Contact, Nevada

Contact is an unincorporated community in Elko County, Nevada, United States.[1] It is located on a mineral-rich granite intrusion and there are many mines nearby.

Contact, Nevada
Unincorporated community
Contact, Nevada Location within the state of Nevada
Coordinates: 41°46′10″N 114°45′09″W
Country	United States
State	Nevada
County	Elko
Elevation	5,351 ft (1,631 m)
Time zone	UTC-8 (Pacific (PST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-7 (PDT)

History

A post office was established at Contact in 1897, and remained in operation until 1962.[2] The name "Contact" is mining jargon.[3]

As of 1915 Contact had a hotel, restaurant and its own local newspaper. Although a new townsite was laid out in 1930, by that time the community was once again in decline. A devastating 1942 fire effectively turned Contact into a near-ghost town.[4] Today one of the main presences in Contact is a Nevada Department of Transportation maintenance station.[5]

Jackpot

Located approximately 15 miles (13.3 km) south of Jackpot on U.S. Route 93, prior to Jackpot's founding in 1954 Contact was known as one of the closest Nevada settlements to the Idaho border. Early records of Cactus Pete's (then known as Cactus Pete's Desert Lodge) placed the property in Contact before Jackpot emerged as a separate settlement.[6]

References

1. "Contact, Nevada". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey.
2. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Contact Post Office (historical)
3. Federal Writers' Project (1941). Origin of Place Names: Nevada (PDF). W.P.A. p. 22.
4. Contact - Nevada Ghost Town
5. NDOT Maintenance Districts 2007 (letter).FH10 Archived January 15, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
6. "Island Park Lodge - About". Archived from the original on 2011-07-26. Retrieved 2008-08-06.