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UNITED STATES | South-Central Nevada, Nevada Travel Guide
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
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Beatty
Antique fire truck in Beatty, Nevada (cc)
Photo: PDTillman
Beatty
The Gateway to Death Valley, Beatty is the outpost nearest the small portion of Death Valley National Park that extends into Nevada. Located on US 95 29 miles northwest of Amargosa Valley, Beatty is 41 miles north of Death Valley’s Furnace Creek (California) visitors center. A National Park Service ranger station in Beatty provides information, maps, and collects a vehicle entrance fee.
Just four miles west of Beatty in the dun-colored hills lies Rhyolite, one of the most photogenic ghost towns in the West. Now recognized as a state historic site, Rhyolite was founded soon after Frank “Shorty” Harris and Eddie Cross struck paydirt among the characteristic green rocks in 1904. The Bullfrog Mining District sprouted up and counted 2,000 claims over 30 square miles. Rhyolite was the center of the mining boom (which continues on an industrial scale today in Nye County) that once supported a population of 8,000, 50 saloons, 19 hotels, three newspapers, two hospitals and a busy red-light district. The Bullfrog District hiccuped in 1910 when the water was turned off and by 1919 Rhyolite had croaked. Some of the well-preserved structures include Tom T. Kelly’s Bottle House, constructed in 1905 almost entirely of glass bottles; the gray, stone skeleton of the three-story Cook Bank building, built with marble floors at a cost of $90,000; and the old train depot. A group called the Friends of Rhyolite are working to preserve and promote the sights for future generations through fundraisers and walking tours. The combined fanfare of Beatty Railroad Days and the Rhyolite Living Festival are held each June.
Between Beatty and Rhyolite, the Gold Well Open Air Museum presents an odd assortment of large-scale sculpture, a massive project begun by artist Albert Szukalski in 1984. By far the spookiest piece is “Last Supper,” a collection of white, life-size, shrouded figures that seem as frozen in time as nearby Rhyolite. Local residents were used as models, who were draped in clothes soaked in wet plaster to create molds, which were then left to harden under the Mojave Desert sun.
Another ghost of a town rests in pieces three miles south of Beatty on a hill west of US 95. In the first decade of the 20th century, the settlement of Gold Center was developed not for the sake of mineral riches, but because of its proximity to the Amargosa River. Gold Center served the nearby mining towns and milled their ore until about 1910, when the money ran dry. Today the remains of stone buildings, concrete foundations and rusting equipment are all that’s left.
Last updated March 16, 2012
Posted in United States | South-Central Nevada
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