Images of Rhyolite Historic Townsite – Southern Nevada, taken in May 2021.

After the discovery of gold in 1904 the town of Rhyolite, at first a tent city and then a modern town, sprang up out of the Nevada desert. At the height of the gold boom the city had an estimated population of between 5,000 and 8,000 people, was serviced by three railroads, included 18 grocery stores, 19 lodging houses and 50 saloons. The mines began to fail and by 1911 the town started its swift decline, eventually becoming the ghost town it is today. Protected by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) the Rhyolite Historic Townsite and the cemetery to the south are reminders of the boom-and-bust days of the old west in early 1900’s.