Caliente: The Railroad Town That Kept Its Depot

Caliente owes its existence to a railroad that needed a division point. In nineteen oh one, William A. Clark was building the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad through eastern Nevada, and a townsite was planted here in Meadow Valley Wash.

Caliente quickly became a major town in Lincoln County. The railroad built a landmark Mission Revival depot in nineteen twenty-three, designed by the Los Angeles architects John and Donald Parkinson. For nearly five decades it was the town's economic engine, but after World War Two the railroad deactivated its shops and roundhouse and Caliente shrank.

The depot survives, a Mission Revival landmark now housing the city offices, and the pink stucco building still anchors a town that has never quite let go of its railroad past.