Welcome to Pershing County!
The Humboldt Sink, an eleven-mile intermittent dry lake, is on the border between Pershing and Churchill counties. The sink and its surrounding area was a notorious and dreaded portion of overland travel to California during the westward migrations of the mid-1800s, along the California Trail. Today it is protected as part of the Humboldt Wildlife Management Area.1
"Lovelock owes its formal beginning to the railroad, but was important to travelers many years before the first train arrived. The site was known to pioneers of the 1840s and 1850s as Big Meadows because it was an important place to rest and water animals before crossing the Forty-Mile Desert. James Blake is credited with establishing the first permanent settlement there in 1861, but he later sold his property and stage station to George Lovelock, who arrived in 1866. Lovelock donated eighty acres of his ranch to the Central Pacific Railroad to establish the town that now bears his name. The Central Pacific Railroad arrived in Lovelock in 1868, stimulating the area's agricultural and livestock industries. The town also served as a distribution center for several mining districts including the Trinity and Rochester. A post office was established in 1875, and by 1900 Lovelock supported a population of 1,204 with a school, two churches, and an active business district.2
"Pershing County was carved out of Humboldt County's southern region after arguments over public funds necessitated a division of the territory. The state legislature created Nevada's seventeenth county in 1919 and designated Lovelock as the county seat. The county was named after General John J. "Blackjack" Pershing. A long standing rivalry with Humboldt County inspired Pershing County commissioners to build a monumental courthouse that would surpass any government symbol their northern neighbor could erect.2
Lovelock is the only incorporated city in the county. Other places include Imly, Mill City, Oreana, Toulon and Unionville.
Sources
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