NEVADA 1849

Nevada’s first gold discovery was most likely that of Spanish Conquistadors along the Colorado
River. Later Mexicans and Indians mined precious metals from Southern Nevada. The first recorded
gold discovery was in 1849, at the junction of Gold Canyon and the Carson River in Lyon County. Gold
miners along western Nevada streams had a terrible time separating their gold from a tenacious blue
clay. A curious miner sent samples to Grass Valley for assay to determine what the blue clay was, it
turned out to contain silver worth many times more than the gold! From this humble beginnings, camps
sprang up all over Nevada. From the edge of Death Valley, to Nevada’s mountain tops of over 10,000
feet boom camps sprang up, lived, mined, and died all the way into the 1930’s. No other state had this
long of a discovery time. Nevada ranks as the all time top producer of Silver and is currently our
Nations top producer of Gold. It is also the nations leader in ghost towns. The following is an excerpt
from the book, “Ghosts of the Glory Trail, by Nell Murbarger.”
“Between the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, and the crest of California’s Sierra Nevada, lies the
Great Basin of the Intermountain West—a high, wide, wonderful land of few people, far horizons, and
cold, bright stars and limitless sky. This is Nevada. It is also the land of ghosts. “Ghosts of the Glory
Trail.” Every land on earth of every period of time, has known its deserted villages, but only the
Western United States has propagated them in wholesale quantities. Sired by hope and suckled on
honest labor, they were cities that flourished for a day, faded and were forgotten.”
How many such ghost towns there are in the West, or even the Great Basin area, is impossible
to say, but their number is far greater than is generally realized. During the 1930’s, 40’s and 1950’s
Nell Murbarger became interested in these old camps. My father Burrell Dawson and his mining partner
Vic Anderson had mining properties in Gold Point, Neveda and met Mr Murbarger. “I visited and
photographed more than 400 of them,” he wrote in his book. “I collected historical material on nearly 3
times that many. Nearly every one of these towns began life as a mining camp, might seem to be an
indictment of the mining industry and mining methods, but the blame lies elsewhere.” “It lies in the cold,
hard, inescapable truth that once mineral has been taken from the ground, there is nothing man can do
to effect its replacement. Therefore it follows that the states richest in mineral wealth must become, in
turn, the states richest in ghost towns and that means The Great Basin.”
“If you’ve ever given any thought to these former boom camps, you may have wondered how
they came into being, and what sort of folks lived in them, and why they were started, at all, if only to be
abandoned in the end. It’s really very simple.”
“The pattern for the first Western American ghost town was cut in California, as an aftermath of
the Goldrush of 1849. For every Argonaut made wealthy by that mad stampede, many others failed to
connect with pay-dirt, and by the middle 1850s, hordes of disappointed gold-seekers were turning away
from California’s overcrowded diggings. Still trailing the Golden Fleece, they forged north into the
Oregon wilderness, and south to Mexico. They crossed the Colorado River, into what is now Arizona;
and they poured back over the Sierra Nevada into the Great Basin—the Great Unmapped.”
“Single or as a group of prospecting partners they made their way across mountains or desert—
using their burros’ tails as a compass, as the saying goes—they never lost sight of the fact that their
quest was for precious metals. Along with pitting their wits against hostile Indians, daring heat, cold,
thirst and starvation, they took time to pan the gravel of every stream and to sample quartz ledges; and
if they found “color,” they would stake claims. They tested the ground until dwindling food stocks or
depleted ammunition forced their return to the nearest settlement—a term that embraced a lot of
territory in the Intermountain West of the 1850 to 1880.”
“Once back in what passed for civilization, our partners exhibited their ore samples and
boasted. the “closed-mouthed miner” is largely an imaginary product of 20th century fiction. The old
timer was as garrulous as he was generous. When he had found a good thing, he wanted the whole
wide world to know about it!”
“Hell’s fire, pardner—there’s enough gold in that mountain for every man in Washoe ! Come on
—grab yourself a claim!” It wasn’t necessary to twist anyone’s arm—they came. Why did they talk? It
was sometimes hundreds of miles between there claim and a town for supplies. If the ore proved to be
rich and fairly plentiful, and a few glowing reports percolated to the outside world, there might even be a
“boom”or a all out “rush” to the new strike. Also, some of these prospectors were just that prospectors
and not miners. They were looking for mines to setup and sell for large sums of monies and make easy
money instead of the back breaking and very dangerous labor of mining.
 “Nobody knew of course, whether this newly-discovered district would be washed-up in two
months or would go on producing for two years or two centuries. The only possible manner in which the
extent or value of an ore deposit might be determined, was to dig the ore out of the ground, mill it, sell
the bullion and count the cash.”
“While that digging and milling was being accomplished, the miners and mill hands couldn’t be
expected to knock off work and travel 100 or 150 miles across country. The only practical solution was
to start a new town at the scene of discovery. Furthermore, our frontier miner was distressingly human.
He wanted to belly to a bar, now and then, and h’ist a few. He wanted to break the killing grind of his
labor with an occasional fling at faro or blackjack, and he had a strange hankering for naughty, painted
women—maybe because they reminded him of nice, unpainted women he had left behind in Ohio or
Virginia. What was more important, our miner had hard money in his jeans—likely more money than he
had ever known—and he was willing to pay double what his “state side” brother would have given for
the same stock in trade.”
“It was easily done. Pitching his tent, the purveyor of wet goods turned a wagon box on its side
to serve as a bar. Assayist and Chinese laundrymen hung out their shingles. Someone began serving
meals; someone started a livery stable. Many such towns never progressed beyond the tent stage,
“Rag Towns” they were called. But if the district held up encouragingly, the tents would be replaced by
wooden buildings; eventually, by brick and stone. The population of the camp would swell to several
thousand persons, including woman and children. Hotels and banks would be built. Newspapers and
volunteer fire companies would be founded, lodges chartered, schools and churches organized. Every
thing would zip along handsomely for two years, ten years, maybe even thirty years. But at last, would
come a day when astute citizens of the camp would begin to realize that the old town was losing her
bounce. Some of her ledges were petering out, mills were no longer working at capacity. More
passengers were riding the outbound stages than were arriving. When the handwriting appeared on
the wall, the wise got out—and soon. Some camps died slowly, painfully, surrendering one at a time
their courthouse, their schools, their railroad service, newspapers, and prestige. Other camps went
“Pouf!” like a candle flame in the wind.”
“Regardless of how they died, grief that attended their passing was not prolonged. So the old
camp was through? So, what the hell! Over on the Reese River, up in the Rubies, down in the
Pintwater range, somebody knew somebody else who had found gold nuggets big as cabbage heads
and seams of native silver half as wide as the Humboldt river!”
“Sure, she’d been a good camp! But this new strike, pardner—this new strike’ll beat her forty
ways from Sunday! The old king is dead, long live the new king. After the major mines and mills of a
district had closed, and the bulk of a camp’s population had streamed away, businesses abandoned—
heavier merchandise still on their shelves. Fancy pianos and solid oak furniture—brought in by ox-
team or mule back—were left behind as being unworthy of high freight costs. Greasewood and sage
crept back into streets where gunplay and ribaldry had echoed. Peace, like a wooley blanket, settled
over the town; and a lonely wind came to whisper around broken windows, and run its gaunt fingers
over cold chimneys, and silent graves. Another ghost town had been born.”
That was Nevada’s mining stampede—a typically Western extravaganza, repeated over and
over again for a period of more than 60 years.
Gold has been found in all of Nevada’s counties: Churchill, Clark, Douglas, Elko, Esmeralda,
Eureka, Humbolt, Lander, Lincoln, Lyon, Mineral, Nye, Pershing, Washoe, and White Pine.
I was going through some of my fathers boxs of mining stuff when I can upon this book. I first
visited Gold Point NV when I was 3 or 4 years old and the last time when I was a teenager. When my
dad was given the long face by the doctors after a heart attack, they said its time to slow down or your
heart will kill you. My dad never really slowed down but he did do less strenous mining trips and I did
the labor. I liked this book and had to share it with my fellow miners, prospectors and rock hounds. My
autographed copy brings back lots of memories of my dad and the adventure we had exploring and
prospecting western Nevada’s mines and ghost towns. I have found this book in used book stores in
the last 3 years so its still out there. The book documents more than 40 ghost towns with facinating
interviews of those who saw it all happen. An online website for ghost towns is www.ghostowns.com.