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Walking through the town of Rhyolite, Nevada, it’s easy to imagine what the mining town on the wild west frontier used to look like. You see, Rhyolite is a ghost town, and there are several to explore in the desert and hills of Nevada.
About 150 years ago, Nevada was a very different travel destination than the glitz and glamor of Las Vegas and Reno today. It was a place where travelers came to seek fortune and glory long before Indiana Jones coined the term.
Travelers came to the Nevada desert to mine silver and gold or to provide products and services to those miners and muckers. Yes, mucker is the correct term for those early Nevada travelers. These days the only muckers you see are the Tonopah, Nevada high school sports teams.
Towns like Rhyolite filled with visitors seeking their fortune as soon as the announcement of a gold or silver strike was announced. Once the ore was gone, so were they, seeking fortune and glory elsewhere.
The cities flourished and then were abandoned. Today, they sit quietly in the Nevada desert, waiting for tourists to connect with these border ghost towns.
By the way, if you’re heading out to visit some of these relics of the wild west, be sure to download your free one Paranormal passport and earn some cool free swag!
The jewel of the Bullfrog mining district
Most ghost town enthusiasts and Las Vegas residents have heard of the city Rhyolite. Located near Death Valley, and not far from Sin City, Rhyolite was the center of the action in 1905 as the heart of the Bullfrog Mining District.
With 50 saloons, 19 lodging houses and 16 different restaurants, it even attracted steel magnate Charles M. Schwab, who bought the entire mining district in 1906. The town continued to prosper until the mines closed in 1910 and by 1920 there were only 14 residents in Rhyolite. .
Today, Rhyolite is one of many ghost towns you can explore in Nevada.
Eldorado Canyon and the Techatticup Mine
About 45 minutes outside of Las Vegas lies Eldorado Canyon and the Techatticup mine. This is every ghost town photographer’s dream.
According to Travel Nevada, these ghost towns were “loose, bustling, rough townships, [where] shootings and murders were so common in the 1880s.”
Nowadays it is more likely that the landscape is a setting for a Wild West movie. It’s a perfect setting where visitors to the two ghost town areas can connect with the past, as well as the present.
Former US Army fort
About an hour east of Carson City, in northern Nevada, lies the ghost town that was a former U.S. Army frontier fort. Today it is better known as Fort Churchill Historic State Park.
Fort Churchill, a site on the border used to protect the country, today is a place where you can connect with early military history before Nevada even became a state. Visitors can wander through the ruins and enjoy spectacular stargazing even after dark.
The ghost metropolis
For a more rural destination, you can visit the oddly named Metropolis, a ghost town about 15 miles from Wells, Nevada.
In 1909, Pacific Reclamation Company decided to build a self-sufficient utopian city for their 7,500 employees, including an ambitious 40,000-acre farm. Planning began in 1911 and unfortunately by 1913 the company was on its way to bankruptcy.
By 1947, there was nothing left in the ghost town except about seven farms. Now visitors can view this ghost town that was planned as an ideal community for Nevada’s working families.
What visitors need to know
Visiting a ghost town can be a fun way to explore history, the desert, and the old wild wild west all at the same time.
Nevada has some cool places to visit throughout the Silver State. Be sure to explore the state’s spooky history and pick up some cool paranormal passport gear at the same time!
