Exploring Nevada's Ghost Towns
Abandoned Mining Sites Can be Diggers' Delight
Hundreds of abandoned ghost towns and mining camps in the U. S. West are historical treasure troves, and Nevada's among the richest.
Looking for a vacation that’s different? Digging for history at Nevada’s ghost towns and abandoned mining camps may be your answer.
More than 160 years ago, prospectors began tramping around Nevada Territory, looking for gold, silver, and other minerals to make them rich. In the years that followed, more than 500 towns and mining camps sprung up -- ragtag collections of tents and lean-tos; make-shift saloons, brothels, general stores and boarding houses. Almost all of the mining settlements had populations of more than 50 people. Some of them had several thousand.
Two Mining Booms
The camps came into being during the state's two great mining eras: the Comstock Lode period from 1859 to 1878 and the Tonopah silver discovery in 1900, which heralded a series of booms that peaked in 1918.
When the mines showed promise, wood-frame buildings were slapped up and the mining companies built mills to process the ore -- often before they knew whether there would be enough ore to keep those mills in operation.
Bonanza Aftermath
A couple handfuls of the camps -- Virginia City, Austin, Eureka, Tonapah, Gold Hill, Caliente, Pioche -- survived and became permanent towns. Each had its glory days, then settled down to ordinary living when the mines played out, prices of the metals sank too low for profitable recovery or richer strikes lured miners away.
The lifespan of the typical mining camp, however, was only a few weeks or months. Like tumbleweeds, they blew away without a trace. As a result, often you'll see nothing but desert at their abandoned sites. Others contain memorials to the past in the form of weathered wooden headstones, building foundations and remnants of brick chimneys.
Locations
Camps sprung up overnight in all but two of 17 Nevada counties, with most of them in White Pine (80 mines), Elko (74), Lander (55) and Eureka (41). Some were named for places like Cleveland Ranch and Babylon. Others were named for people or for natural land features such as creeks, mountains or valleys. Most of their names – like Lousetown, Jumbo, Jiggs and Bootstrap -- were colorful, to say the least.
Typical of the most interesting sites is Seven Troughs (about 25 miles northwest of Lovelock), where mill ruins, extensive mine dumps, and remnants of buildings -- both wood and rock -- remain. You'll find rusting tin cans, old boots, and other objects lying in the sagebrush, preserved intact by the dry desert air. Seven Troughs, Unionville and Rochester (all in Pershing County) are considered to be among the best preserved of northern Nevada’s ghost towns.
Southern Nevada Sites
Although most of the ghost towns and mining camps were staked out in the northern part of the state, a few of them are in the area around Las Vegas. In the mountains 29 miles southwest, Potosi is the state's oldest lode mine. Goodsprings, 35 miles southwest of Las Vegas, was a booming mining camp that produced lead and zinc at the turn of the century. Other southern Nevada mining camps include Sandy, 13 miles west of Goodsprings, and Eldorado Canyon, 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas.
Digging is great fun if you're like a lot of Nevadans who enjoy searching for old bottles and other artifacts of bygone days (they say digging around old outhouse sites is particularly productive). Be sure, though, to ask permission before you dig on private property and for safety’s sake, stay away from abandoned mine shafts and posted areas. Locations of many of the state’s abandoned sites can be found at ghosttowns.
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