Goldfield
Esmeralda County
Most of the Nevada mining camps that are written about on this website were small and short-lived. It can be tough to find much information on them. You can find books from a few authors like Hall, Paher and Patera. You can also find a few websites like NVExpeditions, Ray Dunakin, Forgotten Nevada and NVTami. But beyond that, it gets tough to find further information. That's why I am also writing about them on this website. With that said, towns like Austin, Battle Mountain, Beatty, Belmont, Caliente, Dayton, Elko, Eureka, Goldfield, Manhattan, Pioche, Tonopah and Virginia City (Comstock/ Gold Hill & Silver City) are NOT those camps. These places were massive mining towns with expansive and long-spanning mining histories. Each of these towns had populations in the thousands. A simple internet search will reveal a long list of websites that have written about these places. These towns are also still populated to this day. From a couple dozen in Belmont, to 2,500 in Tonopah, and 15,000 in Dayton. Therefore, I am not going to re-write the same history that can already be found in great detail on the internet. I am going to post extensive historical photographs for each of these towns though. Each one of these towns also has its own Nevada historical marker from the Nevada- State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). Each one of these towns will have their historical quote posted to its page.
Also see the following pages: Diamondfield; Goldfield Cemetery; Goldfield Elks Cemetery; Goldfield Masonic/ IOOF (Odd Fellows) Cemetery; Goldfield Mining District.
Nevada Historical Marker #14- Goldfield:
"For a 20-year period prior to 1900 the mining in Nevada fell into a slump that cast the entire state into a bleak depression and caused the loss of a third of the population. The picture brightened overnight following the spectacular strikes in Tonopah and, shortly afterwards, in Goldfield. Gold ore was discovered here in December 1902 by two Nevada-born prospectors Harry Stimler and Billy Marsh. From 1904 to 1918 Goldfield boomed furiously. The city had a railroad that connected into Las Vegas and a peak population of 20,000. Between 1903-40 a total of $86,765.044 in metals was here." ***My note. That $86,000,000 was the value at that time. Not the value today.***