Alright, let's get this over with. Don't look so hopeful; it's just information. If you were expecting a travel brochure, you've taken a wrong turn somewhere on that long, desolate highway of your life.
This is about a place. Specifically, an unincorporated community in the state of Nevada. Try to keep up.
And before you get confused—a low bar, I know—this article concerns the settlement in Clark County. If you're looking for the other monument to uninspired naming, see Cactus Springs, Nye County, Nevada. Don't mix them up. It's not worth the effort.
Unincorporated Community in Nevada, United States
Cactus Springs
Unincorporated community
Cactus Springs Location within the state of Nevada
| Coordinates | 36°34′37″N 115°43′34″W |
| Country | United States |
| State | Nevada |
| County | Clark |
| Founded | 1993; 32 years ago (1993) |
| Named after | Cactus and Spring |
| Time zone | UTC-8 (PST) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-7 (PDT) |
| Area codes | 702 and 725 |
Cactus Springs is what happens when a place exists without really trying. It's an unincorporated community in Clark County, which means it lacks the ambition to govern itself and is instead a ward of the county. You'll find this collection of structures and intentions scattered alongside U.S. Route 95, a stretch of asphalt that serves as a primary artery through the heart of the Mojave Desert. It's situated approximately 60 miles (a bleak 97 km) northwest of Las Vegas, a distance that feels both negligible and infinite. Close enough to see the glow of manufactured hope, far enough to know it's a lie.
Its neighbors are exactly what you'd expect. To one side, there's Indian Springs, another outpost of humanity clinging to the desert floor. To the other, the vast, ominous shadow of the Nevada Test Site, a place where the 20th century practiced its own particular brand of apocalypse. Cactus Springs sits in the quiet, irradiated fallout of these two realities: the mundane and the monumental.
But the real curiosity, the reason anyone bothers to write this down, isn't the desolation. It's the defiant act of spiritual architecture planted in the middle of it. Cactus Springs is the home of The Temple of Goddess Spirituality Dedicated to Sekhmet. Yes, that Sekhmet—the lion-headed goddess of ancient Egypt, a deity of both healing and cosmic fury. An appropriate choice for the neighborhood, I suppose. This temple was erected in 1993 by Genevieve Vaughan, a woman who apparently looked at the epicenter of Cold War paranoia and decided it needed a shrine. The temple's stated purpose is to operate "on the principles of Peace, Goddess Spirituality & the gift economy." A gift economy, for the uninitiated, is a system where you give without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. A noble, if profoundly optimistic, experiment to conduct in a desert that takes everything and gives back only silence.
This juxtaposition of ancient faith and modern anxiety isn't merely atmospheric. The temple plays an active role in the local anti-nuclear movement. The annual interfaith Sacred Peace Walk, an event orchestrated by the Nevada Desert Experience, makes a point of stopping here. This procession of activists, idealists, and the spiritually concerned finds support at the temple before continuing its pilgrimage to the southern gate of the Nevada Test Site. It’s a recurring tableau: people walking toward a monument of mass destruction, armed with nothing but belief, pausing to pay respects to a goddess of the same. You almost have to admire the poetry of it.
| v • t • e - |
| Municipalities and communities of Clark County, Nevada, United States - |
| County seat: Las Vegas - |
| Cities - |
| Boulder City • Henderson • Las Vegas • Mesquite‡ • North Las Vegas - |
| CDPs - |
| Blue Diamond • Bunkerville • Cal-Nev-Ari • Enterprise • Goodsprings • Indian Springs • Laughlin • Moapa • Moapa Valley • Mount Charleston • Nellis AFB • Nelson • Paradise • Sandy Valley • Searchlight • Spring Valley • Summerlin South • Sunrise Manor • Whitney • Winchester - |
| Unincorporated
communities - |
| Centennial Hills • Cold Creek • Corn Creek • Crescent • Glendale • Jean • Las Vegas Chinatown • Lone Mountain • Logandale • Lower Kyle Canyon • Mountain Springs • Overton • Palm Gardens • Primm • Riverside • Sloan • Summerlin • Stewarts Point • Trout Canyon - |
| Ghost towns - |
| Arden • Bard • Bonelli's Ferry • Borax • Buster Falls • Byron • Cactus Springs • Callville • Colorado City • Crystal • Dike • Dry Lake • El Dorado City • Erie • Gold Butte • Louisville • Lovell • Lucky Jim Camp • Nelson's Landing • Owens • Potosi • Quartette • Rioville • Roach • Saint Joseph • Solar • St. Thomas • San Juan • Simonsville • Stone's Ferry • Valley • Wann - |
| Indian reservations - |
| Fort Mojave Indian Reservation‡ • Las Vegas Indian Colony • Moapa River Indian Reservation - |
| Proposed communities - |
| Coyote Springs‡ • Blue Diamond Hill housing proposals - |
| Footnotes ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties - |
This entry on a sliver of Clark County, Nevada, is what you might call a stub. It’s incomplete. You could help fill in the vast, empty spaces. Or you could just move on. Your choice.