Lincoln County Elementary School

This one-story structure is the only Mission Revival building in Lincoln County besides the Caliente Depot. In the early twentieth century larger Nevada school districts in Reno and Las Vegas favored the style, but Lincoln County tended toward vernacular buildings. This school, designed by an architect in a fashionable style, displays the school district's desire for something that would stand out, not just in the community but also in southern Nevada. Built at a time when Lincoln County had lost nearly half of its territory to Clark County, the school may also have been a way to assert Pioche's progressiveness and educational standards as compared with those of Las Vegas, its burgeoning neighbor to the south. The building, one story on a raised basement, has reinforced concrete walls and a hipped roof that rises to a squat, hip-roofed cupola. Two identical scrolled parapets cap the roofline of the main facade above groups of three windows. The building originally contained four classrooms, but additions were made in the 1930s and 1940s. It is the oldest continually operating school in southern Nevada.