Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Yerington, NV

Yerington is a city in Lyon County, Nevada, and the county seat of Lyon County, with a population of 3,121 at the 2020 census and 1,394 households.

The city was founded on August 6, 1871, and incorporated on March 17, 1907, and it is named for Henry M. Yerington, superintendent of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad from 1868 to 1910.

Before taking its current name, the community was called Greenfield, Mason Valley, and Pizen Switch, the last an irreverent nickname from its days as a transfer stop, when the local whiskey was so bad it was called 'poison,' which local speech rendered as 'pizen.'

Yerington became the county seat in 1911, after the Dayton courthouse burned down in 1909.

The Yerington Paiute Tribe of the Yerington Colony and Campbell Ranch is headquartered in Yerington, and its people, known as Numu in their own language, have lived in the Smith and Mason Valleys since around 1000 A.D.

Yerington is nicknamed 'The Onion Capital of the West,' and its motto is 'Preserving Our History While Planning Our Future.'

The city sits at the intersection of U.S. Route 95A and Nevada State Route 208, and the Walker River, formed nine miles south of Yerington by the confluence of the East Walker and West Walker rivers, flows through Mason Valley and is used for irrigation.

Yerington covers 29.46 square miles, all land, at an elevation of 4,577 feet, and its ZIP code is 89447.

The city has a cool desert climate, with a record high of 107 degrees Fahrenheit on July 15, 2014, a record low of minus 26 degrees on January 21, 1937, and 37 inches of snow in January 1916.

During World War II, a Japanese Fu-Go balloon bomb landed on the Wilson Ranch near Yerington, and the ranchers, not knowing what it was, cut it up and used it as a hay tarp before the authorities responded.