A stealth fighter honed their skills while the government denied the plane's existence.