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TONOPAH
(Nye County)
Tonopah Springs, later the site of one of the richest booms in the West, was an Indian campground for many years, long before Jim Butler spent a chilly night here. A number of stories exist as to how Butler discovered the ore. The most popular version is that Butler's mule wandered away and when Butler found the ornery critter, he noticed an outcropping that appeared to be heavily laced with silver. Butler took a number of samples. The date was May 19, 1900. This quiet start belied the actual importance of the discovery. Butler firmly believed he had discovered an important silver deposit but he had trouble convincing the assayer he visited in nearby Klondike. The assayer told him the samples were worthless, consisting mainly of iron, and he threw them into the back of his tent.
Butler was still convinced that his find was genuine. On his way back to his Monitor Valley ranch, he stopped at Tonopah Springs once more to gather samples. Back at his ranch, Butler put the samples on his windowsill. Not too much time passed before Tasker Oddie, later to be governor of Nevada, stopped at the ranch and spied the ore samples. He offered to pay for another assay and Butler agreed to this. Butler, in turn, offered Oddie a quarter interest of the assay. Oddie heartily agreed. He took the ore samples to William Gayhart, an Austin assayer, and offered Gayhart a quarter interest in his quarter. Gayhart found the assay ran as high as $600 a ton. When Oddie was notified of the value of the samples, he immediately sent an Indian runner to Butler's ranch to alert him of the rich find. Butler did not react rapidly. He stayed at his ranch to complete the hay harvest and did not even bother to file claims on the lode site!
News of the discovery traveled to Klondike and soon, scores of eager prospectors were searching around Tonopah Springs, to no avail, for Butler's lode. Butler finally went to Belmont, and on August 27, 1900, he and his wife filed on eight claims near the springs. Six of these - Desert Queen, Burro, Valley View, Silver Top, Buckboard, and Mizpah - turned into some of the biggest producers the state has ever had.
Work was begun on the Mizpah mine in October 1900, and a camp called Butler formed nearby. On Christmas Day, 1900, 14 men were living in the camp including Butler and Tasker Oddie, Nye County's new District Attorney. Butler decided to lease out all of his claims for one year, from December 1900, to December 1901. Soon, the cry of "Jim, how about a lease?" was heard throughout the bustling camp. Oddie and Butler were partners, receiving a 25% royalty on all gold and silver mined from the Butler claims.
The town of Butler began to grow by leaps and bounds. By January 1901, there were 40 men in the camp. The first stagecoach, coming from Sodaville, arrived in Butler on March 24, 1901, with seven passengers. It was a two day trip, with an overnight stay at Crow Springs. The camp consisted of seven shacks, a number of tents and a population of 60. Within weeks, the population had grown to 250. A post office (Willie Sinclair, postmaster), named Butler, opened at the booming camp on April 10, 1901. It was not until March 3, 1905, that the post office changed its name to Tonopah.
By the summer of 1901, Butler was beginning to make its mark on Nevada's silver production figures. The mines around the town produced almost $750,000 in gold and silver in 1901, and for the next 40 years, the Tonopah mines were consistent producers. The town now had six saloons, restaurants, assay offices, lodging houses, a number of doctors, lawyers and a rapidly swelling population of 650. The first wedding took place on November 14 when Harry Stimler and Eleanor Whitford were married. A newspaper came to the town on June 15, 1901, when W.W. Booth, who had published a paper in Belmont, set up the Tonopah Bonanza. The first issue had this greeting: "With this issue, the Tonopah Bonanza glides down the typographical ways and into the sea of journalism. Whether its voyage will be a calm and prosperous one, time along will tell. The Bonanza will at all times act as a free lance, giving credit whenever merited and censure when called for. Our policy in politics will be for the best of the country. That the paper will meet with public favor or condemnation is left to the opinion of the reader and advertiser. We have done our best and sincerely hope it will meet with your approval." The paper listed Butler as its place of publication until March 1905. Booth took over the postmaster duties from Sinclair and served until 1905.
1902 was also very prosperous for the booming town. Jim Butler had sold out the claims, which were all consolidated and gave birth to a new company, the Tonopah Mining Company. It was incorporated in Delaware, with stock listed on both the Philadelphia and San Francisco exchanges. The company, with J.H. Whiteman as president, controlled 160 acres of mineral-bearing ground around the Tonopah district. The company also had holdings in the Tonopah-Goldfield Railroad and controlled mining companies in Colorado, Canada, California and Nicaragua. The mine workings at Tonopah consisted of three deep shafts with more than 46 miles of lateral workings. The deepest of the three shafts was 1,500'. The ore mined at the site was shipped to Millers, where it was treated in a 100-stamp mill. This facility was used by the company's mines until suitable treatment facilities were built at Tonopah.
The Tonopah-Belmont Mining Company was also formed in 1902. The company was based in New Jersey and had C.A. Heller as president. The company's property, 11 claims covering more than 160 acres, was on the east side of the property owned by the Tonopah Mining Company. There were two deep vertical shafts, 1,200' and 1,700', with workings covering almost 39 miles. The company also had to ship its ore to Millers until 1912, when its own 60-stamp mill was built at Tonopah. The mill had a capacity of 500 tons. During its years of activity, 1912-1923, it was regarded as one of the country's best equipped and most efficient silver cyanide mills.
These two mining companies were the mainstays that provided the financial boost to push Tonopah to prominence during 1902. There were some dark days for Tonopah that year. A month-long epidemic plagued the town. Before it had passed, 50 of Tonopah's residents had died. By the end of 1902, the town had recovered and the population stood at more than 3,000. The booming town supported more than 30 saloons, a few churches, a school, two newspapers and numerous other business establishments. Stages from all over the state began to arrive in Tonopah. One was held up on the outskirts of town. It was Tonopah's only stage robbery. Wyatt Earp was a resident of Tonopah from 1902 to 1904, running the Northern Saloon and helping out the law every once in a while.
Any fear of Tonopah being just another quick boom, destined to collapse, vanished in late 1902 and early 1903. Substantial new ore deposits were located deep in a number of the already active mines, including the Montana-Tonopah, Desert Queen, North Star and Tonopah Extension. The huge volume of ore being mined in Tonopah's rich mines led to shipping problems, for the only mills at that time were in Millers. It was decided to build a narrow gauge railroad and construction began in late 1903. The 60-mile long railroad connected Tonopah with the Carson and Colorado branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad at the Sodaville junction. The railroad was officially opened on July 25, 1904, followed by three days of jubilant celebration. In 1905, the railroad was enlarged to standard gauge. When the rails were extended to Goldfield in the fall of 1905, the railroad was organized and named the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad.
In May 1905, Tonopah became the county seat in place of almost empty Belmont. The town continued to grow. John Brock dominated most of the mine ownership in Tonopah. In addition to controlling a number of prosperous mining companies, he also was acting president of the Bullfrog-Goldfield Railroad, and the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad.
Two major mining companies achieved prominence in Tonopah during the next few years. The Tonopah Extension Mining Company was formed in Arizona and had its main offices in New York City. The company controlled almost 700 acres of mineral-bearing ground in the Tonopah district, most on the west side of the Tonopah Mining Company's property. The company had three major shafts with about 33 miles of lateral work. The three mines - the No. 2, Victor, and McKane - were all more than 1,500' deep. The deepest, the Victor, was almost 2,200'. The company built a 30-stamp cyanide mill in 1910, which was later enlarged to 50 stamps.
The second major new company was the West End Consolidated Mining Company, incorporated in Arizona. West End controlled 185 acres on the southwest side of the Tonopah Mining Company's property. The company also controlled the Halifax-Tonopah Mining Company and leased land from Jim Butler. There were three main shafts on the company's property, the deepest more than 1,400'. The company built a cyanide mill in 1911 that had a daily capacity of more than 200 tons. In addition to these four big companies, there were close to 20 other well-established mining companies active in the district during the 1910s and the 1920s.
By 1907, Tonopah had become a regular city, with modern hotels, electric and water companies, five banks, schools and hundreds of other buildings. Newspapers began to play a larger role in the town, and a number of rivalries arose. The best known of these rivalries was between the Tonopah Sun and the Tonopah Daily Bonanza. The Sun had begun in 1904 as a weekly but was changed to a daily on January 10, 1905. The Daily Bonanza was run by W.W. Booth, who also ran the weekly Tonopah Bonanza, which had folded on Christmas Day, 1909. Booth's daily began publication on October 24, 1906, and soon the two papers were fighting tooth and nail. During this same period, three other weeklies were being published.
The Mizpah Hotel, the landmark of present Tonopah, was completed in 1908 and opened with great fanfare on November 17. More than $200,000 was spent on the hotel, which boasted baths, steam heat and crude elevators. Not all was glitter in Tonopah, however. A fire in May 1908, destroyed an entire block of the business district with a loss of $150,000, and another fire in June 1909 burned the roundhouse and machine shops of the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad, also a loss of $150,000. However, February 28, 1911, is the darkest day in the town's bright history. A mysterious fire, small but smoky, broke out at the bottom of the 1,200' shaft of the Belmont mine at seven in the morning. A number of men had already gone below before the seriousness of the situation was realized. The fumes were extremely toxic. Calls to the hoist operator came in slowly at first but soon became frantic. Although many men were brought to safety, 17 men perished in the mine. All died from the choking fumes, not the fire. A number of the dead had actually made it to the hoist lift but were so weakened that they fell out of the cage to their deaths at the bottom of the shaft. Actual damage to the shaft was only $5,000. The cause of the deadly fire was a candle left on a pile of dry timber by a careless night watchman. This was the only major mining accident in the Tonopah mines. The Belmont mine was soon reopened. It produced $38 million in silver and gold before another fire in 1939 closed the mine for good.
W.W. Booth remained a controversial figure as Tonopah continued to progress. In 1916, he was brought to court on a libel suit after accusing a district attorney of being dishonest, among other things. He lost the case and was sentenced to six months in the county jail. The other newspaper editors were outraged, and their voices were heard. Booth was released after serving only a month and was eventually pardoned. Booth's Daily Bonanza came upon hard times during the 1920s. On November 16, 1929, the paper was sold to Frank Garside, who had been in charge of the Tonopah Daily Times since its origin on December 1, 1915. Garside consolidated the two papers into the Tonopah Times-Bonanza. Booth soon left Tonopah and moved to Hawthorne, becoming editor of the Hawthorne News. The Tonopah Times-Bonanza was a daily until April 2, 1943, when it was changed to a weekly, as it is today.
Tonopah's mines maintained very high yearly production until the Depression brought a slowdown. Mine production from 1900 to 1921, the peak years, was almost $121 million. The biggest single year was 1913, when almost $10 million in gold, silver, copper and lead was mined. By World War II, only four major mining companies were operating. A huge fire in October 1942 destroyed the Tonopah Extension mill and property, and spread to a nearby hotel, causing $100,000 in damage. At the end of the war, even these companies had left. The final blow came in 1947 when the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad folded and its rails were torn up.
Not much mining activity has taken place in Tonopah since then. In 1968, Howard Hughes and his Summa Corporation bought 100 claims in Tonopah, including the Mizpah, Silver Top, and Desert Queen mines. Hopes for a mining revival soon faded after core samples and nothing more were taken. A few of the old mines were retimbered but never reopened. As of now, total production from the Tonopah district is just more than $150 million, a figure few other places could boast.
Tonopah is still the county seat of Nye County and has a population of around 3,000. During recent times, the town's proximity to the Nellis Air Force Bombing and Gunnery Range supported many of the town's businesses. Many military personnel lived in the motels while working at the missile test range. Also, a nearby part of the test range was home for the super-secret Stealth fighters and bombers. Long before the military acknowledged the plane's existence, residents of Tonopah were constantly treated to fly-overs from the plane that didn't exist. However, the Stealth base has been relocated to New Mexico, and other cutbacks have drastically reduced the military's impact on the town.
Tonopah is still a vibrant town, however. Tourism now plays a large part in the local economy. Many buildings still remain from the boom era, including the Mizpah Hotel, completely renovated during the late 1970s. Other points of interest include the Nye County Courthouse, built in 1905 at a cost of $55,000 on land donated by Jim Butler; the old Tonopah Public Library, built in 1912 and now the oldest active library in Nevada; St. Mark's Episcopal Church, built in 1906 and one of the better known landmarks in Tonopah; and the ruins of the old 500-ton Belmont mill, on the east side of Mt. Oddie. An extremely interesting place to visit is the Tonopah Historic Mining Park. The mines, formerly owned by Howard Hughes' Summa Corporation and donated by Echo Bay Mining Company, and a walking tour of the mining complex has been organized. The walk features numerous old headframes, buildings (including three hoist houses with all original equipment), mining equipment, and a huge glory hole. All of the major discoveries of Jim Butler are on the 110 acres comprising the park grounds including the Mizpah, Silver Top, Desert Queen, Montana-Tonopah, and North Star Mines. For more information visit the Tonopah Historic Mining Park. A must stop for any visitor is the fantastic Central Nevada Museum. Many great displays and a complete research section are featured. However, this author found the most interesting part of a visit is the extensive outdoor displays, which feature artifacts, small and large, from all over the area. This includes parts of a stamp mill from Manhattan, hoist cages, parts from military aircraft that crashed during Tonopah's years as a military base, buildings from various towns, and a nature walk featuring native plants and fauna. The museum was originally supposed to be located in the old Tonopah depot, but it burned in August 1980. Only the heavy vault doors, needed to protect the silver and gold bars, were saved and now adorn the archives vault at the museum.
For anyone visiting ghost towns in the Nye County area, Tonopah is an excellent choice as a home base. Supplies of all sorts are available in Tonopah as well as reasonably priced lodging.