Some Guests Have Never Left The Goldfield Hotel in Goldfield, Nevada...

I've been wanting to do another post on Ghost Towns for a while now, and decided I'd go ahead and do it today. However, this one will focus more on "the" hotel, rather than "the" town... So here we go.

About halfway between Las Vegas and Reno, lies the teeny, tiny little town of Goldfield, Nevada or what's left of it anyway. As one might deduce from its name, gold was discovered in the area in 1902. By 1904, a bevy of miners produced 800 tons of ore worth over two million dollars. News traveled fast and in no time at all, Goldfield became the largest town in the state.

Miner's pack animals in front of mining supply stores, Goldfield, Nevada, ca.1900

Prominent men arrived with bag and baggage. Among the notable, we find Wyatt and Virgil Earp. By January of 1905, Virgil wore the badge of a deputy sheriff. Sadly, however, he came down with pneumonia a few months later and after a six month illness, he died. A heartbroken Wyatt left town shortly thereafter. However, neither of these men having anything to do with the hotel... just history.

Ghosts and a Genuine Curse are Alive and Well in Bodie...

Storm over Bodie by Dave Bradford Condit (DBCondit)

There are myths and legends aplenty surrounding the little town of Bodie, which is designated as California's "Official State Gold Rush Town."  Separating fact from fiction is a daunting task since the founders and key players have all gone on to their heavenly reward.  We do know without doubt that W. S. Bodie (be he William, Waterman, or Wakeman,) is credited as its founder in 1859. However, it remained nothing more than an obscure mining camp until the Standard Company discovered a rich deposit of gold in 1876. At that point the town took off and a vast array of businesses set up shop. 

Bodie Saloon wikimedia commons public domain

Visiting the Ghost Town of Calico...

Somewhere around the age of twelve, my parents introduced me to my first ghost town. Then and there, I not only fell in love with Calico and her rustic personality, but all ghost towns regardless of location and the various histories surrounding them.

Calico Ghost Town by Enrico Stirl  Germaneon

High in the hills, just outside the very small town of Yermo, California, (which is not far from Barstow), sits the mining town of Calico, founded in the year 1881. The townsfolk completely abandoned the place in 1907 when the silver and borax mines no longer produced sufficient quantities to keep the town alive.  During Calico's  heydey, one could count at least five hundred different mines,  dine in three restaurants,  rent rooms in various boarding houses, read a weekly newspaper, visit bars, brothels, and a post office. The town had a deputy sheriff and a couple of constables, as well.  Over twelve hundred people populated the town at the height of its silver production.  And of course, like so many small towns in the wild, wild, west, the Boot Hill Cemetery housed its share of local bad guys.

In 1915, they built a cyanide plant at Calico, to recover the unprocessed silver from the Silver King Mine. Despite the existence of the plant, the town didn't recover. Yet, as fate would have it, Walter Knott, (founder of the famous Knott's Berry Farm) assisted in building the tanks used for the plant.  He must have seen something he liked, because in 1951 he bought the town and with the use of old photographs, began to restore it to its former glory. Visitors came in droves and many of those visitors experienced far more than the amazing restoration of the property.  You see, it's not uncommon for a tourist to report an encounter with one of the former, other-worldly residents...

The Fork in the Road...

At the age of twenty-seven, George Bond, first-born son of Hugh and Elizabeth Linaker Bond, said goodbye to his home and family in North Meols, Lancashire, England. From this beautiful place, countless generations of Bonds had lived out their lives. They worked the sea as well as the farms...and had been content. But something different stirred in George. He saw a great big world out there and he wanted to explore it. And so one day he traveled to Liverpool. He booked passage on the SS Lucania and during the summer of 1898, arrived at Ellis Island in New York.

From there, he intended to work his way across the United States, save up some money, and then by way of San Francisco, book passage on a ship sailing to Australia. 

Frisco Utah, Ghost Town