Arden, Nevada was an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Clark County, Nevada Clark County is the most populous County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Nevada with 2,265,461 residents as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The county is the location of the state's three largest cities, Las Vegas (t ...

, United States. The area is now part of the town of

Enterprise Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to: Business and economics Brands and enterprises * Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company * Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company * Enterpris ...

. Located about southwest of

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

, the area is experiencing rapid growth in housing development on land formerly owned by the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

History

The

San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad The Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was a rail company in California, Nevada, and Utah in the United States, that completed and operated a railway line between its namesake cities (Salt Lake City, Utah, and Los Angeles, California), via Las ...

(later part of the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

) began operating through the area in 1905. The railroad's Arden station, located about south of Las Vegas, was named for Arden, the New York estate of E. H. Harriman, the railroad's co-owner. By 1906, Arden was serving as a shipping point for the Potosi mine. The Arden post office was established in 1907. Around that time, William K. Moore, who has been credited as Arden's founder, discovered

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...

deposits in the nearby mountains. With financing from Southern California businessmen, Moore started the Arden Plaster Company, which opened a mill at the site in 1908. It was reported to be the second largest gypsum plant in the country. A

narrow-gauge railroad A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curv ...

was constructed to connect the plant to the gypsum mine, away. The plaster plant burned down in 1912, but was quickly rebuilt. In 1919, it was purchased by the United States Gypsum Company. The plant was closed and dismantled in 1930 due to a decline in the construction industry. A railroad spur line was built in 1925 to connect Arden to the Blue Diamond Mine, to the northwest. A

gravel pit A gravel pit is an open-pit mine for the extraction of gravel. Gravel pits often lie in river valleys where the water table is high, so they may naturally fill with water to form ponds or lakes. Gravel pit lakes are typically nutrient rich and ...

was established at Arden in the mid-1950s, and operated until 1978, growing to in size. A commercial operation has since resumed operations at the site. Clark County built a

fallout shelter A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designated to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War. Durin ...

at Arden in the 1950s or 1960s to house regional government leaders in case of an attack on Las Vegas. The shelter was maintained at least until the 1980s. On April 21, 1958, United Airlines Flight 736, a Douglas DC-7 passenger aircraft with 47 aboard. crashed onto then-empty desert two miles SE of Arden after a mid-air collision with a

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

F-100 jet fighter flown by two pilots. All 49 aboard the two aircraft were killed. The Arden post office was closed in 1971. In 1981, Arden was reported to have around 40 residents.

References

1905 establishments in Nevada Populated places established in 1905 Unincorporated communities in Clark County, Nevada Unincorporated towns in Nevada Unincorporated communities in Nevada {{ClarkCountyNV-geo-stub