Panaca is an unincorporated town in eastern Lincoln County, Nevada, United States, on State Route 319, about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) east of U.S. Route 93, near the affix with Utah. Its elevation is 4,729 feet (1,441 meters) above sea level. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 963. It is one of deserted two cities in Nevada that prohibits gambling, the extra being Boulder City.

The area that was to become the Panaca agreement was explored by Mormons in 1857. Brigham Young dispatched the explorers in order to find a potential refuge in warfare of a U.S. military campaign next to Utah. The location was fixed due to the Meadow Valley oasis at the headwaters of the Muddy River. Mormon scouts began irrigation ditches and started fields, but the site was soon without help after the feared treat badly never materialized. Panaca was the first long-lasting settlement by European Americans in southern Nevada. It was founded as a Mormon colony in 1864. It began as allowance of Washington County, Utah, but the congressional redrawing of boundaries in 1866 shifted Panaca into Nevada. It is the only community in Nevada to be “dry” (forbidding the sale of alcoholic beverages), and the unaccompanied community in Nevada, besides Boulder City, that prohibits gambling.

Coke ovens here in the same way as produced charcoal for the smelters in nearby Bullionville (now a ghost town), but the town’s economy is predominantly agricultural.

The name “Panaca” comes from the Southern Paiute word Pan-nuk-ker, which means “metal, money, wealth”. William Hamblin, a Mormon missionary to the Paiutes, established the Panacker Ledge (Panaca Claim) silver mine there in 1864.