The area that would become Gold Point was first settled by ranchers and a few miners during the 1880s. The small camp of Lime Point was formed a few hundred yards west of the present town, at an outcropping of limestone.
When new discoveries of gold and silver established the major mining towns of Tonopah and Goldfield, Nevada in the early 1900s, a flood of prospectors returned to Lime Point. In 1902, silver was discovered in the area, and the old camp was revived and renamed Hornsilver (an informal name for the silver mineral chlorargyrite). Scarcity of water in the area required that the ore be shipped to nearby Lida for milling. The nearest major supply town was about 250 miles (400km) north at Unionville, a mining town northeast of present-day Lovelock. The miners did not find silver in abundance, the costs of shipping the ore to Lida became too high, and, within a year, the settlement was abandoned.
In 1905, the Great Western Mine Company began operations about a one-half mile (0.8km) southeast of Hornsilver and discovered a rich silver vein which brought a stampede of miners back to the camp. In addition to the rich silver ore, gold was also mined in small quantities. By 1908, the tent homes turned into more permanent wooden structures and the camp became a town.
In May 1908, the Hornsilver Herald began publication and the following week a post office was established. Before long the residents organized a chamber of commerce and numerous businesses sprouted up, including as many as 13 saloons. The chamber sought a railroad extension to Hornsilver, but this never happened. The nearest railroad depot was at Ralston, about 15 miles (24km) east of Hornsilver. As deep ore bodies were extensively developed, the town peaked at a population of around 1,000 with over 225 wood-framed buildings, tents and shacks throughout the camp.
Gold Point - abandoned building and car, October 2009
The town's original founders did not find the boomtown they had hoped for, as this strike also proved to be short-lived. In 1909, litigation due to claim jumping brought many of the area mining properties into the courts. These many lawsuits, along with inefficient and costly milling practices, halted the town's growth just a little more than a year after it was established. Before long, most of its businesses closed and its residents again moved on.
But Hornsilver was not yet a ghost town, as mining operations resumed again in 1915. However, it must not have done very well as Charles Stoneham, of the New York Giants baseball team, purchased the Great Western mine in 1922 at a receiver's sale.
Buildings in the center of town in 2009
In 1927, a miner by the name of J.W. Dunfee went down the mine and made an even better discovery – gold. Within a few years, more gold than silver was being mined and the town's name was changed to Gold Point. It was after this discovery that Gold Point enjoyed its longest period of success, at a time that the rest of America was suffering from depression.
However, when World War II began, the government ordered all gold mines to shut down as nonessential to the war effort. Mining at Gold Point stopped, and once again most of its residents drifted away or went off to war.
After the war, mining resumed on a smaller scale and continued until the 1960s when a cave-in occurred from a dynamite blast at the Dunfee Shaft. More expensive to fix than the quantity and value of ore extracted would pay, the mine closed. Other than a few small leases and diggings, this was the last serious mining operation at Gold Point.
Town buildings giving a sense of the isolation of Gold Point
The old camp is a living history lesson with about 50 buildings still standing, including former Senator Harry Wiley's home and the post office that now serves as a museum. The Post Office Museum is open on most weekends and for large parties. Memorial Day Weekend is the annual Chili Cook-Off with prizes and drawings, food and drink, games and live music all day and through the night. For a few days of the year, the population soars to 400, but is usually seven. Gold Point is home to the High Desert Drifters Western Historical Society; the club routinely performs western reenactment and gunfights in the plaza. Guest services are available year-round, including electric hook-ups for RVs.
Nearby nature sites include waterfalls and watering holes frequented by wild horses and burros, Indian petroglyphs, fossils, petrified woods, and a view of Death Valley National Park from Big Molly.
Tonopah is an unincorporated town in and the county seat of Nye County, Nevada, United States. Nicknamed the Queen of the Silver Camps for its mining-rich history, it is now primarily a tourism-based resort city, notable for attractions like the Mizpah Hotel and the Clown Motel.
Bodie is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States. It is about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe, and 12 mi (19 km) east-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 8,379 feet (2554 m). Bodie became a boom town in 1876 after the discovery of a profitable vein of gold; by 1879 it had established 2,000 structures with a population of roughly 8,000 people.
Goldfield is a census-designated place in and the county seat of Esmeralda County, Nevada.
The Comstock Lode is a lode of silver ore located under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range in Virginia City, Nevada, which was the first major discovery of silver ore in the United States and named after American miner Henry Comstock.
Austin is an unincorporated small town in, and former county seat of, Lander County, Nevada, United States. In 2020, the census-designated place of Austin had a population of 167. It is located on the western slopes of the Toiyabe Range at an elevation of 6,575 feet (2,004 m). U.S. Route 50 passes through the town.
Rhyolite is a ghost town in Nye County, in the U.S. state of Nevada. It is in the Bullfrog Hills, about 120 miles (190 km) northwest of Las Vegas, near the eastern boundary of Death Valley National Park.
The Otago Gold Rush was a gold rush that occurred during the 1860s in Central Otago, New Zealand. This was the country's biggest gold strike, and led to a rapid influx of foreign miners to the area – many of them veterans of other hunts for the precious metal in California and Victoria, Australia. The number of miners reached its maximum of 18,000 in February 1864.
Lida, Nevada is a small ghost town in Esmeralda County, Nevada, near the border with California. The GNIS classifies it as a populated place. It is located on State Route 266, north of Magruder Mountain.
Tuscarora is an unincorporated community in Elko County, Nevada, United States. The community lies on the east side of the Tuscarora Mountains approximately 40 miles north of Carlin. Tuscarora is part of the Elko Micropolitan Statistical Area. Far from being a ghost town, as several websites proclaim, Tuscarora is home to two schools, a library, a post office and a bar and grill, as well as homes for its remaining residents.
Rawhide, Nevada was a town in Mineral County, Nevada, approximately 55 miles southeast of Fallon. The site of Rawhide has been dismantled by recent mining activity, with little or nothing remaining to be seen.
Bullfrog is a ghost town in Nye County, in the U.S. state of Nevada. It is located at the north end of the Amargosa Desert about 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Beatty. Less than 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Bullfrog are the Bullfrog Hills and the ghost town of Rhyolite. The two ghost towns are about 120 miles (190 km) northwest of Las Vegas, 60 miles (97 km) south of Goldfield, and 90 miles (140 km) south of Tonopah.
Pioneer is a ghost town in Nye County, in the U.S. state of Nevada. Beginning as a mining camp near the Mayflower and other gold mines in northern Bullfrog Hills, it became a formal town in 1908 and flourished briefly until fire destroyed much of its business district in 1909 and litigation delayed mining. Population peaked at an estimated 2,500 in 1908, and the community survived at least through the closing of the Pioneer post office in 1931. Mining continued near the town site through 1941. Few remnants of Pioneer structures survived through the end of the 20th century.
Silver Reef is a ghost town in Washington County, Utah, United States, about 15 miles (24 km) northeast of St. George and 1 mile (1.6 km) west of Leeds. Silver Reef was established after John Kemple, a prospector from Nevada, discovered a vein of silver in a sandstone formation in 1866. At first, geologists were uncertain about Kemple's find because silver is not usually found in sandstone. In 1875, two bankers from Salt Lake City sent William Barbee to the site to stake mining claims. He staked 21 claims, and an influx of miners came to work Barbee's claims and to stake their own. To accommodate the miners, Barbee established a town called Bonanza City. Property values there were high, so several miners settled on a ridge to the north of it and named their settlement Rockpile. The town was renamed Silver Reef after silver mines in nearby Pioche closed and businessmen arrived.
Ruby Hill is a ghost town in Eureka County, in the central part of the U.S. state of Nevada, approximately 2.6 mi (4.2 km) west of the town of Eureka, Nevada. In 1910, the Ruby Hill Railroad was washed out, after which there were only three businesses in town.
Dun Glen is a ghost town in Pershing County, Nevada, United States, 9 miles northeast of Mill City. Established in 1862, the mining camp soon became one of the largest towns in northern Nevada. By 1880, mining had declined and the town was abandoned. With a silver discovery in the area in 1908, the settlement attracted people and was re-named Chafey. Chafey was abandoned when mining operations stopped in 1913.
Treasure Hill is an east-jutting spur of the White Pine Range of White Pine County in the east central region of the U.S. state of Nevada. It lies to the east of Mount Hamilton and to the northwest of Mokomoke Hill. It is noted for a silver mining boom in the late 1860s: between 1867 and 1880, the total production from area mines was valued at $20 million. The rush drew thousands to new towns such as Hamilton, situated at the northern base of the hill, and Treasure City, located near its peak, 2.5 miles (4.0 km) from Hamilton.
Atwood is a former mining settlement located 35 miles (56 km) northeast of Mina in Nye County, Nevada. Founded in 1901, it was the most important mining village in the Fairplay Mining District, that was called "Atwood Mining District" as well. After Atwood was totally deserted in 1908, the settlement revived in 1914. The last resident left the mining settlement in 1959. Currently, only one foundation and fragments of glass remain.
Jessup, also briefly known as White Canyon, is a ghost town in Churchill County, Nevada and was founded in 1908 after gold and silver mine claims were located. At its peak, it supported a population of around 300, with grocery stores and a post office, among other things. There are at least eight formerly active mines in the area. It is located a few miles north of Interstate 80 between Fernley and Lovelock. Southern Pacific provided prospectors access to the town by stopping in nearby White Plains. All that remains today is a few dilapidated wood buildings and abandoned mines.
Cortez is a ghost town in Lander County, in the U.S. state of Nevada. The GNIS classifies it as a populated place.
Johntown is a ghost town in Lyon County, Nevada United States. It was originally an important mining camp in Gold Canyon, midway between Dayton, Nevada and Silver City. In the late 1850s, Johntown was the largest mining camp in the western Utah Territory.
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