TONOPAH

After an unsure Monday afternoon, Tuesday was more stable weather-wise. I noticed some rattling under the hood below the windshield. It turned out to be ice from the previous day melting and shaking loose.
My original plan was to head south from Austin to Manhattan ghost town, but even if I had stayed in Austin that may have been a no-go. I would have been on a small mountain road and it probably would have been closed.
Instead it was south from Fallon, past Walker Lake, to...
Tonopah. This is the famous Clown Motel. Imagine staying here. So much nightmare fuel.
Some old abandoned structures in the north part of town.
I have been to Tonopah before, having spent a painful night with a sprained ankle, but I did not visit the Tonopah Historic Mining Park.
Looking down from the mountain to downtown Tonopah, population ~2500. And as usual, the town's initial on the side of a mountain.
After watching a video about the mining history of Tonopah, it was out into the blustery cold for a walking tour.
The original 500-foot stope, an underground excavation from which ore has been extracted.
This tunnel is one of the original adits of the discovery site. An adit, apart from just being a good crossword word, is a horizontal passage from the surface into a mine.
Another stope. Okay, some history. Back in 1900, Jim and Belle Butler staked a claim here. In fact, it was Belle who prodded her husband to go back to file the claim after he had found silver. Shortly after, the Tonopah Mining Company started to develop the claims and successfully mined the site until 1930 when the mines due to the low price of silver.
I wonder if places like this purposely put old rusted vehicles in locations as scenery.
Looking to the northwest from the mountain,
The Mizpah mine was the richest of the many Tonopah mines. The metal headframe was one of the first steel hoisting works built in the U.S.
Some of the gears inside the hoist house.
Looking down the mine shaft.
I was happy that some of the buildings, like the carpenter shop, were open. There was a damn cold wind outside. This is a replica of a tent that miners would have lived in.
If I remember correctly, this was a vault where silver was stored.
This is the Barbara Graham house. She was one of only four women who received the death penalty in the gas chamber in California. Local lore states that she stayed in this cabin during her time spent in Tonopah.
Used from 1905 through the early 1940's, this trestle is the last surviving structure of the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad on the property.
I didn't take a photo of it, but on the other side of the trestle is an area known as the glory hole. No further comment.
The coal house for the Verdi Lumber Company. It is not original to the park, but was moved here.
An original miner's cabin.
The Silver Top mine hoist was constructed in 1906. Silver Top is the only historic mine in Nevada with most of its original features remaining.
That also includes the orehouse. The ore was hand-sorted and the waste dumped. That's why there's often a large pile of rocks next to mines like this.
The trestle from the hoist house to the orehouse.
Since it was so cold and windy, I did not venture up to the Desert Queen mine.
There's not much left of the original office site of the old Tonopah Mining Company.

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