Mazuma

Pershing County

See the page on Seven Troughs for more details on the area. Like the rest of the Seven Troughs Mining District, when the towns of Seven Troughs, Mazuma, Vernon and Farrell sprang up, they were still a part of Humboldt County. Mazuma sat below Seven Troughs at the canyon mouth. The town of Mazuma came into existence in 1907 when the Seven Troughs District boomed. By 1908, Mazuma had become the center of the district. Businesses moved in, to include stores, a three- story hotel and a two-story bank. A fire department and a newspaper also operated here. In the first photograph, you will see all that is left of the Darby Mill, which was built in 1909.

Flash Flood of July 1912: Mazuma sat below the town of Seven Troughs at the mouth of the canyon. A storm started building in the mountains above Seven Troughs. The rain began to pour. The water built up pressure as it came down the canyon and passed through the lower end of Seven Troughs. By the time the flash flood hit Mazuma, it was reported that the wall of water was two or three stories high. With the exception of a couple businesses, residences and the Darby Mill, the entire town was destroyed. Many were killed, to include three children from the Kehoe family. the post office closed a couple months later and Mazuma was never rebuilt. There is a page on this website dedicated to the Mazuma Cemetery on the Old Cemeteries page. If you read some of the outstanding books on Nevada history, you will see that two of my favorite authors got the date of the flash flood wrong. One author lists it as July 29th. Another author lists it as July 9th. Findagrave lists it as July 18th. The memorial marker that sits below Mazuma lists it as July 29th. Therefore, being the newspaper archives person that I am, I went to the archives. It is very clear that this flash flood occurred on July 18th. It's not even up for debate. I will post some Newspaper articles from that time period for indisputable evidence. That is in no way meant to bash those authors. In my opinion, their books are the best around. It just means that they are human. Also, they wrote those books before the internet existed and all of this information was available with a few button clicks. They had to do research the hard way.

Post Office: August 28, 1907 to November 30, 1912

Last Trip/ Road Conditions: May 2021. the road to Mazuma is good. The road beyond Mazuma to Seven Troughs gets trickier. You will know that you are in Mazuma when you see the old safe in the wash. This was carried down the canyon from the town of Seven Troughs during the flash flood of July 18, 1912. We were also able to find the memorial marker for the flood victims below the town. The marker was down. We stood it back up. How long it will stay up, I don't know.