Eureka is an

unincorporated town An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, suc ...

s in and the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US ...

of Eureka County,

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

, United States. Reprint. Originally published: San Francisco : H. Keller, 1879. With a population of 480 as of the 2018 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, it is by far the largest community in Eureka County. Attractions include the Eureka Opera House (built in 1880 and restored in 1993), Raine’s Market and Wildlife Museum (built 1887), the Jackson House Hotel (built 1877), and the Eureka Sentinel Museum (housed in the 1879 ''Eureka Sentinel'' Newspaper Building). Eureka is part of the Elko Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Demographics

Geography and climate

Eureka is located at , in the southern part of Eureka County, at in the

Diamond Mountains The Diamond Mountains are a mountain range along the border of Eureka and White Pine Counties, in northern Nevada, Western United States. Geography The range reaches a maximum elevation of on the summit of Diamond Peak. The range separates ...

, in a draw on the southern end of Diamond Valley, between

Antelope The term antelope is used to refer to many species of even-toed ruminant that are indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelope comprise a wastebasket taxon defined as any of numerous Old World grazing and browsing hoofed mamm ...

and Newark valleys. At the 2018 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, the population of the

of Eureka was 480, while the total population of Eureka and the surrounding area (Eureka CCD, Eureka County, Nevada) was 1,313. The town is located along the

Lincoln Highway The Lincoln Highway is the first transcontinental highway in the United States and one of the first highways designed expressly for automobiles. Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated October 31, 191 ...

/ U.S. Route 50, nicknamed "The Loneliest Road in America": aptly named, as the nearest towns along the highway are

Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

( west) and Ely ( east). The nearest town is Duckwater, south. The climate is typical of the

Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California. It is noted fo ...

: hot and dry with cool mornings in the summer with occasional

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscil ...

al thunderstorms from late July through August; cold and relatively dry in the winter. Temperatures drop to or lower on an average 3.2 mornings during the winter, though in the severe winter of 1916/1917 this happened twenty-five times. They drop to on an average 185.5 mornings, though maximum temperatures top freezing on all but 30.8 days during an average winter. During the summer temperatures rise to or hotter on 12.5 afternoons, though has never been reached with the hottest temperature being on July 22, 1904. Snow accumulations vary from in mild winters to in excess of in more severe years; in the winter of 1906/1907, more than of snow fell. The wettest calendar year has been 1941 with and the driest 2020 with , whilst May 1917 with has been the wettest single month. The snowiest month has been March 1902 with of fresh snowfall. Under the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...

, Eureka has a warm-summer

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freez ...

(''Dfb'').

History

The town was first settled in 1864 by a group of silver prospectors from nearby Austin, who discovered rock containing a silver-lead ore on nearby Prospect Peak. According to tradition, the town was named from an incident when a prospector exclaimed "

Eureka Eureka (often abbreviated as E!, or Σ!) is an intergovernmental organisation for research and development funding and coordination. Eureka is an open platform for international cooperation in innovation. Organisations and companies applying th ...

!" when he discovered deposits of silver ore. The town became the county seat in 1873, when Eureka County was carved out of adjacent Lander, Elko, and White Pine counties.

Mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the econom ...

, especially for

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, ...

, was the town's economic mainstay, as the nearby hillsides ranked as Nevada's second-richest mineral producer, behind western Nevada's

Comstock Lode The Comstock Lode is a lode of silver ore located under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range in Virginia City, Nevada (then western Utah Territory), which was the first major discovery of silver ore in the Unit ...

. Two of the largest concerns in Eureka were the Richmond Mining Company and the Eureka Mining Company. These two companies often collided, and in one instance, their litigation reached the U.S Supreme Court. The population boomed, reaching a high of 10,000 by 1878, but shrank as decreasing mine production and changing market conditions led to the closing of mines. The town was serviced by the narrow gauge

Eureka and Palisade Railroad The Eureka & Palisade Railroad was a Narrow gauge railways, narrow gauge railroad constructed in 1873-1875 between Palisade, Nevada, Palisade and Eureka, Nevada, Eureka, Nevada, a distance of approximately . The railroad was constructed to co ...

from 1873 to 1938.

Public services

Eureka is served by an all-volunteer fire department, which provides fire protection, rescue, and vehicle rescue services for Eureka and the surrounding areas. In 2009 a new brick and steel fire house was built on Main Street in Eureka. At the time of its building it was the second largest fire house in the state. In addition to being a modern fire fighting facility, it contains a museum of Eureka fire department equipment and vehicles dating back to the 1870s. The fire-museum may be viewed through the large glass windows, or a tour may be taken by contacting a local fireman. Eureka boasts three parks, a modern enclosed swimming facility, two baseball fields, a track, and football field. The 1880s Eureka Opera House was re-modeled in recent times and regularly schedules performers. The 1876 Eureka Court House is both historic and modern. It stands as the functioning governmental and legal center of Eureka County.

Celebrations

July 4, Independence Day, is a huge celebration in Eureka. The Eureka Volunteer Fire Department organizes a parade followed by street events, which require closing central Eureka to vehicular traffic. At 9pm the Eureka Volunteer Fire Department stages a fireworks display.

Education

Eureka has a

public library A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also civil servants. There are five fundamen ...

, a branch of the Elko-Lander-Eureka County Library System.

Transportation

* Eureka Airport (Nevada)

Notable people

John Cradlebaugh John Cradlebaugh (February 22, 1819 – February 22, 1872) was the first delegate to the United States House of Representatives from Nevada Territory. Biography Born in Circleville, Ohio, he attended the common schools; Kenyon College (in Gambi ...

, first delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives from Nevada TerritoryBiographical Directory of the United States Congress
/ref> * Warren J. Ferguson, who served on the

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * District ...

Antonio Mendez Antonio Joseph Mendez (November 15, 1940 – January 19, 2019) was an American technical operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who specialized in support of clandestine and covert CIA operations. He wrote four memoirs ab ...

, CIA operative, who orchestrated the smuggling of six US hostages out of Iran. The Academy Award-winning film ''

Argo In Greek mythology the ''Argo'' (; in Greek: ) was a ship built with the help of the gods that Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcos to Colchis to retrieve the Golden Fleece. The ship has gone on to be used as a motif in a variety of ...

'' was based on the experience. Mendez was born in Eureka.

Gallery

Image:Eureka, Nevada welcome sign.jpg, Welcome Image:Eureka! Nevada from hill.jpg , A view of Eureka Image:July 4th '06 009.JPG, Parade 2006 File:ORE SHUTES EUREKA, NEVADA - NARA - 524115.jpg, Ore chutes in 1871 File:Eureka Consolidated smelter ca1880.jpg, Eureka Consolidated smelter, ca. 1880 File:Historic American Buildings Survey, Nevada Professional and Service Projects June 1940 - First Methodist Church, Spring Street, Eureka, Eureka County, NV HABS NEV,6-EUR,1-1.tif, Old Hooper Garage in 1940, photo by HABS

References

External links

Website for the town of Eureka, Nevada

link contains many modern and historical photographs of existing buildings, and historical tales of the area
Eureka, Nevada
at Western Mining History * $1.3 billion plan for moly mine at Mt. Hope {{authority control Census-designated places in Nevada Census-designated places in Eureka County, Nevada County seats in Nevada Populated places established in 1864 Elko, Nevada micropolitan area Unincorporated towns in Nevada 1864 establishments in Nevada Silver mining in Nevada