Nevada Ghost Towns: Rhyolite

Welcome to the first of MANY blogs about my Haunted Road Trip! I'll be publishing quite frequently over the next couple of weeks, but to start this off, I'll publish all the Nevada ghost towns I visited over the next few days. Let's start with Rhyolite, a ghost town outside Beatty, Nevada.

A Brief History of Rhyolite

Like many ghost towns in the western USA, Rhyolite was born in a gold rush when Shorty Harris and Ed Cross struck gold in August 1904 in the Bullfrog Mountains west of Death Valley. Named for the area’s unique volcanic rock, Rhyolite grew as long as there was gold to be found, which was only a few years from 1905 to 1910.

In its heyday, Rhyolite had somewhere between 3,500 and 5,000 residents, three train lines, three newspapers, three hospitals, two undertakers, an opera, and 53 saloons...yes, you read that right, 53 saloons! By 1914, Rhyolite began to decline and became a deserted ghost town by 1919 with the last resident dying in 1924.

Unlike many mining towns, Rhyolite had many buildings made with permanent materials instead of canvas and wood so there’s more to see than in many of the other gold rush spots in the western US.

What's Left Behind?

The Bottle House

Before the railroad reached Rhyolite, building materials were scarce, so Australian Tom Kelly built his Rhyolite bottle house in 1906. Instead of looking for wood, which is nearly impossible to find, Kelly used adobe mud to hold together the 50,000 glass bottles that make up his three-room, L-shaped home.

The Bottle House

The Railroad Depot

The Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad started running trains to Rhyolite in 1906. Their station was a Spanish-style building that cost $130,000 to build. In its time, three different railroad companies came to Rhyolite but in the 1930s, the old depot became a casino and bar which later became a small museum and souvenir shop that closed in the 1970s.

Railroad Depot

Caboose House

During the gold rush, people turned almost anything into a home, especially in the desert where building materials were scarce. It was common across America’s Old West to see retired cabooses turned into homes. This caboose-turned-house sits across from the Rhyolite train station and was used as a gas station during Rhyolite’s tourism boom in the 1920s.

Caboose House

Porter Brothers Store

The Porter Brothers Store featured large glass windows to showcase their products and sold mining supplies, food, and bedding. The Porter Brothers were old pros at selling things during various periods and places that were thriving in the mining industry. Along with the store in Rhyolite, they also opened stores in the nearby towns of Ballarat, Beatty, and Pioneer. Like the town itself, the Porter Brothers Store was short-lived, opening in 1902 and closing in 1910.

Porter Brothers Store

School House

By 1907, Rhyolite had about 4,000 residents, and with them came children. Built in 1909, the school had concrete sidewalks, electric lights, telephone, and telegraph lines and cost $20,000 to build. At its peak, Rhyolite’s school had more than 200 children and featured a Spanish tile roof and a bell tower.

School House

Cook Bank

The tallest building in Rhyolite, the Cook Bank building, cost its owner $90,000 to build. It was the largest building in town with two vaults, Italian marble floors, mahogany woodwork, electric lights, telephones, running water, and indoor plumbing! It was one of the first businesses to close in Rhyolite, closing its doors in 1910.

Fun Fact: The Cook Bank was featured in the 2005 movie The Island starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson when they escaped "the island," ran into the desert, and hid inside the remains of the Cook Bank.

Cook Bank

Goldwell Open Air Museum

While not originally part of this Southern Nevada ghost town, these ghostly figures are part of an outdoor sculpture museum near Rhyolite. The Goldwell Open Air Museum began in 1984 when Belgian artist Albert Szukalski created a sculpture installation near Rhyolite’s abandoned railroad station. The artwork consisted of ghostly, life-sized forms created by draping plaster-soaked burlap over live models who stood under it until the plaster was stiff enough to stand on its own.

Goldwell Open Air Museum

Worth the hype? Absolutely! It's probably one of the more well-known and often visited ghost towns in Southern Nevada and worth the time to take a look!