Rhyolite Ghost Town

We visited Rhyolite ghost town on the way back to Death Valley after a short visit to Beatty. Rhyolite is an old mining town that is now a historic site under the BLM. We parked at the Bottle House and walked along the main drag through the remains of the town. We found an information sign with a map of the town to guide us for our walk. The flyer also outlined a little of the history of the town. There is not much left here but it was still an interesting historical footnote and worth a short visit. Rhyolite was a gold rush town, a boom town. Gold was found in the area in 1904 and the town was established in 1905 and it quickly grew to about 10,000 inhabitants. But while it has a meteoric rise, its fall came just as quickly as a combination of financial disasters (first the collapsed of the San Francisco financial district due to the 1906 earthquake then the 1907 panic in the east) then the mines playing around 1910 led to it being nearly abandoned by 1920. As mentioned we started our tour at the Bottle House was built in 1906 out of thousands of old beer bottles. Nearby were the old mercantile building used to stand there is a derelict old flatbed truck that made for an interesting photo op. We then walked the road past the remains of the old school (1909; actually a fairly large facility), the Overbury Building (1907), the Porter Brother’s Store (1906; all that remains is the front wall and the basement), the Cook Bank Building (1908) which was quite ornate and finally ended at the Las Vegas and Tonopah train depot (1909) which was the most intact of the remaining structures. This was one of three train lines that served Rhyolite during its short history. Since the town is a historic landmark and it seems an archeological site, there is still a lot of old debris just lying about. Mostly old hunks of metal plates and pipes just strewn throughout the site. We opted not to loop through the lower part of the old town where only a couple of small building ruins remained (the jailhouse and a small residence building). According to the flyer, that was the red-light district of Rhyolite and the small residence may have served as a brothel as well. So I guess it was convenient that the jailhouse was also located nearby. This was a pretty popular spot as there were quite a few folks walking or driving through the old ghost town. Several photographers were set up along the road getting shots of the ruins against the backdrop of red rocks and blue sky. While all of the sites were posted and fenced off to keep the tourists at a safe distance (hey, these 100-plus year old ruins could topple over at any time, I reckon), the grounds around the old train station were open to allow closer inspection. Not much left other than the shell of the building but I bet it was something in its day based on the architectural details (well, what was left of them anyway). On the return walk I was paying more attention to the details of the old town; the bits and pieces that were scattered about, the depressions that indicated the location of long gone structures, the “gone” birds flitting between the scrub bush and the carpet of little white flowers covering the field that used to contain the town.

Walking

United States
OhioHick photo
time : Mar 26, 2016 5:57 PM
duration : 0h 38m 23s
distance : 1 mi
total_ascent : 144 ft
highest_point : 3737 ft
avg_speed : 1.6 mi/h
user_id : OhioHick
user_firstname : Allen
user_lastname : Arrington
We visited Rhyolite ghost town on the way back to Death Valley after a short visit to Beatty. Rhyolite is an old mining town that is now a historic site under the BLM. We parked at the Bottle House and walked along the main drag through the remains of the town. We found an information sign with a map of the town to guide us for our walk. The flyer also outlined a little of the history of the town. There is not much left here but it was still an interesting historical footnote and worth a short visit. Rhyolite was a gold rush town, a boom town. Gold was found in the area in 1904 and the town was established in 1905 and it quickly grew to about 10,000 inhabitants. But while it has a meteoric rise, its fall came just as quickly as a combination of financial disasters (first the collapsed of the San Francisco financial district due to the 1906 earthquake then the 1907 panic in the east) then the mines playing around 1910 led to it being nearly abandoned by 1920. As mentioned we started our tour at the Bottle House was built in 1906 out of thousands of old beer bottles. Nearby were the old mercantile building used to stand there is a derelict old flatbed truck that made for an interesting photo op. We then walked the road past the remains of the old school (1909; actually a fairly large facility), the Overbury Building (1907), the Porter Brother’s Store (1906; all that remains is the front wall and the basement), the Cook Bank Building (1908) which was quite ornate and finally ended at the Las Vegas and Tonopah train depot (1909) which was the most intact of the remaining structures. This was one of three train lines that served Rhyolite during its short history. Since the town is a historic landmark and it seems an archeological site, there is still a lot of old debris just lying about. Mostly old hunks of metal plates and pipes just strewn throughout the site. We opted not to loop through the lower part of the old town where only a couple of small building ruins remained (the jailhouse and a small residence building). According to the flyer, that was the red-light district of Rhyolite and the small residence may have served as a brothel as well. So I guess it was convenient that the jailhouse was also located nearby. This was a pretty popular spot as there were quite a few folks walking or driving through the old ghost town. Several photographers were set up along the road getting shots of the ruins against the backdrop of red rocks and blue sky. While all of the sites were posted and fenced off to keep the tourists at a safe distance (hey, these 100-plus year old ruins could topple over at any time, I reckon), the grounds around the old train station were open to allow closer inspection. Not much left other than the shell of the building but I bet it was something in its day based on the architectural details (well, what was left of them anyway). On the return walk I was paying more attention to the details of the old town; the bits and pieces that were scattered about, the depressions that indicated the location of long gone structures, the “gone” birds flitting between the scrub bush and the carpet of little white flowers covering the field that used to contain the town.
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