Searchlight

History

The town received its name was that when George Frederick Colton was looking for gold in the area on May 6, 1897, and according to U.S. Senator Harry Reid (1939–2021), who wrote extensively about his hometown, Colton supposedly said that it would take a searchlight to find gold ore there. Shortly thereafter, he found gold, leading to a boom era when Searchlight had a larger population than Las Vegas. At the time, it was in Lincoln County, Nevada. As talk surfaced for carving Clark County, Nevada, out of Lincoln County, Searchlight was initially considered to be the county seat. Between 1907 and 1910, the gold mines produced $7 million in gold and other precious minerals, and the town had a population of about 1,500. The ore was shipped to Barnwell via the Barnwell and Searchlight Railway. Other stories on the origin of the name include a story that Colton was lighting a Searchlight brand match when he discovered the gold ore. Reid dismissed this story, saying that the Searchlight matches were not available in 1898. Yet another story says that Colton thought the area would be a good place because it was on a hill. His mine was called the Duplex, because the gold ore was found on two levels. Searchlight declined after 1917 but remained as a stop on the Arrowhead Highway. In 1927, U.S. Route 91 bypassed the town and its population dropped to 50. The town had a resurgence in the 1930s and 1940s with the construction of the nearby Hoover Dam and was the site of the El Rey Bordello in the 1940s and early 1950s until the bordello burned down. The last gold mine ceased operating around 1953.

Race & ethnicity

Largest nearby schools

• Reid Harry ES
  Elementary · Searchlight · 11 students · 2.8:1 ratio