Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Pioche, NV

Pioche is an unincorporated town and census-designated place in Lincoln County, Nevada, about 180 miles northeast of Las Vegas, and it is the county seat of Lincoln County.

Silver ore was discovered in the mountains near Pioche in 1864, and Paiute guides had earlier shown Mormon missionary William Hamblin a ledge of silver ore they called "panacker."

The town was founded in 1869, when mines were opened and a townsite was laid out by P. McCannon, L. Lacour, and A. M. Bush, and it was named for San Francisco financier Francois L. A. Pioche.

Pioche became the county seat of Lincoln County in 1871, when the seat was moved from Hiko, and by that year its population had grown to more than 7,000.

The 2020 census counted 933 people in Pioche, down from 1,002 in 2010, and the community covers 6.15 square miles, all land.

The 2010 census counted 351 occupied homes in Pioche.

The first Lincoln County Courthouse, built in 1871-72, became known as the "Million Dollar Courthouse" because cost overruns and interest pushed its final cost to nearly $1 million, and it was not paid off until 1939; it is now a museum.

Thompson's Opera House was built by Aleck Brown in 1873, bought by Alexander Thompson in 1891, showed its first silent film in 1915, and now serves as a museum and the town's tourist information center.

Pioche gained a reputation as one of the roughest mining camps in the West during its silver boom, when gunfights on Main Street were common.

After the silver boom faded, Pioche survived as a supply and government center, and from 1937 it enjoyed about two decades of profitable lead and zinc mining before most mining ceased by 1958.