Beaver Dam State Park

Experience the peaceful splendor that is Beaver Dam State Park. The deep canyons, flowing streams, waterfalls, pinyon, juniper and ponderosa forests of Beaver Dam have beckoned people for centuries. Today, a visit to Beaver Dam State Park allows visitors to experience the pristine, natural beauty and primitive, rustic character that distinguishes this park from all others. The park is about three hours north of Las Vegas on the Utah border. Camping and fishing along the streams of Headwaters and Pine creeks goes back centuries, to a time when Native Americans inhabited what is now Beaver Dam State Park. A group of emigrants stumbled upon the valley in 1849 while looking for a quicker route to California. They did not find a shortcut, just steep cliffs and valleys that were difficult to cross. They continued on the their way, leaving their wagons and some initials carved in stone, taking with them stories and descriptions which would later bring permanent settlers to the areas now known as Beaver Dam and Barclay. One family of settlers, the Hamblins, built a small house, a blacksmith shop and a one-room schoolhouse for the children in the Beaver Dam Wash area. Remnants of the Hamblin Ranch settlement can be seen at the northern end of the park. This archeological site is protected by state law and the removal of artifacts is prohibited. The heavily wooded area, with its free-flowing streams, offered a welcome respite in the summer months for the families that settled the area. Improvements in 1917 to the Acoma-Shem highway, the main wagon road into Utah, made access to the area easier and spurred interest in designating Beaver Dam Wash as a park. Beaver Dam became one Nevada’s first State Parks in 1935.