The southern regions of Nevada mining produced a variety of ores and minerals besides gold and silver. Copper, borax, salt, iron ore, were profitable enough to bring miners and their families into the hills or flats to build settlements around the mines. Not as grand or wealthy as the boomtowns like Virginia City, these towns still contained the essential mills, stamping plants, general stores, banks, and cemeteries necessary for prospecting life in the late 1800’s.
Candelaria
One of the most beautiful names in the galaxy of ghost towns, Candelaria has been a prosperous silver mining camp since 1864. Production from the 1880’s to 1999 is estimated at 82 million ounces of silver! The gigantic open pit mine of the Kinross Gold Company suspended operations in 1999 after removing 13 million ounces from the site. Just up the dirt road and beyond the pit, are the extensive remains of 19th century Candelaria. The striking arched doorways of the Esmeralda Bank serve as a gateway to the ruins of past prosperity and hard work.
My journal entry of that day’s exploration reads as follows;
“…rocks that twinkle in the sunlight and ones pockmarked from extreme heat;
splintered wood strewn into crosses on the ground;
a ruin of a mill high on a hill and a layered pit sunk deep into the earth below;
gaping holes through patched up tin roofs and dangling corrugated walls;
doorways with no doors;
multi colored shards of glass, ceramic, china, clay pottery, and rusty bits surround the sunken rock walls and foundations of functionless dwellings;
soundless except the always present desert wind.”
At the foot of an ancient volcanic mountain, the Candelaria Cemetery bears this haunting plaque:
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Belleville and Marietta
A few miles northwest of Candelaria, the town of Belleville ran two silver large mills. They serviced the ore mined from Candelaria from the mid 1870’s. More than a mere camp, Belleville boasted two newspapers, restaurants, saloons, hotels and a telegraph station. It was known for being a rowdy place of miners, merchants, millers and railroad workers. By 1890, Marietta was deserted when a water pipeline was run into Candelaria and made silver milling possible on site. Few of the stone structures from the mills remain.
Dirt roads led us farther on into the Marietta Wild Burro Range. A vast expanse of land set aside in 1971 for the wild burro and horse populations of Nevada, it is one of several ranges managed by the Bureau of Land Management throughout the western states. The burros here are descendants of the ones brought by prospectors into the mining areas during the mid 1800’s.
At one edge of the range is the sizeable white expanse of Teels Marsh. First salt, then borax was mined here beginning in the late 1860’s. The town of Marietta sprang up during the Borax boom of 1877. The walls of “Borax” Smith’s general store dominate the ruins and deteriorating mine shafts at the base of pastel colored hills. The Marietta Cemetery has long been abandoned but contains headstones and intriguing artifacts resting among the sagebrush.
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Columbus
The Columbus Salt Marsh is a vast track of a soda lake where salt and commercial borax were mined in 1871. Although the town of Columbus had been in existence for about five years as a quartz mill, the town exploded with the discovery of the two minerals. Almost overnight, four separate borax companies set up operations, a stage coach route and freight line were established to service the mining of both borax and salt deposits. In a true boom to bust cycle of the mining era, as soon as the major company moved out, the town quickly declined. By 1881, it was almost empty.
Almost. But through the years, even up to today, several other operators have tried to revive the borax mining industry. We stumbled upon a claim fastened to a post at the edge of the marsh – it had been filed in 2021! We passed large abandoned buildings of modern materials, all empty. Incredibly, Columbus was only declared a ghost town in 2009, after its one remaining resident died. Recluse Ray had lived in a small storage shed he built among the ruins. So for now, only a cute burrowing owl resides in Columbus.
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Mina – Goldfield – Tonopah
We stayed in the small town of Mina while we explored these ghost towns. In her heyday, Mina was a railroad hub for three separate lines – the Carson & Colorado, the Tonopah & Goldfield and a third track that combined both standard and narrow gauge for runs to Tonopah Junction. From 1905 to 1910, Mina was a flurry of activity with machine shops, a 10 track roundhouse, a hotel, a red light district, a newspaper, and daily train service to San Francisco. As the railroad activity steadily decreased until 1947, Mina transitioned into a small and quiet town with empty storefronts and no railroad service, located at the foot of the beautiful Pilot Mountains.
Following old railroad beds down the Hwy 95, we revisited some more sites in Goldfield and Tonopah. In Goldfield, we met a present day gold miner who invited us to be his “muckers” should we ever be in the northern California area where his mine was located. (A mucker is someone who shovels out the debris and ore after it is blasted away in the tunnel.) And if that wasn’t scary enough, we visited the World Famous Clown Motel and Museum for a look at their very eclectic and mildly disturbing collection of all things clown. Several paranormal investigators have visited the Motel and claim to have had encounters of the ghosty kind. Not surprising, considering the original town’s cemetery is right next door to the property.
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We expected to take a pause from ghost towns and abandoned mines by returning to our home base in Pahrump, NV, however, we were delighted to discover additional sites just a day trip away. Join us next time as we explore this familiar area with a new lens towards the past.
Campground Review – Sunrise Valley RV Park in Mina, NV
Sunrise Valley RV Park is located in Mina with easy access to Hwy 95. We had a pull thru site on gravel with full hook ups. The sites have shade trees and a picnic table. Bathrooms and facilities were older but clean. T-Mobile services were good. No gas stations or restaurants in Mina. This is a charming and quiet park centrally located to several remote ghost towns.
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Next up…Pahrump, NV
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