Pioche: Nevada's Most Violent Silver Camp

Silver was discovered in these hills in eighteen sixty-four, and by the early eighteen seventies Pioche had become the most violent town in the American West. In eighteen seventy-one and seventy-two, roughly sixty percent of all murders committed in Nevada happened here. The local newspaper once congratulated residents for going sixty days without a killing.

The first seventy-two people buried in Boot Hill Cemetery were all victims of gunshot wounds. The Lincoln County seat moved to Pioche in eighteen seventy-one, and a courthouse was authorized the same year. That building became known as the Million Dollar Courthouse, not for its grandeur but because of corruption and refinancing schemes that kept the county paying on it until nineteen thirty-seven, long after the building had been condemned.

The mines eventually petered out, leaving a small town with a very large reputation.