Why do you ask? I grew up there in the 60s. Graduated from High School there.

 

Curiosity more than anything. I first saw / became aware of Hawthorne a few years ago while doing a flight from Eugene, OR, to PHX. We flew over Hawthorne and the munitions storage caught my eye. I did a little research on the web (pre-Google Earth days) just to learn a little about the town. My main wonder was always why the town was packed in so tight, like it was cut out of a big city, when there's so much land all around.

Was there / is there any concern w.r.t. flooding from the lake? From 35,000' it seems that the water line from some point in the past would cover the town.

 

Hawthorne is 1 mile square. Most of the property around & near it is U.S. Army now. When I growing up it was the largest Naval Ammo Depot in the World. It supplied the entire Pacific Fleet with ammo from WWII through Desert Storm. When I was growing up there it was a happening place. There were Marines, Navy, Air Force S.A.C. Unit, & 4000 Civilian workers at the base.
Walker Lake is the lake. It was 21 miles long & 8 miles wide back in the day. No one knows how deep it is. Desert Research Labs have tried to sonar the depths but the deepest they could go was 900 ft because of terrain under water, like shelves etc.
The town has been there since 1881. The lake shore was much closer to town in it beginning than even when I grew up there. But never has flooded the town. The town started as a railroad town. & supply town for near by mines. The lake is U.S Army & the Paiute Indian tribes possession. Only 1% of the property in that entire area to the California border is privately owned the rest is Indian, BLM, & U.S Army. Since the 1981 the base is contract under Day & Zimmerman. Hawthorne is dieing a slow death. The Government will never close it because of the storage it provides & the NAS Fallon which is the home of Top Gun & Navy Seal Training Center. Hawthorne is also used for Seal training. Fallon is 72 miles North of Hawthorne. But other than storage not much production is happening any more. The base surrounds the entire town. Back in the day, All the ships in the Pacific would off load expired or out dated ammo in Concord CA & it was railed to Hawthorne to be rebuilt. Hawthorne also made most the ammo used & railed it to Concord. Everything from small arms to 2000# bombs and anything else you can think of. Missiles from 2.75MM to the Polaris missile. The base is like over 500 sq miles. I worked in Refrigeration for the contractor back in the early 80s. It was a trip working there. I saw some real interesting things, & had some real exciting moments. I spent 2 years working there.
There was another town next to Hawthorne called Babbitt, Nv. It was built in the 40s by the Military to house both military & civilians. It was closed in the 80s & most of the houses were sold & moved. Many were tore down. The town is just vacant land now. But once housed about 6000 people.
Now you have a little info on Hawthorne. It was a great place to grow up, I have a lot of fond memories grewing up there.

 

Wow. Thank you for that. I love getting a chance to learn about the hundreds, if not thousands, of small towns I see on any given day in the air.

 

My pleasure. I enjoy sharing those things.
Craig