Small Towns

The hotel was a favorite gathering place for the Italian American community. Deserted today, it is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

The Silver King Cafe and Motel sits on U.S. Rt. 95 in the tiny hamlet of Mina (pop. 200) in Mineral County.

Battiste Racanzone came to Nevada in 1865 from the Piedmont district of Italy. He later built Mill Ranch and the Silver State Flour Mill in Paradise Valley.

Frederick William Stock began homesteading in Paradise Valley in 1864. His first dwelling was a sod house, but later improvements included the stone outbuildings featured here.

Anson Phelps Stokes, from a wealthy eastern family, invested in a mining claim in Austin. In 1896 he began building a summer home for his family, a tower overlooking the Reese River Valley.

On the morning of February 21, 2008, a 6.0 earthquake devastated the town's historic Front Street district. Some twenty buildings were damaged, perhaps beyond repair.

Family-style Basque meals are served daily at the Winnemucca Hotel & Bar, hosted by Michael Lynne Olana in this 2008 photograph.

The Tonopah Historic Mining Park is located on the site of the original mining claims of 1900 that started the rush to Tonopah.

Humboldt County moved its county seat from Unionville to Winnemucca in 1873. In 1874 the first courthouse was constructed. It was destroyed by fire in 1918, and the present structure was built.

Between 1907 and 1910 the gold mines of Searchlight produced $7 million, but today it is best known as the home town of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The McGill Drug Store was an operating drug store from 1915 until 1979, when it closed, as did the town’s largest employer. It sat there until the mid-1990s, when it was opened as a museum.

The Goldfield Hotel opened its doors in 1908, just a couple of years before the town's mining boom was over. It was called in its day “the gem of the desert.”

Goldfield's Esmeralda County Courthouse opened for business in 1908. Esmeralda County stretches for some 3588 sq. miles, but contains fewer than 1262 people (2006).

When the Hotel Nevada was completed in 1929, it was claimed to be the tallest building in Nevada. Rooms rented for $1.50 and up, "All with private toilet; 85% with private bath."