Love ghost towns? Check out Rhyolite near Death Valley!
Now that summer is (sadly) coming to an end and fall beginning to make an appearance, I am starting to see advertisements for Halloween and haunted events throughout our area. When people start talking about ghosts and haunted places, my mind immediately goes back to the first ever ghost town I’ve ever visited – Rhyolite out near Beatty, Nevada.
Never heard of Rhyolite Ghost Town? Don’t worry, you aren’t the only one! It’s no Tombstone or Dodge City in terms of popularity, but if you are a fan of ghost towns like my family and I are, Rhyolite should be on your list for your next southwest road trip (especially if you are visiting Death Valley National Park). It has all the charm of an authentic ghost town without all the tourists and souvenir shops. All you will find is a fascinating collection of crumbling buildings in the middle of nowhere.
a brief history
The story of Rhyolite begins in 1904 with two guys named Frank “Shorty” Harris and Ernest. L. Cross. While prospecting in the area, they found gold in the Bullfrog Hills, named for their green-spotted rocks. Thousands of people began streaming into the area. At its peak, Rhyolite really seemed to have it all. It was a bustling town of over 5,000 inhabitants with train lines, newspapers, hotels, schools, hospitals, an opera, saloons, churches and even a red-light district. It even became one of the first towns in the area to have electricity.
(cue: unfortunate foreshadowing)
Sadly, the financial panic of 1907 was the beginning of the end for Rhyolite. Over the next few years mines began closing and banks and businesses began to fail. In 1919 there were only 24 people left in the town and by 1924 it’s last resident had died.
If you’d like to read more about Rhyolite head over to Western Mining History’s website and Legends of America for really interesting essays and photos. You can also read more about Frank and Ernest’s mining exploits over on the Legends of America’s website.
what you’ll see today
We didn’t know any of Rhyolite’s history before we visited in June of 2016. On our last day in Death Valley National Park the three of us were exhausted from four straight days of hiking and adventuring in the hot desert. When I first planned our trip to Death Valley, Rhyolite was on our “if we have time list” but since we were looking for something to do that required very little hiking, we decided to take a drive out of the park and see what we could find!
Still standing today are several remnants from Rhyolite’s booming days, and you can easily spend a few hours walking around, exploring and taking photos. Some of the first things you’ll notice as you approach Rhyolite from the highway are some ghost sculptures and other eccentric pieces of art, part of the Goldwell Open Air Museum. People either love them or hate them. We actually stopped and looked around the museum, mostly because we like weird and cheesy roadside attractions and our daughter insisted we stop once we found it was free.
As we continued driving down the road into Rhyolite, the remnants of the town began to appear, resembling something out of a post-apocalyptic movie or television show like The Walking Dead. In fact, it has been used as a filming location for many movies over the years (but apparently movies I never saw). It was really amazing to walk around and imagine the daily life of all the people that lived, worked, and went to school in this once bustling boom town.
Besides the few other tourists that were there the same time, the only other living things we saw that day were Joshua trees and the occasional snake.
1. school house
We parked our car near the remains of the school house and began exploring the town. This building was actually the second school built in Rhyolite, the first was a wooden structure that was destroyed during a bad wind storm. It was finished in 1909 but unfortunately by then most children and their families had left Rhyolite.
2. overbury building
Next to the school house are the remains of the Overbury Building, built by John Overbury in 1906. It was a general office building and was home to various businesses such as a stock brokerage firm, the First National Bank of Rhyolite (whose vault you can see in the photograph I took), a dentist, and attorney’s offices.
3. Porter Brothers Store
Directly across the street from the Overbury Building are the remains of the Porters Brother store. This storefront is actually the second store the Porter brothers built in Rhyolite, where they sold everything from mining supplies to food to household goods.
4. john s. cook bank
After that we walked up the road a bit to what remains of the three-story bank built by John S. Cook, which officially opened in Rhyolite back in 1907. According to what I have read about it since our visit, it was the largest building in town, with two vaults (which you can see in the photos I took), Italian marble floors, mahogany woodwork, electric lights, running water, telephones and indoor plumbing. Unfortunately for Mr. Cook, two years later the financial crisis caused banks to fail across the country, including his.
In my opinion the bank is the most interesting ruin in the town, so I spent a lot of time walking around photographing the ruins from different angles.
5. Railroad Depot
In the late 1930’s the train depot became a casino and bar called the Rhyolite Ghost Casino. After that was turned into a small museum that remained open into the 1970s.
6. Caboose House
7. the jail and other remains
getting to rhyolite
Rhyolite is both off the beaten path and easy to get to. The town is just a few miles outside of Beatty, Nevada and 35 miles from Death Valley’s Furnace Creek Visitor Center. However, you’d never find Rhyolite if you weren’t looking for it. No advertisements or billboards direct you here.
As I alluded to earlier, you’ll find no creature comforts in Rhyolite. No visitor center, no vending machines, no bathrooms, and maybe not even any cell service. With that in mind, it’s pretty important that you bring your own food and plenty of water, especially if you are visiting in the middle of summer like we were.
Oh and, beware of rattlesnakes.
