Western Places

Recent Travels

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Rhyolite, NEVADA--March, 2004

My first trip of 2004 occurred at the end of March, the main purpose of which was to deliver Suzy McCoy's books to her at Rhyolite. Of course, I took the opportunity to visit a few new sites and revisit some others.


One site of interest was the Orizaba mine, off Pole Line Road north of Tonopah. Orizaba was not a town and never had a post office; but it did have a fair amount of activity through the 1930s, and there was a store there at one time. Three buildings remain, two wood frame and one of stone; at the mine itself there is a building and a headframe.
     
   
 
   
Mine and tank. Orizaba, NV. Nye County. 3/29/04
  
 
 
 
 
 
With a free day while at Rhyolite there was a two-car expedition, including Riley and Suzy McCoy of Rhyolite, Fred Brown of Beatty, myself, and my traveling companion, Tom Comerford. First we went up to Pioneer, as I was not sure I had even found the townsite on my first visit. From there we went south and east of Beatty to the back side of Bare Mountain, where with Fred's knowledge we found the Telluride mine camp.
 
 
Collapsed bldg. Pioneer, NV. Nye Co. 3/31/04
      
 
 
 

On the return trip we stayed over in Hawthorne, and the next day got onto some little-traveled roads in the Gillis Range. There are rock ruins at Gills Spring and at Midway. Going up a dirt track I found myself on the wrong side of the wash from Bovard, but exploring on foot left no doubt as to where the camp had been situated.


I had never taken to route up Dixie Valley to Winnemucca, so that was the chosen route. Dixie Valley (community) was of interest, but very few buildings. The Navy bought out the homesteaders some years ago, and no one resides there now, even though there is an abundance of water.

The rest of the trip was driving, but I would like to note that the 2003 Benchmark Atlas of Nevada

 
 
   

Building wall, Gillis Spring, NV. Mineral Co. 4/2/04

 

  
places the new geothermal facility in northern Dixie Valley in the wrong spot. This generally fine atlas puts the facility five miles north of its actual site adjacent to the Boyer ranch.
Goldfield newspapers of 1910-12 reference "The Gold Camp", "The Silver Camp" and "The Pine Tree Camp", often without mentioning their real names. Do you know which camps these are? Read on, and find out!
CENTRAL NEVADA -- May 21-27, 2003

Alan Patera, Terry McCarthy and Alan's dog Charlie spent a week knocking about Nevada, mostly looking for townsites and ruins. The second day out we were to meet up with Stan Paher and a bunch of Desert Rats from California and Nevada, camping west of Mina.

On the way we stopped off at Pamlico. There's not much left of old Pamlico, the basin in which the town might have set has been pretty much chewed up. There are nice ruins of the mill that operated into the 1920s.

While camped west of Mina for two nights, we took in Camp Douglas, where the townsite may be undetermined, but there sure is pleny of evidence of mining. Back in the hills there is a mill that is in pretty good condition, though without machinery. We also took in the Garfield mill - actually two mills, with the newer one with concrete foundations set insite the old one with its massive stonework. We also scouted out the petroglyphs in Rattlesnake Canyon, then up to the Garfield mine. The building that was partially standing there when I visited three years ago is no totally flattened. From there we took in the Mabel mine, which still has some photogenic structures.

The Saturday before Memorial day we went over to Tonopah -- "The Silver Camp" of the early newspapers (Goldfield is "The Gold Camp"). This was the weekend of Jim Butler Days, and I spent the afternoon at the Mining Park, chatting and signing books. For the night we headed up to Peavine Campground.

Next day we took in the Memorial Day parade at Manhattan -- the "Pine Tree Camp" of the early newspapers. It was really quite sweet and took all of about five minutes. It was headed by the color guard, four veterans from Hawthorne, and had a Grand Marshal and two floats -- one with an armless maniken with a moustache in a jail, entitled "Saddam Hussein Disarmed" and the other an outhouse with a sign "EastBelmont Brewery".
From Manhattan we went to Barcelona via the Silver Creek road. I had tried for Barcelona once before, and must have stopped about 100 feet short of seeing the first ruin. The Silver Creek road is good for the first six miles, after which it becomes terrible. But getting there was worth the effort. There are about eight ruins hugging the hillside, and once you reach the Barcelona mine the view is magnifient.

We stopped in Belmont briefly to chat with friends, then went up to Pine Creek for the night. Pine Creek has a remarkable flow of water for Central Nevada. I was there last October when the foliage was golden and it had a good flow then. Nevadans know about the place and we were lucky to find a spot.
The next day, Memorial Day, was perhaps my favorite day of the trip. We crossed the Monitor Range on a road that took us through Potts, a pleasant little vale with one frame building and several rock structures. This brought us down into Antelope Valley, where we found a fascinating elongated rock structure I haven't seen noted on any map. I had hoped to head toward Eureka to come in from the southwest, but the road shown on maps that will do this seems to dead-end on private property. So we went up to Highway 50 and reached Eureka that way.
   
Ruby Hill is shown as a point of interest on some maps. There's a paved highway up to a big mining operation, bought by Homestake and now closed, with the road blocked by chains and signs. We had better luck at Vanderbilt, a few miles south on US50 and then on the Windfall Canyon road. This road winds past the sight of Prospect, but as there didn't seem to by anything much there we continued to the summit. At the summit a new road continues up and to the southwest, not shown on my maps; a smaller road takes off to the left and down into a canyon, where a large mine dump signals your arrival in Vanderbilt. There are several rock ruins on the opposite hillside.

Next we tried to find Newark, up the Strawberry road north of US50, I thought this would be an easy one, but we tried a mine site, we walked up a canyon, we examined the flats, and I didn't find anyplace where I could say "This is Newark". More research, more maps, and maybe another attempt some day. That night for the first time on the trip, we stayed at a motel, in Eureka.

The trip was to have last for two more days, but after completing the days hunt we just drove all the way back. The day started by going up to Alpha, now a ranch, and taking the road west to Tonkin - a lovely drive along the north side of the Roberts Mountains. Tonkin is a an abandoned ranch. It used to have a store and post office. It is fenced off, but some nice pictures can be taken from the road.

Then we cut over to Grass Valley and up to Cortez, which has some pretty serious looking No Tresspassing signs around it. After stopping to photograph the old mill alongside the road in the canyon north of Cortez, I found my key would not turn to restart the car. Took about five minutes of fiddling before we were under way again.

We made stops at Gold Acres and then Tenabo, which is still most photogenic, We then took the road over the Shoshone Range, one which I had long wanted to take. This brought us through Lander, which has a mine and two dugouts; the just past the summit was Pittsburg, with nice ruins of a mill. We went up Hillside Canyon and took the right fork to the mill, but didn't climb the grade to the townsite. It was a nice drive, water in the streams and snow on the peaks at that time of year.

But with that the trip was over, except for the long drive home.