Rhyolite, Nevada

Rhyolite is one of the best examples of a western ghost town today. Rhyolite lies 60 miles south-southeast of Goldfield, Nevada, at the south base of the hills that connect the Funeral or Grapevine Mountains to the west with Bare Mountain to the east. After gold and silver were discovered in the Bullfrog Hills in 1904, Rhyolite became the principal town of the Bullfrog mining district, which included Gold Center, Amargosa, and Bullfrog. In 11 short years, however, Rhyolite went through the classic cycle of boom, bust, and decay. Today Rhyolite, like the other towns of the Bullfrog district, has all but disappeared.

The development of Tonopah and Goldfield in the early 1900s stimulated prospecting throughout southwestern Nevada. In 1904, prospector Shorty Harris and his partner Eddie Cross discovered a greenish ore in a rock outcropping. They named their claim Bullfrog because of the ore's coloration. Within a few months treasure seekers were flocking to the new district. In February 1905, a town-site company, led by Pete Busch, laid out the streets of Rhyolite in the Bullfrog district. Rhyolite became the chief town in a few days due mainly to the activities of the Busch brothers in promoting the town site by offering a certain amount of lots for free, thus bringing in numerous fortune hunters. More than 1,500 people made their homes in Rhyolite, lining the streets with canvas tents and wooden shanties. Like other boomtown residents, early settlers used all manners of materials to create buildings, including tin drums, dirt, and manure. One resident, Australian immigrant Tom Kelly, collected 51,000 liquor bottles and built his home with them. Later, more permanent wooden structures, followed by buildings of cut stone and concrete, replaced the canvas. By 1907 the town had reached its peak. With a population of 3,500 to 10,000 people, Rhyolite included 85 mining companies and three railroads, and it had electric streetlights, two churches, an opera house, and a baseball team. The Rhyolite post office had the seventh-largest clientele in Nevada. Rhyolite even had its own stock exchange, the Rhyolite Minion, established on March 25, 1907. Three railroads, the Las Vegas & Tonopah, the Tonopah & Tidewater, and the Bullfrog-Goldfield were extended to Rhyolite.

Rhyolite's town-board government was delayed so long that the citizens adopted an effective squatter government, which, although lacking legal standing, controlled the town until the county commissioners acted. This squatter government organized a volunteer fire department and levied an occupation tax. Thanks to the citizens' progressive attitude, and an excellent water supply, few serious fires occurred in Rhyolite during the boom period.

The financial panic of 1907 had a delayed effect in Nevada, and by 1908 the town was showing signs of distress as the boom came to an end. Streetlights were shut off, the water company failed and businesses began to close. By 1911, the town was almost dead. From a population of more than 10,000 in its heyday, by 1909 there were less than 1,000 people left. There were 675 by 1910, when the street lights were shut [Page 568]off. In 1920 only 14 people remained. Finally, the last resident of Rhyolite died in 1924.

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