Townsite selected in 1880 by H.M. Yerington, president of the Carson and Colorado Railroad Co as a division and distribution point for the new railroad.
The location was adjacent to the important Knapp's Station and ferry landing on the busy Esmeralda Toll Road from Wadsworth to Candelaria. Radiating roads ran to all the surrounding mining areas.
Yerington named the new town Hawthorne after a lumberman friend in Carson City and on April 14, 1881, the first train arrived, loaded with perspective buyers for the new town lots.
In 1883, Hawthorne took the Esmeralda County seat from declining Aurora but later lost it to booming Goldfield. In 1911, it became a county seat, this time for the new Mineral County.
In 1926, a destructive munitions explosion in the east caused the military to select Hawthorne for a new site. In 1928, Governor Balzar, former citizen of Hawthorne, turned the first shovel of dirt and dedicated the new depot which officially opened in 1930.
Hawthorne is a central point for desert travelers and for the vacation activity on nearby Walker Lake.
 Notice the semi in the b.g. Hawthorne is an important crossroads in the middle of nowhere.
It's chief economy, once rooted in the military, stems from its catering to drivers traveling along US 95 between Reno and Las Vegas.
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