Lincoln County’s first automobile dealer

The Ford City Garage, still standing on Main Street, holds valuable history in Pioche.

In the 1870s, during Pioche’s mining boom, Wells Fargo and COS Express operated out of this old stone building. The stagecoaches and wagons carried gold dust, bullion, coins, mail and passengers from mining areas to more populated areas utilizing four stage routes in and out of Pioche. The horses pulling the stages were fed and watered across the street at the livery stables. It was one of the most reliable ways to transport the valuable cargo.

In 1914, Roy Orr turned to automotive engineering as the first and only Ford agent in Lincoln County and one of the first in the state of Nevada. When the first carload of Fords came to the depot in a box car via railroad on March 15, 1914, they were all disassembled and taken to this old stone building located between the old Wells Fargo building and the Wyoming Hotel, which was located adjacent to Thompson’s Opera House. 

Orr assembled the cars. He operated the automobile business out of the old stone building until World War II, when he relocated to the corner of LaCour and Main Street, now the Meadow Valley Market.

Credit: Pioche Historical Society