Alas, Monday morning comes and folks have places to be, loved ones to see and commitments to be met. We bid adieu to the others but Gary, Ace and I stayed together with plans to see some more and hoped to make it to Great Basin National Park.
We left and headed back to Tonopah for re-provisioning. Along the way, we passed through Goldfield NV but didn’t stop. Goldfield is more recent town which grew from the discovery of gold in 1902. Mining until 1940, over $86 million was extracted. Much of the town was destroyed by a fire in 1923, although several buildings survived and remain today, notably the Goldfield Hotel, the Consolidated Mines Building (the communications center of the town until 1963), and the schoolhouse. Gold exploration still continues in and around the town today. The hotel is not currently open and some accounts describe it as haunted. There is an ongoing effort to restore many of the old buildings and build the tourist trade. You can find out more at Ghost Town Operations.com website.
Teddy Roosevelt visited Goldfield and there is a story that Wyatt Earpp came to Goldfield after the Gunfight at the OK Corral but there is little to support that. It is confirmed that his brother, Virgil, worked, lived and died in Goldfield although he is buried in Portland, Oregon.
The school is the building in the right of the picture above.
RV parking behind the casino in Tonopah.
Continuing along to Manhattan, we find another town’s mainstreet which has obvously seen better days.
This church, which sets on a hill above Manhattan’s main street was orignially constructed in Belmont.
We stopped for lunch outside of town and then went on to Belmont, NV.
Although closed this day, there are still accommodations to be had at the old Combination Miining Co. building, including the Old Boots Saloon.
Remains of the bank.
Belmont is the site of a spring used by the Shoshone. In 1865, the discovery of silver ore led to a boom that eventually led to the buildup of a commercial center including schools, a post office, a newspaper and eventually becoming the county seat of Nye County from 1867 to 1905.
Belmont was known as a rowdy town with saloons, a red light district and various ethnic neighborhoods. Roughly $4 million was extracted from the shallow ore.
Courthouse from the days of County seat.
Remnants of the Combination Mining Mill in East Belmont.
We traveled further north and found a spot for the night in the Pine Creek Campground in the Toiyabe National Forest.
The weather forecasts were calling for cold, possible rain/sleet and this spot seemed fairly sheltered.
More photos from this leg of the trip.
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