The history of Silver Springs
Silver Springs, Nevada, sits where US 50 meets US 95A in Lyon County, a crossroads shaped not by nature but by a 1949 real estate venture. Los Angeles salesmen Merle Stanley Peek and Ben Klassen bought 1,800 acres, sold lots by newspaper advertisement, and saw the town officially recognised in 1954.
Silver Springs, Nevada, is a crossroads town at the junction of US 50 and US 95A in Lyon County, founded from a 1949 land deal by Los Angeles salesmen Merle Stanley Peek and Ben Klassen, who bought 1,800 acres and sold lots by newspaper advertisement before the town's official recognition in 1954.
A land deal grew into a town with hard years
Half a mile from here, Silver Springs sits where two highways meet, a town built from a land deal rather than a settlement that grew on its own. Two salesmen from Los Angeles, Merle Stanley Peek and Ben Klassen, bought 1,800 acres in October 1949 and started selling lots through newspaper ads back home. Klassen came to dislike his partner enough to cash out in 1952, taking $150,000 and leaving Peek to run what they'd built.
The town has had its hard years since. In October 2014, a fight near the gas station at Nevada Avenue and Highway 95A ended with Robert Buchanan III shot dead. Santiago Fernandez was arrested days later and charged with his murder.
More recently, in February 2025, a 38-year-old mother named Haylie Baggett barricaded herself in a bedroom with her three-year-old child during a mental health crisis. When deputies forced their way in, she shot the child, then herself. Neither survived.
A crossroads town took shape around two highways
After Klassen left, Phillip Hess carried the Silver Springs Land Company forward, still selling desert lots to buyers back in Los Angeles. The pitch worked. By the 2020, census, 5,629 people called Silver Springs home, most of them spread across rural lots rather than packed into a downtown.
The town grew up around the crossing of US 50 and US 95A, the same intersection the original sales ads promised buyers. US 50 runs west to Carson City and east to Fallon. US 95A runs north to Interstate 80 and south toward Yerington, the county seat.
The land itself shaped what the town became. The Carson River marks its southern and eastern edge, backed up behind a dam to form Lahontan Reservoir. Lahontan State Recreation Area sits on those shores, and Fort Churchill State Historic Park lies just outside town.
Today Silver Springs remains what its founders built it to be: a crossroads town, rural and spread out, with more than half its housing built since the original land rush began. Census figures from 2020 show most households are married couples or single residents, and the median age sits near 49, a town of long-time locals as much as newcomers.
You're standing where US 50 and US 95A still cross, the same intersection that gave Silver Springs its reason to exist.
Free on iPhone · opens this place if you have it