The Wheels on the Bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. : Goldfield, Klondike, Alkali, Blair, Silver Peak, Nivloc & Weepah, Nevada

Founded in 1902, Goldfield boasted a population of 30,000 during its boom year of 1906 when it produced $11 million in gold. The town probably has the longest bar in the history of mining towns. The bar, Tex Rickard's Northern, was so long it required 80 tenders to serve its customers. By 1912, ore production had dropped to $5 million. Those who recognized the signs began to leave and Goldfield eventually became what it is today.

Make note that there are NO fuel stations in Goldfield.

You must drive 25 miles North to Tonopah.

We did see a sign that someone would sell you 2 1/2 gallons of emergency gas for $20.00

Julia Bullete's Bathtub

Julia was an English-born American prostitute in Nevada. Her elegant brothel, highly popular with the miners, inspired a long-running legend that may have grown with the telling. She was murdered in unknown circumstances, and a French drifter John Millain was quickly convicted and hanged for the crime.

Just outside of Goldfield lies one of Nevada's undeniably interesting roadside attractions,

The International Car Forest of the Last Church. Which is more like a junk yard with a twist.

Over 40 automobiles including cars, trucks, and vans have been balanced delicately on their ends or stacked on top one of another, looking like a group of toys some giant child simply left lying around. Each of the junked cars has also been uniquely painted with designs varying from skulls to caricatures of politicians.

We made Goldfield our home base while checking out the surrounding areas

View of Goldfield from the RV park

"A" Longhorn

Pronghorns can jump, but overall they would rather not. They are much more content to get down and crawl under a fence than jump it.

Klondike Town site

1 1/2 volt dry-cell batteries used in old phone systems

No town would be complete with bed springs

Alkali

Alkali is a ghost town located in Nevada. Alkali is the site of Alkali Hot Spring, which was operated as a spa by Geni and Joe Guisti in the 1930s. During Goldfield's peak, the site included an indoor wooden swimming pool with a separate area for children and a large building containing a dining room, kitchen, dance hall and bar. In front of the dining room were tall tamarisk trees and a large picnic table where visitors could either order from the dining room or bring their own lunches. The Guisti residence was at the rear of the dining room. Geni Guisti served young folks grape juice over ice at the bar, which was considered a real treat. Friday and Saturday night dances were attended by Tonopah residents.

Blair

The Pittsburg Silver Peak Gold Mining Company established the township of Blair in 1906. The town’s creation was due to the company’s refusal to pay an outrageous fortune for land surrounding the town of Silver Peak. They surveyed a site 3 miles north of town near the company’s gold mines and named it Blair. The company built the largest mill in the state.

The 100-stamp mill of heavy steel stamps and cams on a horizontal rotating shaft were used to crushes material to extract the metallic ores. The company established the mill, cyanide tanks and constructed a 17-mile railroad from Blair to the Tonopah & Goldfield main line. The short-line was named Silver Peak Railroad after the Silver Peak Mining District it serviced. The fortunes of the Silver Peak Railroad fluctuate over its short existence with the price of the precious ore.

Haven't seen one of these guys for a long time and he was a big one.

Blair is comprised of several stone and cement buildings surrounded by a combination of rusty artifacts and debris.

The creation of the mill lead to the establishment of a post office that operated from 1906 to 1915. Like most boom towns of that period, miners would spend a portion of their earnings at one of several saloons and the 2-story hotel. At its peak, Blair had a population of about 700. The mine profitability decreased as it took relatively more effort to extract an ounce of silver from low grade ore and eventually production could no longer cover the operational costs, the mill closed in 1915. Three years later the Silver Peak Railroad creased operations. By 1920, the town was completely deserted.

Silver Peak, Nevada
Discovered in 1863. Silver Peak is one of the oldest mining areas in Nevada. A 10 stamp mill was built in 1865 and by 1867 a 20 stamp mill was built. Mining camp lawlessness prevailed during the late sixties, and over the next 38 years. Silver Peak had it's ups and downs. In 1906 the Pittsburgh Silver Peak Gold Mining Company bought a group of properties, constructed the Silver Peak railroad, and built a 100 stamp mill at Blair the following year. The town, at the time, was one of the leading camps in Nevada. But by 1917 it had all but disappeared. The town burned in 1948 and little happened in it again until the Foote Mineral Company began their extraction of Lithium from under the floor of Clayton Valley. Since then many companies have moved in and out of Silver Peak and the population goes up and down with the different companies that come through.

Nivloc

Nivloc was a short lived one saloon mining camp. The name Nivloc is from the name of one of the first mine owners (Colvin) spelled backwards. Gold was discovered here in 1907 by an Indian, but did not stay in operation very long. The mine was reopened once again in the 1930s, with the height of operation being the period 1940-43, when a post office was erected here. It resumed operations once again after WWII, and has experienced intermittent operation since.

Weepah, Nevada

After Indians discovered shallow gold pockets in 1902, about 200 people rushed to Weepah (means “rainwater” in Shoshone), but the rush died out in a few weeks. In 1927 gold was rediscovered by two miners from Tonopah, and it was assayed at $70,000 a ton. This became the Weepah boom, and a throng of motorized vehicles developed into the wildest Nevada mining stampede since Rochester and Rawhide. Within a week, 1000 gold rushers showed up and staked claims. Legend has it that dancehall girls from Tonopah were out in their high heeled dancing slippers staking claims by moonlight.

By the end of March 1927, the three roads to Weepah were jammed with cars; western Nevada railroads had to put on extra coaches to handle the throng of gold seekers, and the new town soon had a population around 2000. By April the town had about 60 frame buildings. Most were gone by the end of 1927.

In 1934, an open pit silver mine and 350-ton mill was built. This operation lasted until 1938.

Clayton Valley is the only location in the United States and one of the few in the world that produces commercial-grade lithium enriched brine. According the USGS, Clayton Valley is the best know lithium deposit in the world due to a number of factors such as tectonically active basin, elevated heat flow, existence of hectorite and etc. The underground aquifer the host the brine is contained by the surrounding mountains and rock.