RETIREMENT TRIP #6

     ALMOST GHOST TOWNS    

                 September 2015                

We’re back in shorts this morning heading out of Ely, Nevada around the 7,000-foot elevation.  Heading southwest, we won’t see much beyond the wide high valleys with Utah juniper and cedar, wider low valleys of sage brush and tumbleweed and the chains of mountain ranges that separate them.

Along Route #6 in Nevada the sagebrush tints the slopes a
dull green in the early morning light.

“There are no towns between Ely and Tonopah,” said Andy, “but it never said ‘NO SERVICES,’ so there must be something.”

I noticed snow fences and a pullout for installing and removing chains.

“There are paved roads in Nevada that average only 50 cars a day,” said Andy.  “Route #6 is not one of them.”

Route #6, a major U.S. highway, was labeled the Grand Army of the Republic in Ely.  Pretty amazing, since it’s only one lane each way!  But that’s how people traveled across the U.S. before the age of the Interstate.

Today the hills are tinted green, and the fire danger here is only moderate.  We drove this way some years ago in the summer when the sage was dry and the land cried out in utter desolation.

With less water Railroad Valley looks
parched and almost lifeless.

Water is the whole issue here.  No one lives in these lovely, scenic valleys because there is so little water available to sustain life.

At the intersection of Route #6 and #379, the town of Currant was totally abandoned.  All the room doors of a little red motel stood open and windows of the two nearby houses were broken.  It was sad to see people’s dreams shattered.  Here they just walked away.

But Currant only had a few buildings at the intersection.

As we climb out of Railroad Valley,
plants cover the hillsides. 

Valleys got drier as we headed southwest.  Crossing Railroad Valley, we spotted structures in the distance.  Coming closer we could see a couple oil rigs pumping up and down.

“It’s a refinery,” said Andy in surprise.  Numerous signs warned No Trespassing.

“There must be enough oil here in this dry, desolate valley to make it worthwhile to build all that,” I told Andy.

He agreed.  “But the sad part,” he said, “is that when the oil runs out, they’ll just leave, and the structures will just be abandoned.”

Climbing out of Railroad Valley, we saw the rock layers change.  The road cut through sections of black basalt, probably lava flows from long ago.  From Blackrock Summit, 6,257 feet, we could see rounded, burnt-out hilltops, probably lava craters from long ago.

A pamphlet verified that the hilltops were part of a 15-mile long chain of cinder cones.  There wasn’t a tree or bush as far as we could see—only the dull green of sagebrush and the golden yellow of snakeweed.

Tonopah Test Site marks
the entrance to Area 51.

“The sign in Ely should have said, ‘No Services for 168 miles’,” said Andy.

“They probably haven’t changed it since Currant went defunct,” I told him.

We skipped Lunar Crater Volcanic Field. “I’m skeptical with this car,” said Andy.  It was 13 miles out on a dirt road, but we were right about the terrain being volcanic.  In ages past this area was an extremely active volcanic field with cinder cones, craters and lava flows that cover more than 100 square miles.

The pamphlet said that the area had been used in the 1960’s for simulations of lunar expeditions, because the geologic features found here are similar to those found on the moon.  They are well preserved because of the dry climate.  The area is also used for extra-terrestrial study.

It’s such a different world here from what we know.  We tried to imagine life in this valley when we passed Tybo Hot Creek Base Camp in the middle of nowhere.  Self contained, a family would need a generator for dependable electricity, a huge freezer to store a whole slaughtered cow, and a gas tank for fuel.

“And where do kids go to school?” asked Andy. “Ely or Tonopah?  They must be home schooled.”

There were only a couple ranches that we could see within 50 miles.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if these were corporate ranches,” said Andy.  “They just hire the workers.”

Warm Springs at 6,293 feet was also defunct.  This apparently had been a spa at one time, but it certainly wasn’t a place of elegant pampering.

One of the many abandoned houses
in Belmont, this one hugs the ridge.

As we approached Tonopah, the cinder cones looked more reddish, and snow poles lined the road as it curved and dipped.  They must get more drifting snow here.

At McKinney Tanks Summit picnic area, 6,390 feet, the water was unsafe for consumption.  A stop sign had obviously been used for target practice.  We pulled over just to check the map and take a couple pictures.

It's called a jail break from the
all-metal four-man cell in Belmont.

About 12 miles from Tonopah, a road branched off to the right.  Tonopah Test Site, a division of Sandia National Laboratories, advertised quietly with a huge missile, but the road had no name, and it wasn’t on the map.  Someone or ones had taken pot shots at the missile.

“The whole complex is their secret test site,” said Andy.  “That’s the famous Area 510--the place where they tested the atomic bomb and the stealth bombers.”

A little farther on were underground bunkers, then the Tonopah Speedway, and then the airport.

We turned onto Route #376, headed to Belmont.  The destination was a 32-mile drive into nowhere.  Belmont was the “town” where Charles Manson hung out and hid with his three female accomplices after the Sharon Tate murders.  Andy had read that it was a ghost town at 7,400 feet elevation.  How wrong and ironic that was!

Another Belmont house is left to the elements
in this old mining town.

Instead of being abandoned, every other house was new and occupied.  In between the tumbled brick and broken timber piles was current construction.  Dirty Dick’s Saloon opened at 3 p.m., and Susie advertised her “Attic” of new and old collectibles.  Names of a five-member town board were posted at the picnic site, and workers pounded away at new house construction across from the 1876 Courthouse.  Even the street signs were beautifully carved wooden pieces, stained and sealed.  Nowhere did we see a word about Charles Manson.  Thank goodness no one is benefitting from him.

Used once a month, this
small non-denominational
church stands at the crest
of the mountain.

Belmont started as a mining camp when silver was discovered in 1865.  At its peak, Belmont boasted a population of more than 2,000 inhabitants, who had access to businesses and amenities one would find in a big city.  Shortly after the post office opened in 1876, Belmont became the Nye County seat.  The County Courthouse was completed in 1876 at a cost of $22,000.  It is said that in the basement of the local bank building, the sheriff hanged Jack Walker and Charles McIntyre.

One pamphlet explained that the town was alternately named Silver Bend, then Philadelphia, and then Transylvania in the years after the first official silver mine claim was filed. That was in October of 1865 on the southeast slope of central Nevada’s Toquina Range.  Tents were the first structures in the mining town that eventually became Belmont, but soon wooden structures and then buildings of stone and red brick housed a bank, school, telegraph office, post office, general store, two newspapers and numerous whiskey shops.

Rail cars and old mining equipment dot the landscape in Goldfield.

A church on the hill, originally built by subscription in 1872, is a non-denominational replica of the Belmont Catholic Church that was moved to Manhattan in 1906.

The brick Courthouse in the center of town symbolizes both the glorious past of Belmont as a silver mining town, netting more than $15,000,000 in the mid-to-later 1800’s, and its decline.

At sunset the mill in Tonopah
stands in ghostly silence.

The mine and mill in Tonopah are part
of a living museum.

One resident, Rose Walter, married and returned to Belmont with her husband Jack.  When he died of silicosis, Rose protect ted her town.  Eventually the only inhabitant long after the mine closed, Rose chased away intruders with a .44-caliber pistol.

Now it seems people are returning.

Sunset casts beautiful shadows on the
tiny abandoned miners' homes of Tonopah.

We checked into the Tonopah Station Hotel and then headed south to explore a real ghost town—Goldfield.  But here too people lived.  Workers were stabilizing the old Goldfield High School built in 1906.

“The Courthouse still functions,” said Andy.  It was built in 1907.

Poverty and defunct mines turn Tonopah into a semi-ghost town.

People still lived here in trailers.  One had decorated the yard with circles of empty colored bottles arranged in patterns.  Another had the metal portions of 20 or 30 shovels hanging from a fence around the property.  It was a sad state of affairs.

Joshua trees popped up near the turnoff for Alkali, but that defunct “town” was only one deserted building surrounded by numerous poles and wires.  A donkey grazed near a pond just beyond, but the three-story decorated concrete block edifice was missing all its windows.  There really was no Alkali at all.  This one did house only the ghosts.