LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — This day in history was a devastating one for one of Southern Nevada’s most famous ghost towns.
On Aug. 19, 1908, a fire destroyed much of the town of Rhyolite’s eastern businesses as well as the city’s red-light district. It was the beginning of the end for the mining boomtown. Rhyolite sprang up after gold was found in Nye County’s Bullfrog Hills in 1905.
In 1906, Charles M. Schwab bought the Montgomery Shoshone Mine, and the town’s population grew. By 1907, Rhyolite had electric light, water mains, telephones, a school, a hospital and an opera house. By 1908, it boasted 5,000 residents before the boom went bust.
The gold ran out, the fire struck, and residents packed up. The mine closed in 1911, and by 1920 Rhyolite was deserted. Today, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management oversees the ghost town, just a short distance from Death Valley National Park.
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