7 Nevada town names that will make you giggle

From a name influenced by a jukebox hit to a ghost town with a cursed name, these seven Nevada town names are definite conversation starters.

It isn’t only Nevada’s “anything goes” attitude that makes people blush. Like any respectable state, we also have some blush-worthy town names. They don’t match the audacity of Balltown, Iowa, or Intercourse, Pennsylvania, but some earn lowbrow laughs while others are unusual, ironic, or on the nose. Perhaps most ironic, one isn’t a town name at all.

From a name influenced by a jukebox hit to a ghost town with a cursed name, these seven Nevada town names will make you giggle or blush. 

1. Puckerbrush

Nine miles from Imlay, at the intersection of I-80 and SR 400 in Pershing County, a sign welcomes visitors to “Puckerbrush, population 28.” The blushworthy term for scrubby terrain isn’t a town name, but a nickname, and the sign is a nod to the nearby truck stop.

Erected at TA Truck Stop (formerly Burns Brothers), the name eludes to the song “The Puckerbrush” by John J., per a comment on a Flickr photo of the sign by Nevada photographer Ken Lund. The song “was No. 1 on the jukebox at a truckstop in Nevada for so long, that they renamed the town after his song,” reads the comment.

The timing of the sign’s erection is unclear, but the song was written sometime after John J.’s birth in 1928 and before this video was posted three years ago.

Reno’s KRNV News 4 reports that the current iteration of the sign is “more of a state emblem and a nickname that pays vague tribute to the small towns all throughout the Great Basin.”

2. West Wendover

Speaking of blush-worthy names, West Wendover’s moniker elicits a snicker or two (especially in the headline of this hotel review on Trip Advisor), but if you ask us, the Elko County tourist town gets the last laugh.

A thriving gaming town along a stretch of Interstate 80 on the northeastern border with Utah, West Wendover is sitting pretty with hotels, casinos, a cannabis dispensary, a golf course, and museums, including the Historic Wendover Air Field Museum, where you can see a World War II-era B-29 bomber hangar. 

It’s also home to Wendover Will, named the World’s Largest Mechanical Cowboy by the “Guinness Book of Records” in 1952. Call it what you will, but we’d say that’s a respectable flex.

Wendover Will, the world’s Largest Mechanical Cowboy beckons visitors to town. (Lynn Friedman/CC BY-SA 2.0).

3. Beaverdam

At only 0.6 square miles, Beaverdam is the tiniest of the Nevada towns on this list in terms of physical size. Despite its demure footprint, the population is 40, per the 2020 census. Located in Lincoln County, east of U.S. Route 93, the town is so small that it shares a zip code with Caliente, its neighbor six miles to the south.

4. Jiggs 

Jiggs is a town in Elko County with a population of two and several modern claims to fame.

Located about 30 miles south of Elko at the south end of State Route 228, the town has gone by the names Cottonwood, Dry Creek, Mound Valley, Skelton, and Hylton—depending on who you asked. When a post office was built in 1918, and mail delivery was on the table, local ranchers chose Jiggs, based on a character from the American comic strip “Bringing Up Father.”

Along with a name that changed more than the weather, many notable names from Nevada history books have passed through Jiggs, from famed explorer John C. Fremont to the tragically cannibalistic Donner Party. The town has been home to two Nevada governors and was the fictional headquarters for King Fisher, a character created by author Zane Grey (1872-1939).

As if that isn’t already pretty lofty, in 1965, the entire population of Jiggs (five adults, four children, and a dog) was featured in a Volkswagen advertising campaign.

Renowned cowboy poet Waddie Mitchell, a founder of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, is currently one of two residents of Jiggs.

5. Owyhee

Owyhee is a thriving community nestled along the banks of the Owyhee River in Elko County, off SR 225. It’s home to the federally recognized Shoshone-Paiute tribe’s Duck Valley Indian Reservation, which covers portions of northern Nevada and southern Idaho.

According to Nevada Expeditions, Owyhee’s unusual name is “a corrupted, phonetic spelling” of Hawaii. While early trappers called the land Sandwich Island, over time, it became more widely known as Owyhee.

The area was originally fraught with strife between Native Americans and white settlers, but the Western Shoshone were given the land by Presidential Proclamation in 1877. The town of Owyhee was established and by 1881, a stage line was established to Owyhee from Elko. 

The reservation has since been expanded twice and is currently home to Northern Paiute. It continues to grow and is now home to 12,722 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

6. Jackpot

A town with an on-the-nose name, Jackpot in Elko County has come a long way since its days as Unincorporated Town No. 1. But even that bureaucracy-chic name wasn’t the town’s first.

When incorporated in 1958, county commissioners dubbed the town Horse Shu, much to the chagrin of town founders Pete Piersanti and Don French. A disagreement ensued, leading county commissioners to stamp it as “Unincorporated.” In 1959, a compromise was struck, and Jackpot was born.

Jackpot is located along U.S. 93, less than one mile from the Idaho border. In 2023, the growing casino gaming destination was featured in a 2023 episode of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” though none of the scenes were filmed there.

A billboard for the town of Jackpot along US 93 between Wells and Jackpot beckons travelers to “stay, explore, and play.” (Ken Lund/CC BY-SA 2.0).

7. Metropolis

The name Metropolis evokes images of comic book superheroes, but this deserted Nevada ghost town is more of a wasteland.

Located 12 miles northwest of Wells in Elko County, Metropolis was the dream of early 20th-century businessmen and investors who wanted to build a huge farming district in the Great Basin. They started by building a dam on Bishop Creek for irrigation, 15 miles east of the planned city. At its peak, the town of 700 had an amusement hall, a post office, a school, a train depot with passenger service, and a modern hotel. 

A lawsuit from the downstream town of Lovelock was the first nail in the coffin for Metropolis. The bankrollers behind Metropolis never established water rights to Bishop Creek. 

Without irrigation, dry farming failed, and a Mormon cricket infestation followed. The city declared bankruptcy in 1920, the railroad closed in 1922, and the population dwindled. At some point, a fire destroyed many of the town’s buildings, and by 1950, Metropolis was a ghost town in ruins.

Metropolis isn’t in ruins because of an epic fight between Superman and Lex Luthor. The ghost town is a failed farming experiment. (David Gallagher/CC BY-SA 2.0).

This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.