Goldfield, Nevada

Goldfield, Nevada, is located in Esmeralda County, twenty-four miles due south of Tonopah. Goldfield was the second most important of the new wave of mining fields that included Tonopah and Bullfrog-Rhyolite. The town was founded in 1902, after gold was discovered. As mining developed in 1903, the district soon became one of the top gold producers.

A typical boomtown, Goldfield had a population of eighteen thousand in 1907, but this dropped to 5,435 in 1910 when the gold rush atmosphere evaporated. No definitive figures on the size and characteristics of Goldfield's population exist because the mining booms occurred between census dates. Indirect evidence shows that like other boomtowns, Goldfield had a large number of young, single men. Most of Goldfield's residents were foreign born, especially Welsh and Irish miners. There was also a small community of African [Page 283]Americans and some Indians. Asians were driven from the city in 1904, and none was permitted to return during the boom year. A newspaper report from 1907 declared that Goldfield had every manner of humanity: forty-eight exconvicts; twelve college graduates; card sharks; and men from the Yukon, Australia, and Argentina.

The Goldfield mines had a series of labor disputes from 1906 to 1908, which arose as a result of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) trying to supplant the traditional craft union in Goldfield with their “new unionism.” The strikes resulted in shutdowns in the mines and ended with the call-in of federal troops in 1904. The Goldfield mine operators also had labor disputes arising from the practice of “high grading”; that is, the theft of rich ore, usually by a miner working for the company that owned the mine.

The town was replete with saloons, bordellos, opium dens, and “hop joints.” One of the saloons, George Lewis “Tex” Rickard's Northern, had the longest bar in the history of mining towns, boasting eighty tenders to serve customers. Rickard was one of the most noted speculators and, along with con artist George Graham Rice, promoted Goldfield through a championship boxing match. They staged a prize fight on Labor Day 1906, when Joe Gans and Battling Nelson fought for the Lightweight Championship of the World. In the forty-second round, Nelson was disqualified, and Joe Gans was declared the winner of the $30,000 purse. The men also promoted the town through the use of excursion trains from Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, and Denver. These trains brought would-be speculators to Goldfield, and their success led to the establishment of the Goldfield stock exchange on October 2, 1905.

Although Goldfield had a completely organized fire department, the town suffered many disasters in its short lifetime. Goldfield was the victim of a major fire on July 8, 1905, when two blocks of buildings were burned to the ground. A massive flash flood in September 1913 swept hundreds of buildings and their contents off into a large flat outside of town. In 1923, another fire ravaged fifty-three square blocks of Goldfield, leaving only burned foundations.

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