Page "Searchlight, Nevada" Paragraph 1

According to Nevada Senator Harry Reid, who has written extensively about his hometown, the most likely story as to how the town received its name was that when George Frederick Colton was looking for gold in the area in 1897, he supposedly said that it would take a searchlight to find gold ore there.

Shortly thereafter he found gold, leading to a boom era when Searchlight had a larger population than Las Vegas.

At the time, it was in Lincoln County, Nevada.

As talk surfaced for carving Clark County, Nevada out of Lincoln County, Searchlight was initially considered to be the county seat.

Between 1907 and 1910 the gold mines produced $ 7 million in gold and other precious minerals, and the town had a population of about 1, 500.