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Searchlight, Nevada

30 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1989. It stands in the Clark census division. It lies in ZIP code area 89046. It lies near Doherty Mountain. The Survey maps it on the Searchlight quadrangle. 445 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 3,547 feet above sea level.

Searchlight within Clark County

On record in Searchlight

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 1 record

Population over time

2 figures

Searchlight fell from 539 to 445 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
2010539
2020445-94 (-17%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

13 surveys from 30 printed sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

Fires near this place

6 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 6 fires within 5 miles of Searchlight between 1993 and 2014, burning about 6 acres in total. 2 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined2
Natural2
Smoking1
Equipment and vehicle use1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
18 September 1999Naturalunder an acreSouthern Nevada District OfficeLOUS FLASH
3 August 1999Equipment and vehicle use2.0 acresSouthern Nevada District OfficeMILE 25
8 July 2014Naturalunder an acreSouthern Nevada District OfficeSEARCHLIGHT
20 July 2009Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreSouthern Nevada District OfficeLIBRARY
1 July 1993Smoking3.0 acresSouthern Nevada District Office16417CLARK
30 May 2006Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreSouthern Nevada District OfficePOWER ROAD

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Clark County

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 56 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 56 workings within 5 miles of Searchlight: 32 past producers, 11 prospects, 8 occurrences, 3 producers. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Gold, Silver, Silver, Gold, Gold, Silver. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Big Casino MineLead, Copper, Gold, Silver, ZincPast ProducerVein
Boston MineCopper, GoldPast ProducerVein
Boston MineCopper, Silver, GoldProspect
Duplex MineSilver, Lead, Gold, Copper, Zinc, MolybdenumPast Producer1897, 1898
Duplex MineGold, Molybdenum, Zinc, Silver, Lead, CopperPast Producer
Good Hope MineGold, Zinc, Silver, Lead, CopperPast Producer
Monte Carlo MineLead, Zinc, Gold, Copper, SilverPast Producer1913
Padden MineSilver, Copper, Gold, LeadPast Producer
Quartette MineGold, Copper, Lead, Silver, MolybdenumPast ProducerVein
Quartette MineGold, Copper, Zinc, Silver, Molybdenum, LeadPast Producer1902

Every working recorded in Clark County

Storms near this place

19 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Searchlight in 19 storm reports between 1993 and 2024: 14 flash flood, 2 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail, 1 lightning. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
September 1996LightningSearchlight$50,000no account filed
August 1998Flash FloodSearchlight$40,000A large area of Highway 164 was flooded west of Searchlight. Road crews reported several miles of debris and shoulder erosion. It was estimated that road repairs would take a couple of weeks.
July 2017Flash FloodSearchlight$25,000Cottonwood Cove Road was inundated and undercut by flooding.
July 2017Flash FloodSearchlight$10,000Nipton Road was closed in both directions near Searchlight, and Cottonwood Cove Road was closed due to extensive flooding.
September 1998Flash FloodSearchlight$5,000Heavy rain showers dropped nine-tenths (0.90) of an inch of rain within an hour. The runoff eroded roads and yards around Searchlight.
August 2000Flash FloodSearchlight$3,000Strong thunderstorms moved through Searchlight, NV producing flash flooding that closed Searchlight Highway for several hours.
July 2017Flash FloodSearchlight$2,000Water and debris flowed over Cottonwood Cove Road.
March 2024HailSearchlight$1,000A large amount of graupel fell on Highway 95 north of Searchlight, contributing to multiple crashes. The highway was closed between mile markers 24 and 29 from 1408 to 1638 PST.
August 2022Flash FloodSearchlight$1,000Westbound Highway 164 was closed due to flooding.
August 2022Flash FloodSearchlight$1,000Highway 95 was closed in both directions due to flooding.
September 2013Flash FloodSearchlight$1,000Multiple low water crossings on Cottonwood Cove Road were filled with swift water.
August 2013Flash FloodSearchlight$1,000Water, mud, and small rocks flowed through the parking lot of the Searchlight Nugget casino.
July 2012Flash FloodSearchlight$1,000Nipton Road was closed west of Searchlight.
September 2019HailSearchlight-A driver on Highway 95 reported golf ball size hail.
August 2008Flash FloodSearchlight-Highway 164 was closed from the Highway 95 intersection to the CA-NV state line due to a road washout.
July 1999Flash FloodSearchlight-Early in the evening, thunderstorms began to produce rainfall amounts in the vicinity of Searchlight of over one inch per hour. A weather spotter observed two feet of water across a nearby surface road around 6:30 p.m. PDT. By 7:30 p.m. PDT, 2.20 inches of rain had been recorded in Searchlight. After a short break, thunderstorms redeveloped and dumped an additional eight-tenths (0.80) of an inch during the late evening.
September 1998Thunderstorm WindSearchlight-A weather spotter estimated thunderstorm wind gusts of 60 mph along with six-tenths (0.60) of an inch of rain in less than 30 minutes.
August 1993Thunderstorm WindSearchlight-A thunderstorm produced a gust of 60 mph in Searchlight.
August 1998Flash FloodSearchlight-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Clark County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Emerald City (historical)2.7 miles30
Camp Sunrise (historical)2.8 miles30
Wallace (historical)8.6 miles29
Morgantown (historical)8.8 miles26
Copper Camp (historical)9.9 miles29
Camp Dupont (historical)10.8 miles29
Cal-Nev-Ari11.2 miles30
Crescent (historical)13.8 miles27

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on SearchlightAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q177756The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 845654. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.