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Cowtown Chronicles

Pioche

Pop.: about 700

Industry: mostly government jobs, some cattle ranching

Nearest city: Cedar City, Utah (pop. 21,535), about 95 miles east

Distance to Las Vegas: 174 miles

Talk of the town:

Nuclear issues have burrowed a permanent home inside activist Louis Benezet's head. Benezet, a house painter by trade, is the tour guide at the town's historic "Million Dollar Courthouse." But for the past 20 years, his chief concern has been nuclear testing and waste. In fact, on Monday, Benezet went another round with the Lincoln County Commission. Newspapers have been hububbing about how Lincoln, Esmeralda and Nye counties and the city of Caliente (in Lincoln) are teaming up to study transportation routes, including a rail-to-road transfer hub in Caliente, for nuclear waste headed to Yucca Mountain. In those stories, Lincoln County has been couched as "pro-nuclear waste."

"I reminded them of their old resolution, in 2001, that the county's position is neutral," says Benezet.

So, that's his news. Benezet admits most people in town aren't as preoccupied with the issue as he is. There are more pressing worries--like eating.

"One of the things everyone's talking about is we don't have a grocery store in Pioche," Benezet says. The last store, called The Grocery Store, closed about a year ago because of financial troubles.

"One of the things that astounds me is, even though we're 100 miles from Cedar City and St. George [Utah], people are still willing to get up Saturday morning and drive over there to do their shopping," says Benezet. "Pioche has suffered because of that."

Benezet says he still shops locally, at the little market in Panaca, 10 miles south. "I refuse to go out of the county to shop," he says. "If it costs one to two dollars more, well, I consider it a donation. I think it's a sad thing to lose local business. When I first moved here in 1980, there were two department stores, two hardware stores and two grocery stores. And the only thing that's remained the same is the number of bars."

Sounds like maybe the town needs those three bars, though, for cryin' in.--Heidi Walters