Amargosa Days

On a Saturday morning toward the end of April, entries for the World’s Shortest Parade line up by the Amargosa Valley fire station at 8:30 and roll at 9:00. The route runs about 800 yards, past the community center on Farm Road and into Amargosa Valley Park, and the procession lasts roughly twenty minutes. In 2025 the town clerk, named Mike Cottin in the Pahrump Valley Times, expected 35 to 40 entrants and gave the course: “They all go through the Amargosa Fire Department, down to School Lane, where they make a left turn, go down a couple of hundred yards and that’s it, which is why it’s known as the world’s shortest parade.” Anyone can enter, and there are no prizes. Mike Cottingim, organizing the 2019 festival, described it from the spectator’s side: “There’s no chance of getting sunburned watching this one.”

The parade opens the main day of Amargosa Days, a spring town festival run by the Town of Amargosa Valley, usually on a Friday and a Saturday. The park sits at the corner of Farm and School Roads, in a community of about 1,500 people some 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas and roughly 44 miles from Pahrump. Recent years have drawn four to five hundred people, close to a third of the town. Admission and activities are free. In 2019 Cottingim said visitors paid only for the food and souvenirs they bought at the booths.

The mud pit and the water cannons

After the parade the rest of Saturday fills in. Classics and hot rods stand on the grass all afternoon. In the early afternoon four-wheel drives take on the mud bog, which the clerk described in 2025: “Basically, we dug down about three feet into the ground for about 40 to 50 feet and it comes up the other side, but it’s going to have a couple of feet of water in it and mud.” He hoped the drivers had prepared their trucks. “If they get stuck, we’ve got ways to get them out.” Sand drag races have run in some years.

The Amargosa Valley Volunteer Fire Department brings out its trucks and opens the water cannons, sending water high into the air. The Nye County Sheriff’s Office puts its K-9 unit through a demonstration. Children ride a mechanical bull for free and use a bounce house and a climbing wall. Horseshoe players sign up on the day, and a gun raffle is drawn Saturday afternoon. In recent years the Wild Horse Band has played on both days. Food and craft booths line the park on both days, along with displays from clubs and agencies.

Breakfasts, burros and a superhero parade

The town says the line-up changes a little from year to year, and the newspaper record bears this out. The 2015 festival was held in May. It opened with a Friday poker run and music by Jimmy D and the Howlin’ Dogs. Saturday began with a 6 a.m. run/walk and a 7 a.m. swap meet. The 3D Robotics team showed off its drones during the parade. The rest of the day brought 4-H archery, a DJ playing hits from the 1960s, the Beatty Band in the park, homemade ice cream, and C&S Barbecue from Pahrump. Pahrump’s All Star Blues band played from 6 to 10 p.m. to close it. Two vendors that year, Acres Cultivation and the Uptown Solar Company, took job applications for projects they planned in the valley.

In 2017 the Bureau of Land Management set up burro pens, and the Pahrump Valley Gunfighters had a booth complete with a jail cell. The 2018 festival ran three days, April 27 through 29. Sand drag races started at 5 p.m. Friday, open to anyone with a sand racing vehicle fitted with seatbelts and a helmet. The local VFW kept an informal beer garden during the music and dancing. Two local churches served a 7 a.m. breakfast on Saturday, and the parade that followed was an “Intergalactic Aliens & Superheroes” parade. That afternoon held rodeo arena speed events from 2 to 8 p.m. and a gun show in the Colorado Room of the Longstreet Inn. Sunday brought another breakfast, a community church service led by local pastors, and family kickball at 1 p.m. A portion of the proceeds went to Path4Paws, a local dog rescue.

The 2019 festival, billed as the 50th annual, opened Friday evening with a town-sponsored dance and a live band in the park. Saturday offered mutton busting (sheep wrangling) for the children and a turkey shoot (target practice). The Boy Scouts provided a climbing wall. The BLM brought burros in a portable pen, and the National Park Service staffed an information booth. A raffle with a .22 rifle among its prizes was drawn at 4 p.m. The Anvil Band played at 6, and fireworks went up between 8 and 8:30. Cottingim said the town had allotted a generous budget for the show. A non-denominational outdoor church service in the park closed the weekend on Sunday morning.

Snails cut from tires

Cottingim, a 15-year resident in 2019, stood at the park entrance that year with co-organizer Jim Fritz. “It’s a little small-town celebration,” he said. “Good, hometown fun.” He also said, “Our main focus is about keeping the money here in Amargosa Valley,” and added, “We’re not really what you would consider a resort-type destination out here.” James Gitzlaff, 63, known as “Catman,” spent the day walking the grounds and meeting visitors, as he had at many past festivals.

Most of the vendors came from out of town, many from Pahrump. Bob and Marna Krause, both retired, named their business “reTIRED.” A woman from Amargosa Valley had bought one of their pieces in Pahrump and told them to come out. “I cut the tires up into snails and she paints the snails,” Bob Krause said. DJ Mills grew up in Amargosa Valley and staffed a Nevada Health Link booth. He called the crowd “the perfect kind of foot traffic,” saying a vendor was “not too overwhelmed with a lot of people, but you’re not just sitting here twiddling your thumbs.” Pastor James Attebury of Amargosa Christian Fellowship, who is also a volunteer firefighter in the valley, handed out literature with his wife, Katie.

Alfalfa farmers, 1969

The festival’s count does not run in a straight line. The Pahrump Valley Times called the 2015 festival the 10th annual. It called the 2019 festival the 50th and the April 25–26, 2025 festival the 56th. The town gives 1969 as the first year. The paper has also spelled the organizer’s name several ways: Cottingham, as town manager, in 2015; Cottingim in 2019; and Cottin, as town clerk, in 2025. Nye County lists the Amargosa Valley town clerk as Mike Cottingim.

Accounts of the beginning differ as well. The organizers’ 2018 announcement said the celebration honors the town’s founding in 1969. In 2025 the clerk remembered it starting with farmers: “Back in 1969 there were just a bunch of alfalfa farmers out here and not much else. But they got it started way back then, and somehow kind of kept it going.”