If you could dream yourself back into yesterday, where would you go? Along the Spice route with Marco Polo? To the Moon with Neil Armstrong? Or would you dream yourself back into the glory days of the American West the Gold Rush days? If you could dream yourself back to the Old West, would you find a ghost town and wander the streets, listening for the life that once was? If so, come with me to Rhyolite, Nevada.
What is left of the ghost town of Rhyolite typifies that dream of glory and incredible wealth, so walk beside me up the streets and let's listen to the sounds of the past when gold was king and Rhyolite was the throne.
At a time when the discovery of gold, silver and other minerals caught the imagination of all people who dreamed, Rhyolite became a symbol of stability and growth. Other mining camps boomed and died within a matter of months. Rhyolite boomed and grew to become the third largest city in Nevada.
On August 9, 1904, two prospectors, Frank 'Shorty' Harris and Ernest L. Cross, discovered gold on a hill nearby. No one is really sure who actually made the discovery each one said he did. 'They' called it the Bullfrog Gold Mine because
1.) Harris thought the rock in which the gold was found reminded him of tieback of a bullfrog; 2.) Cross used to sing 'The bulldog on the bank and the bullfrog in the pool' and wanted to name his first claim after the song.
No matter who found it or why it was named bullfrog, it was one of the largest discoveries in the state.
Town boundaries were established within three months, and on February 15, 1905, lots in the new town were offered for sale. On May 5, 1905, less than ten months after gold was discovered, the Rhyolite Herald set up shop and published its first edition stating that "we are glad to be here to grow up with the town and camp; glad to cast our fortunes among so enterprising a people and take our chances of being successful with the rest". The Herald publisher, Earle R. Clemens, consistently an optimist, never failed to rejoice in the growth and prosperity of Rhyolite. It probably broke his heart when later the town began to vanish.
Let's begin our dream tour by wandering to the Bottle House. There are only a few such houses left in the world. This one was completed by Tom Kelly in February 1906 (at almost the same time that the first school opened in the town). Some said that there were a total of 50,000 bottles imbedded in the adobe walls of the house. The original cost of the building was $2,500 but most of that money was spent on the wood and fixtures. Some of the bottles were medicine bottles, but most were Busch beer bottles saloon throw aways carried here by the enterprising Kelly. No, he didn't drink all of the beer himself. If he had, he probably wouldn't have lived long enough to build the house.
Let's close our eyes and listen closely: we may hear old Tom slapping another beer bottle into its place along the wall, maybe swearing a little in the heat of a summer afternoon as a fly buzzes past his nose. He may walk in front of us on his way to the water bucket, he may smile at his neighbor and call greetings to the couple walking by on Amargosa Street. Tom is glad he's here, life is treating him pretty well. And he's glad we're here.
Continuing up the hill from the Bottle House, off on our right is a concrete structure. That building was one of the finest jails in all of Nevada; it even had four steel cells. Rhyolite was not a notoriously bad city; it had its upper class and middle class folks, but there were some residents who just couldn't seem to go straight no matter what. This was a mining town a hard living, hardworking, hard drinking kind of place. There were approximately 50 saloons in the city, a redlight district, and, as some believe, up to 10,000 people. With all of those people and plenty of liquor flowing, there had to be trouble at some point. There were gunfights on Golden Street, occasional brawls in the saloons, and, of course, normal every day disputes.
The first gunfight in the growing city took place on December 15, 1905. It seems that there were bad feelings between two men and that evening, right about dinner time, the two shot it out in the Monaco saloon. Both fired at "very close range, the gun barrels almost touching the bodies". After examining the two, Dr. Grigsby noted, "They were both good boys". Both 'good' boys had good aim evidently, for alas, they were both good and dead.
In May 1906, a double tragedy occurred. At the Golden Hotel, a man stabbed his wife under the heart with a miner's candlestick. When Deputy Sheriff McDonald and Judge Donnelly arrived to subdue the man, he stabbed the Judge. Sheriff McDonald shot the wifekiller dead.
On the evening of October 26, 1906, two separate incidents occurred. The first was a shootout on the corner of Golden and Colorado Streets in which one man died. The second was a shootout between a musician and a waiter. The waiter, believing that he had killed his man, fled the city and was never seen again. The musician lived on, unhurt, in Rhyolite.
A jail was definitely needed, but until March 1907, all 'bad' men were carted off in an ambulance to the town of Bullfrog (just down the hill) to be incarcerated in the Bullfrog jail. The cost of using the ambulance was "$15 a day. The metropolis doesn't have a jail, but it does have plenty of rigs. The commissioners may find it more economical to build a jail than pay livery bills." So a jail was built.
As we walk by, we may just hear the soulful tune of a harmonica playing 'bad' boy, or the belches of the man in the next cell who had a bit too much to drink. We'll hear the clink of the keys as the sheriff stands up to stretch and pour himself another cup of coffee, and then the wrinkling echo of a newspaper being unfolded as he sits back down for his long night of girded.
As we look further to the north, we'll see a small adobe building. There is a dispute about the exact purpose of it; some say that it was a little train depot and some say that it was a part of the waterworks. Examination of available period photographs show railroad tracks in the general area, but far enough away to make it seem that the waterworks theory may be correct.
If it was part of the water system (perhaps a pumping station or valve house), it was part of what made the city a reality. Without water in the desert, well, we all know what happens. Rhyolite had little water of its own, so it was decided by the townspeople to pipe water into the area. In May 1905, the Rhyolite Herald reported that "Rhyolite is to have three water pipes, two from springs and one from the Beatty Ranch".
Up to that time, water had been hauled into town in whiskey barrels so that even the town's foremost teetotalers had a taste of the 'O, Be Joyful' whether they wanted to or not. Hauling the water worked for awhile, but this camp was growing every day and water had to be available to all. By September 1905, there were water mains laid out over 34 blocks in the city and Indian Springs Water Company was charging $20 for home service installation. The original charge for water usage was one cent per gallon, but was cut to half that in 1906.
By January 1906, Rhyolite could claim three independent water systems. The Indian Springs Water Company was joined by the Bullfrog Water, Power and Light Company, and the Bullfrog Townsite Water and Ice Company to provide water to every house and business in the city. "The aggregate cost of these three enterprises is close to $175,000. Rhyolite will have more water than...50,000 people can use for domestic purposes, and enough water to operate a stamp mill on every street corner", the Herald proudly stated.
One thing most desert communities did not have was found in the flourishing city of Rhyolite: a public swimming pool. The Herald reported that "The Bullfrog Pool Company, with a 14 x 40 swimming pool, invites you to go down and take a real, genuine bath and swim, all for the small sum of four bits. The pool holds 1500 gallons and is refilled with fresh water every day. Ladies are admitted only on Wednesdays from 2 to 5 p.m., and on Sundays from 9 a.m. until 12 p.m." According to some local reports, this was the only time that some of the miners availed themselves of the thrill of washing. Thank heavens for the pool.
The Rhyolite dream tour will continue next time as we poke through the school and into some of the commercial establishments along Golden Street
HOW TO GET THERE:
Rhyolite is approximately 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas; about 5 miles west of Beatty, Nevada on Highway 374 just past the large gold mine operation.
Kathleen (Kate) Graves was born in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and spent her youth listening to the legends of the local Indian tribes, her own ancestors' roles in the American Revolution, and the history of anywhere in the United States that had a history. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in United States History (with a concentration in the American West), and is currently pursuing a Master of Science degree in Environmental Studies which Kate believes is tied very closely to our past as well as our future. As well as raising three daughters, she completed twenty years in government service four (from 1989 to 1993) as a Park Ranger in Death Valley National Park.
Email:Kate Graves
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