State Route 372 (SR 372) is a short

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

Nye County Nye County is a county in the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 51,591. Its county seat is Tonopah. At , Nye is Nevada's largest county by area and the third-largest county in the contiguous United States, behi ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

, United States. The route connects the town of Pahrump to the southeast side of

Death Valley National Park Death Valley National Park is an American national park that straddles the California–Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. The park boundaries include Death Valley, the northern section of Panamint Valley, the southern section of Eureka ...

via

California State Route 178 State Route 178 (SR 178) is a state highway in the U.S. state of California that exists in two constructed segments. The gap in between segments is connected by various local roads and State Route 190 through Death Valley National Park. The west ...

. The route was formerly a part of State Route 52 until being renumbered in 1976.

Route description

State Route 372 begins at the

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

state line along California State Route 178, about northwest of the town of

Shoshone The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho * Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah * Goshute: western Utah, easter ...

near the eastern border of

. From the state line, the route heads northwest where rural areas surrounding Pahrump come into view after a short distance. Development around the route gets more dense as the route continues easterly through the town. SR 372 comes to an end in the middle of Pahrump, at an intersection with State Route 160.

History

The road that is now SR 372 was established by 1937. The unimproved route was incorporated into the westernmost end of the State Route 52 alignment, which had been redefined to extend from the California state line, through Pahrump and the

Humboldt–Toiyabe National Forest The Humboldt–Toiyabe National Forest (HTNF) is the principal U.S. National Forest in the U.S. state of Nevada, and has a smaller portion in Eastern California. With an area of , it is the largest U.S. National Forest outside of Alaska. His ...

north of

Charleston Peak Mount Charleston, including Charleston Peak (Nuvagantu, literally "where snow sits", in Southern Paiute or Nüpakatütün in Shoshoni) at , is the highest mountain in both the Spring Mountains and Clark County, in Nevada, United States. It is ...

, to State Route 5 southeast of Indian Springs. By 1940, State Route 52 was shown to be discontinuous through the national forest. The portion of SR 52 west of Pahrump had been improved to a gravel road by 1950, and had been constructed to a paved highway by 1956. The California–to–Pahrump segment of State Route 52 did not undergo any significant changes for several years after being improved in the 1950s. When Nevada began renumbering its state highways in 1976, however, this portion of SR 52 was renumbered to State Route 372. The new route number was first seen on Nevada's official state highway maps in 1978. SR 372 has remained relatively unchanged since.

Major intersections

References

{{Commons category, Nevada State Route 372 372 Pahrump, Nevada SR 372