Rhyolite Nevada Postcard

Before heading home from a little mini-vacation to Death Valley National Park, I stopped in to the Rhyolite ghost town near Beatty, Nevada. It is one of many ghost towns in the state and very easily accessed right off Highway 374 which runs from Beatty to Death Valley. Like so many western ghost towns, Rhyolite boomed for a very short time after the discovery of gold in the area. Founded in 1905, the town’s population is said to have been as high as 5,000. However, the local ore deposits dwindled quickly and by 1908 the town was already in a steep decline with its population dropping to fewer than 1,000 by 1908 or so and to pretty much zero by 1920. This image captures the ruins of the Cook Bank Building, one of the more popular and more intact structures to photograph.