Pioche to Cedar City

Pioche is another almost-ghost town with a mining past. It was a rough-and-tumble town in the early 1870s, rivaling Tombstone and Bodie.  It was said that some 75 men died of gunshot wounds before the first resident died of natural causes.  Many of the first residents are buried in Boot Hill Cemetery.  Pioche was also a corrupt place, with the sheriff among those living mostly off of bribes.  The county courthouse was built in 1871 at an estimated cost of $26,000.  By the time it was finished, costs had risen to $88,000.  Bonds were sold at a high interest rate and by the time the building was totally paid for, four years after it was condemned in 1933,  it cost nearly $1m.  It was thus renamed the Million Dollar Courthouse.  It still stands today, a modest two-story brick building.

We drove east from Pioche through the Eagle Valley and Echo Canyon, beautiful scenery of high cliffs and windy roads.  We ended this detour in Ursine, which I had read was "as bucolic and pastoral a village as you could ever imagine".  We did pass some pretty green alfalfa fields and watched farmers harvesting but the person who wrote that this place was so special obviously never lived in Northern California.

After our detour, we continued south on Highway 93, a scenic byway worthy of that name.  We were awed by the views of Cathedral Gorge from Miller Overlook and you can see from the photos that I had a hard time narrowing down which ones to share.  Formed over millions of years, the area was once home to the Fremont, Anasazi, and Southern Paiutes.  We stopped at the campground there for a picnic lunch and let Tuna out of her carrier (on harness and leash) but after one quick, frantic look around, into her carrier she scuttled. 

Panaca, just south of the gorge, was our point for heading east again.  Panaca is an unusual town for Nevada.  Established by Mormons as a farming community, and part of Utah at the time, it later became part of Nevada when state boundaries were changed. Many of the homes are still owned by descendants of the original settlers.   Panaca (population 800) is the only town in Nevada that prohibits gambling and the sale of alcohol.

From Panaca, we drove east on Highway 319/56 toward Utah, about 20 miles away.  We started seeing more traffic.  The roadside is still bordered by sagebrush but as we got closer to Cedar City, the first town (and a large one at that) in Utah, the fields became greener and there was more cultivation, alfalfa again being a desired crop. The mountains to the east of Cedar City are red, a glimmer of what is to come.  Cedar City is at a crossroads of routes from the west, south, east, and north.  It's a good stopping point for tourists headed to the great national parks of Utah.