Pioneer Territory

Pioneer Territory covers the central and southeastern Nevada interior, the high desert mining country running from Reno’s edge south past Tonopah and east to the Utah line. The terrain is classic Nevada basin-and-range — wide sagebrush valleys, abrupt mountain ranges, dry lakebeds, and a string of historic mining camps that boomed and busted between 1850 and 1920. The region is among the least-populated in the lower 48. Five counties cover the region. Nye holds Tonopah and Beatty (the gateway to Death Valley’s east side); Mineral holds Hawthorne and Walker Lake; Lyon holds Yerington and Dayton (one of Nevada’s oldest settlements); Lincoln holds Pioche, Caliente, and most of the Cathedral Gorge State Park country; Esmeralda holds Goldfield. Cathedral Gorge State Park, Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park, and the Extraterrestrial Highway along NV-375 (paralleling Area 51’s eastern edge) anchor the public-land scenery. Most trips here run mining-history-and-back-road focused. Tonopah handles the historic-mining-park itinerary and dark-sky stargazing (one of the darkest skies in the country); Goldfield draws ghost-town hunters; Pioche’s Million Dollar Courthouse and the Boot Hill cemetery carry frontier history; the Extraterrestrial Highway draws UFO-and-Area-51 sightseers.