Boom has rowdy Pahrump residents changing their ways

PAHRUMP -- Betty Hinkle is holding a yardstick and looking up at the outside of her church.

One end of the building -- which was a drive-in restaurant before it became a church -- is 7 1/2 inches taller than the other end.

"Why? That's just Pahrump," she says. "There are a lot of buildings here that could use a little work. There have never been building codes here."

Across the street from Grace Christian Fellowship is a trailer with a sign: Acme Pawn, Gun and Feed. Certain patrons of the business are rumored to own a mountain hideout where they while away the days by cramming dynamite into discarded bowling balls and watching them explode.

Across town, there's a fashion modeling school that also sells goats, an ostrich ranch that sits adjacent to two legal brothels and an underground vault where casino magnate Ted Binion buried his silver fortune before being slain in Las Vegas last year.

Recently the local grocery store had to be evacuated when a six-shooter-toting candidate for sheriff left a mysterious canister in the parking lot, and Pahrumpians suspected it was a bomb. Later it was determined to contain only a copy of the U.S. Constitution.

"Welcome to Pahrump -- heart of the new Old West," proclaims a sign on the outskirts of this weed-festooned town tucked between Death Valley and Las Vegas.

Pahrump is the fastest-growing rural town in the United States -- maintaining a constant 15 percent annual growth rate over the last seven years -- with a population now approaching 35,000. By comparison, Nevada was the fastest-growing state this year with a 3.8 percent growth rate.

But today the Wild West town is being tamed -- the building department was established last year, a master plan for the community was adopted by the Nye County Commission two years ago, and the first zoning ordinances are being drafted right now.

Pahrump's growth is not owed to a new microchip plant; there is no industry. It is not centered on a theme park or a lake; there is no megamall, no breathtaking landmarks, no quaint downtown with storefront windows. There is no main street save Highway 160, which is splattered with Johnny-come-lately real estate trailers and anchored by a Terrible Herbst gas station and casino. No one accuses Pahrumpians of flaunting the community's charm; indeed some say it "takes a few days" in the one-stoplight town to find it.

"But it grows on you," said Paul Houser, one of many loyal locals who say this is a paradise in camouflage -- a refuge from big-city life that offers freedom and tranquility.

"Our first impression when we visited was 'Oh no,' " said Houser, a retired salesman from Phoenix who moved here with his wife nearly five years ago. "We went home ... But we kept coming back for some reason and looking at the land, and we thought the place might grow, so we bought a lot. Now we love it here."

The main selling points of Pahrump, aside from the gold-rush contagion of development, appear to be: It is an hour from Las Vegas and the weather is warm.

Third on the list of attractions has long been a Wild West lawlessness where government regulation is not only discouraged, but rejected -- Pahrumpians have twice voted down measures to incorporate.

"We actually have a very large number of people who came here specifically to get away from rules and regulations," said Ed Bishop, vice chairman of the Pahrump Town Board and liaison to the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission. "There are a lot of people here who just want to be left alone."

Add to that a steady influx of retirees and most recently, younger families who don't want the hectic feel of Las Vegas.

Bishop said that more than 6,000 cars per day travel Highway 160 to and from Las Vegas, two-thirds of which are commuting to work in Las Vegas and back home to Pahrump -- which got its name from the Southern Paiute "pah" meaning water and "rimpi" meaning rock.

Hinkle came here from Illinois because her son lives in Las Vegas and he wanted her nearby, so he bought her a house in Pahrump. Gwen Oxborrow and her husband came here in 1973 from Tahoe after they "came for a drive one day and ended up with 10 acres."

Building boom

Jeff Charbonneau, 36, graduated from Pahrump High School with a class of 60 students, moved to Las Vegas and worked as a casino pit boss for a decade, and decided to come back here and make his fortune in home building.

"I knew about the building boom out here, and I had construction experience, so I just had to come back and go for it," he said. "Las Vegas was OK for a while, but Pahrump is a real nice town. You've got breathing room here. There is peace and quiet."

As the owner of Red Rock Builders, Charbonneau now builds about 25 houses a year. Three-bedroom starter homes in the stucco, Spanish-tile style start at $89,900. He continues to buy land and says, "Look around -- there's always land available. It just keeps going up so fast -- lots last year that you could buy for $15,000 are now going for $25,000. I've seen steady growth ever since I got started.

"Today I'm so busy -- it's just more than I ever expected. I'm having a lot of fun." Growth in Pahrump isn't yet stratified in the gated enclaves of matching, similarly priced homes like the new suburbs of Las Vegas.

Instead, individual lots have been randomly bought and sold by various interests, creating a haphazard patchwork of manufactured and custom homes.

"The two most recent additions to my neighborhood are a 28x70-foot doublewide (mobile home) and a 2,500-square-foot stucco home," Bishop said.

"But now we've reached the point where we've got several large developers planning master-planned communities," he said. Among those builders is E.A. Collins, who developed The Lakes community near Las Vegas. Collins is building an 8,000-unit residential community and golf course on the south end of Pahrump. Additionally, the Forum Group Ltd., a joint venture of private investors from Taiwan and Japan, is planning a $2.2 billion resort called Shao-Lin Village. The Asian-themed hotel and shopping complex, is planned as the centerpiece of Oasis at Shangri-La, a master-planned resort.

The first phase includes an 80-unit condo complex and RV park, scheduled to be completed next October. Later phases of development include a golf course, hotel-casino, martial arts academy, temple and entertainment facilities.

Bishop was among the first members of the planning commission when it was established four years ago by the Nye County Commission. The group was charged with developing a master plan and zoning for the community. Today, there are 49,000 individual parcels in the sprawling 364-square-mile town.

"Obviously we have to have some kind of at least limited control of our growth," Bishop said. "But for a long time anyone could do anything anywhere. You can put up a tar-paper shack if you want to."

The master plan, which he describes as "very basic" has been approved by the county, and a new zoning ordinance is expected to be complete in June.

"It's going to leave most of the valley with open zoning," Bishop said. "Fifty percent of the population here still opposes rules of any kind ... It's going to be a long, slow process to regulate building here."

On this Thursday afternoon Pahrump's Mountain View Casino and Bowl is filled with locals who know each other by name and come here as much to see and be seen as to bowl or play slots.

"It's a very popular place -- we just had to add eight lanes," Assistant Manager Ed Havholm said.

Growing concern

Havholm moved here two years ago from Albuquerque, N.M., because he feared the escalation of crime in that city.

"I like the slower pace here, and it feels much safer," he said.

As a smaller town, Pahrump doesn't yet suffer from the crimes of a bigger city, Bishop said.

"We don't have gang problems, we don't have drive-by shootings -- most of us still know our neighbors and if someone's driving on our street that isn't a neighbor, we know something is up," Bishop said.

"Domestic violence is our biggest crime. We did have a bank robbery a little more than a year ago, and we do have the occasional burglary. But it's still the kind of community where people don't lock their doors at night."

Some of the locals are concerned that such small-town luxuries are short-lived. "There's way too much growth," said Oxborrow, who has been here since 1973, when the telephone system was a party line. "It was nice and quiet here. But now, traffic is a big problem."

The town has approved plans to install its second stoplight this spring, a civilization milestone that caused a collective gasp among old-timers.

"A lot of us older people aren't real happy with it," said Pat Foster, Nye County treasurer and Pahrumpian "since we could sit naked on our porch."

"We're not used to looking ahead like this," Foster said.

"I was here when the clerk at the grocery store (a small general store, which since has been replaced by an athletic club) knew everyone by name," Oxborrow said.

"One time a stranger came in and the clerk said, 'Who are you? We don't like newcomers,' " Oxborrow said.

"Now there are newcomers all over Pahrump."

archive