Road Trip — Tonopah, Nevada

Posted by Karen on 30-Sep-2007

(54 photos)

From Bishop, I headed east on Highway 6 and entered the vast emptiness of the Nevada desert.  I don’t know why, but I really like the high desert and I’ve decided I need to seriously figure out how to move closer to this area.   I reached Tonopah and decided to explore a bit and stay the night there.  Tonopah is interesting, as it’s a ghost town in the making.  In the early 1900s, it was the “Queen of the Silver Camps”, but as the silver mines went bust, so did the town.  There are still people and businesses, but there are just as many abandoned buildings too.  My first stop was at the Central Nevada Museum where I checked out the old mining equipment on display.  I also picked up a brochure identifying the “historic gems” around the town, so I used the map to check out the various historic building identified.  In talking with one of the locals, I asked how this town supported itself, as I didn’t really see many businesses… he told me that the world’s largest gold mine was 45 minutes away and that is where a lot of the people worked at–so it’s only half a ghost town for now.