Mizpah Hotel | |
 Mizpah Hotel | |
   | |
| Location | 100 Main St., Tonopah, Nevada |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 38°4′6″N117°13′51″W / 38.06833°N 117.23083°W |
| Built | 1905 |
| Architect | M.J. Curtis |
| MPS | Tonopah MRA (AD) |
| NRHP reference No. | 78001725 |
| Added to NRHP | July 7, 1978 [1] |
The Mizpah Hotel is a historic hotel in Tonopah, Nevada, U.S. It is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. [2]
The Mizpah and the nearby Belvada Building, both five stories high, shared the title of tallest building in Nevada until 1927. [3] The hotel was named after the Mizpah Mine [4] and was the social hub of Tonopah. The hotel was pre-dated by the Mizpah Saloon, which opened in 1907, and was the first permanent structure in Tonopah. [5] [6] The hotel was financed by George Wingfield, George S. Nixon, Cal Brougher and Bob Govan and designed by George E. Holesworth of Reno, Nevada [5] (other sources state that the architect was Morrill J. Curtis). Brougher in particular was involved with the Belmont, Tonopah, Midway and Tonopah Mining Company and the Tonopah Divide Mining Company. Brougher owned the Tonopah Banking Corporation, which had an office in the lobby of the 1905 building, and was a director of the Bank of Italy in San Francisco. [7]
According to legend, Wyatt Earp kept the saloon, Jack Dempsey was a bouncer, and Howard Hughes married Jean Peters at the Mizpah. But Wyatt Earp left Tonopah before the Mizpah was built, Hughes was married in Tonopah, but not at the Mizpah, and Dempsey asserted he was never a bouncer. [8] The hotel nevertheless features the Jack Dempsey Room and the Wyatt Earp Bar. [9]
The reinforced concrete hotel was faced with stone on the front and brick on the sides and rear. The neighboring three-story Brougher-Govan Block, with rooms on the upper floors, served as the first Mizpah and remains connected. Cast iron columns were used in the windows and fire escapes. The three and five story buildings are joined with a wood stairway crowned with a skylight. Steam heat was provided, along with the first elevator in Tonopah. [5]
The hotel is said to house a ghost deemed the Lady in Red by hotel guests who have experienced her presence. Legend says that the Lady in Red is the ghost of a prostitute who was murdered on the fifth floor of the hotel by a jealous ex-boyfriend. Another widely accepted description of the events is that The Lady in Red had been caught cheating by her husband at the hotel after he had missed a train, who then proceeded to kill her in a jealous rage. The Lady in Red haunting of the Mizpah was featured in season 5, episode 2 of Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel. [10] Other ghosts are also said to exist there and USA Today ranked the hotel first in its 2018 list of “Best Haunted Hotels in the US” as determined by readers. [11] It maintained a spot of seventh on that same list in 2022. [12]
The Mizpah changed hands several times through the years until Frank Scott of Las Vegas (who also built the Union Plaza Hotel) bought it in 1979. Scott updated the hotel with “all the modern conveniences,” acting as a bridge to the modern day, all the while preserving the antiquated romance that had first drawn him to the hotel. In all, the work took 2.5 years and cost almost $4 million. [13]
The hotel had been shuttered since 1999, but in early 2011, the hotel was purchased by Fred and Nancy Cline of Cline Cellars, Sonoma, California, who renovated and reopened the building to the public in August 2011. [14] [15] The newly renovated hotel has 47 rooms, a bar, and two restaurants; the Pittman Cafe and the Jack Dempsey Room. There is also a full casino, the Mizpah Club, on-site. [16] There are plans to renovate further rooms in the hotel annex.
Goodsprings is an unincorporated community in Clark County, Nevada, United States. The Pioneer Saloon and the Goodsprings School house were both built in 1913 and are still in use to this day. The town was once a prosperous mining town before seeing a significant decline in the population. The population was 229 as of the 2010 census. Due to this, the town of Goodsprings has been characterized as a ghost town.
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.
Tasker Lowndes Oddie was an American attorney and politician who served as the 12th Governor of Nevada and a United States Senator. He was a member of the Republican Party.
Goldfield is an unincorporated town and census-designated place and the county seat of Esmeralda County, Nevada.
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 Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad was a former class II railroad that served eastern California and southwestern Nevada.
The Mint Las Vegas was a hotel and casino in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada.
A Western saloon is a kind of bar particular to the Old West. Saloons served customers such as fur trappers, cowboys, soldiers, lumberjacks, businessmen, lawmen, outlaws, miners, and gamblers. A saloon might also be known as a "watering trough, bughouse, shebang, cantina, grogshop, and gin mill". The first saloon was established at Brown's Hole, Wyoming, in 1822, to serve fur trappers.
The Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad was a 197.9-mile (318.5 km) railroad built by William A. Clark that ran northwest from a connection with the mainline of the San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake Railroad at Las Vegas, Nevada to the gold mines at Goldfield. The SPLA&SL railroad later became part of the Union Pacific Railroad and serves as their mainline between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City.
The Brokers Exchange in Tonopah, Nevada, also known as the Tonopah Divide Mining Company was built in 1905 during Tonopah's mining boom. Originally a two-story building, it housed a brokerage, real estate office, and the offices of Tonopah lawyer Patrick McCarran. A fire destroyed the upper floor in 1912. The Tonopah Divide Mining Company, controlled by George Wingfield and Cal Brougher, purchased the property for use as an office in 1919. The ruined top story was removed and the first floor was re-roofed and capped with a decorate plaster frieze.
The George A. Bartlett House, also known as the Old Knights of Columbus Hall, is a Shingle style house in Tonopah, Nevada, United States. The Shingle style is more commonly found in the northeastern United States, and is almost unknown in Nevada. The house stands on a height on Mount Brougher overlooking the town. The house was built by George A. Bartlett, later a U.S. Congressman, who lost the house in the Panic of 1907. The shingled house is set on a rubblestone foundation and features an asymmetrical plan, typical of the style. The house was used as a Knights of Columbus Hall, then abandoned. Renovation began in 2008 to restore the house for use as a bed and breakfast.
The Goldfield Hotel is a historic four-story building located at the southeast corner of Crook Avenue and Columbia Avenue in Goldfield, Esmeralda County, Nevada. Designed in the Classical Revival style of architecture by Reno architects Morrill J. Curtis (1848–1921) and George E. Holesworth of the firm of Curtis and Morrill, it was built between 1907 and 1908 on the site of two earlier hotels of the same name which had burnt down. Built in a U-shape in order to ensure outside windows for each guest room, the building has its west or main facade extending 180 feet (55 m) along Columbia Street with the north wing fronting 100 feet (30 m) on Crook Avenue and the south wing fronting 100 feet (30 m) along an alleyway. The ground floor exterior facades were built of grey granite stones from Rocklin, California while the interior first floor facade and all upper story facades were built of redbrick. The top floor exterior facades were crowned with a white cornice. On March 4, 1981, it was added to the Nevada State Register of Historic Places. It is a contributing property in the Goldfield Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 14, 1982.
The Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad, a railroad of 100.4 miles (161.6 km) in length in the U.S. state of Nevada, offered point-to-point service between Mina and Goldfield, running over the Excelsior Mountains and parallel to the Monte Cristo Range. It operated from 1905 until 1947.
The Wieland Brewery Building is a historic building located on Mineral Street in Tonopah, Nevada. Built in 1901, the building was the first stone building constructed in Tonopah. It was also one of the first permanent buildings built in the town, which was still primarily a mining camp at the time. The building had several owners in its early years. It was apparently first owned by H.C. Brougher, but businessman Harry King bought the brewery by the end of 1901. King sold the brewery to two other businessmen in the spring 1902 but purchased it again by the following October. At the end of 1902, King added a crafted parapet to the building, which indicates that Tonopah had local stone craftsmen by that time.
The State Bank and Trust Company Building, more commonly known as the Belvada, is a historic bank building located at 102 Brougher Avenue in Tonopah, Nevada. The building was constructed in 1906 for the State Bank and Trust Company, a local bank founded in 1902. Architect George E. Holesworth designed the building in the Classical Revival style. Holesworth's design features granite pilasters separating the building's bays, a dentillated metil cornice with modillions along the roof, and an egg-and-dart cornice at the top of the first floor. The bank moved into the building in June 1907, but it only occupied it for four months. The bank had lent the L.M. Sullivan Trust Company, a land speculating company, a large sum, and when the company failed, the bank did as well. In 1908, the Nevada Club Saloon opened in the building; it was joined by the First National Bank of Nevada later in the year. The five-story building and the nearby Mizpah Hotel, also five stories, were the tallest buildings in the state until 1927.
The Palace Restaurant and Saloon is both the oldest business and oldest bar operating in the state of Arizona, United States. Located on historic Whiskey Row in Prescott, the saloon was opened in 1877, and rebuilt in 1901 after a disastrous fire swept the district in 1900. It is considered one of the most historic bars in the state.
The Bullfrog Goldfield Railroad (BGRR) was a railroad lying just inside and about midway of the southwestern State line of Nevada. It was incorporated in 1905 to provide an outlet from the mining section near Beatty to the north over the lines of the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad and the Southern Pacific Railroad.
Springdale is a privately owned ghost town in Nevada, United States. It is inaccessible to the general public.
A Lady in Red or Red Lady is a type of female ghost, similar to the White Lady, but according to legend is more specifically attributed to a jilted lover, killed in a fit of passion, or woman of vanity. In all cases, the Lady in Red is wearing a scarlet or blood red dress. She is said to typically be friendly in disposition, with a story attached to historic hotels, theatres or other public places, with a higher frequency of reports.
