Lake Mead NV speedboat (#0116)

The internet tells me this is an old water intake for Basic Magnesium, Inc., which processed magnesium here during World War II. Henderson claims to exist because of this company.

www.landwellco.com/index.php/past/historical-timeline

From the complex link below (I hope it works), it looks like the plant itself was quite some distance from this point. The link you provided (thank you!) says that the BMI facility provides water for Henderson, so this might still be a BMI intake that is still used.

digitalcollections.mypubliclibrary.com/c/Henderson-Memories/view/17194/Aerial+view+of+Henderson%2C+Nevada/?q=Basic+Magnesium%2C+Inc.&fieldLimit=3-166&fq[]=q&fq[]=10%3APhotographs

Yep. It was a WW II crash project, magnesium being critical to the then cutting-edge technology of aircraft construction. The mine at Gabbs in central NV was opened and the MgO ore shipped circuitously by (mostly) rail up to Reno, over to Salt Lake, and then down to Vegas, where it used the spur that had been built for Hoover Dam's construction. The plant was located there because the electrolytic process for Mg extraction uses enormous amounts of electricity, and Hoover Dam had just come online--

Thanks for this detail, very helpful. I need to search around for a map of historic rail lines in Nevada -- from the satellite view it looks like there's the remains of a roadbed west of Gabbs.

The rail line came down to Luning from the north, thru Hawthorne, right along US 95. Till recently there were still old loading chutes on the north side of Luning, but IIRC they were finally torn down in the last few years. The ore came to Luning by truck--that was the only non-rail leg. The railroad still runs as far as Hawthorne, because of the military traffic, but the tracks farther south were ripped up (again IIRC) in the early '90s (that late!) The ore then went north to pick up the transcontinental line near Fallon and thence over to Salt Lake. There'd once been a rail line from Vegas thru Beatty up to Tonopah, dating from the early 20th century, but it was ripped up in the late '20s. The eccentric who built Scotty's Castle bought lots of the ties, and you can still see them stacked on the grounds. Here and there, particularly around Lathrop Wells and southward, you can still see the old R/W from off US 95.

When I went up through Mina and Luning in 2014, I saw what I suspected was an old road bed along US 95. From the satellite view, its fairly clear. (In another life, I would have been a transportation historian!).