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When it comes to ghost towns, Nevada has more ghost towns than “living” ones, unbelievable atomic testing history, and multiple haunted hotels peppered across the state. Thanks to the dry climate, which helped preserve the historic buildings across the Silver State’s mighty seas of sagebrush, it’s hard not to step into the past of these legendary places that built up the state.
There’s even the newly launched Paranormal Passport featuring 50 of the spookiest sites and sights for daring explorers. Here are just some of them…
Ghost towns near Las Vegas
From Jarbidge and Goodsprings to Hamilton and Berlin, some of the Silver State’s best 19th-century ghost towns sit just outside Las Vegas. Even Death Valley, in places no farther than 55km north of Lake Mead.
Less than an hour away from Las Vegas is the Techatticup Mine in Eldorado Canyon. A photographer’s paradise with thousands of movie and photoshoots to its name, and leftover props as items of interest, this mine pumped out millions of dollars in gold, silver, and copper in its heyday, making it the richest and most famous in southern Nevada.
About 20 minutes south of Las Vegas is Goodsprings Ghost Town, home to the oldest bar in southern Nevada. The town peaked in 1916, supplying zinc and lead for World War I. Stop in the Pioneer Saloon and look for bullet holes from a poker game gone wrong in the original Sears and Roebuck stamped tin walls, and cigar burns in the bar countertop, left by a sleepy Clark Gable in the 1940s.
Nestled in a volcanic rock canyon at the edge of Death Valley, Rhyolite Ghost Town saw its population erupt to several thousand after Shorty Harris’s famous 1904 gold discovery. By 1920, dwindling mine production caused the town to collapse. The looming remains of the bank, general store, and train depot have starred in many films, and dazzle millions of visitors, alongside attractions like the Tom Kelly Bottle House and, later, the avant garde Goldwell Open Air Museum. Today, this easily accessible gem is one of the most photographed ghost towns in Nevada.
Only 30 minutes from Las Vegas, Boulder City is brimming with strange stories and unexplained sightings. Hear tales about the city’s first murderess, the spirits of Hoover Dam’s past, and a ghost dog that still roams the streets on an hour-long Haunted Boulder City Ghost & UFO Tour hosted by local experts.
Ghost towns near Reno
While not in the crumbling-and-abandoned sense, one of the most prime examples of Nevada’s former boomtown glory days is in Virginia City, home of the largest silver strike in the world. Have a drink at frozen-in-time saloons with names like Bucket of Blood and Silver Queen, stroll original wooden boardwalk-lined streets, and hear tales from local characters who still sport period costumes. Those who dare should visit Virginia City’s most haunted hotels and saloons to hear and perhaps even experience the ongoing hauntings.
Beyond Virginia City, Fort Churchill State Historic Park is where one can imagine what life was like 150 years ago when this military fort was created to guard early pioneers. Today, the fort’s photographic ghost town ruins stand in a fascinating state of arrested decay. Stargazing here is also unreal.
The three-part ghost town paradise at Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Parkis a Nevada ghost town boasting history that goes farther back than any other. While Berlin’s 19th-century settlers came to unearth ore, they also ended up bumping their shovels into the world’s largest concentration of ancient Ichthyosaur fossils. Explore the original historic homes and businesses, take the Diana Mine Tour, and swing through the Fossil House while sipping on a frosty, Ichthyosaur-themed, Reno-brewed Great Basin “Icky” IPA.
Other ghost towns near Reno include Seven Troughs and Gold Point Ghost Town. Both are a few hours drive beyond the Biggest Little City, but promise impressively intact structures like historic homes, an old general store, bank buildings, stamp mill sites, and even a modern-day Sagebrush Saloon or two.
Ghost towns in between
Tucked in Nevada’s basins and foothills, one’s bound to find a ghost town or few. Not far from Wells is Metropolis Ghost Town, which met its untimely demise thanks to crop-eating jackrabbits, a typhoid endemic, an invasion of Mormon crickets, fire, and drought. What’s left today of the ill-fated attempt at civilization of the Metropolis-that-wasn’t is a photogenic scenery including a schoolhouse with a distinct, still-standing brick archway and the foundation of an old hotel.
Hidden in the hills between Lovelock and Winnemucca, Unionville Ghost Town is a slice of backcountry bliss. A living ghost town with a population of less than two dozen, the place boasts the cabin ruins of a pretty famous former resident, Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain.
About 50 miles northeast of Tonopah is Belmont Ghost Town. Unlike most other ghost towns, Belmont’s boom lasted an impressive 20 years after springing to life with an 1865 silver discovery. The 150-year old Belmont Courthouse, a state historic site, the perfectly masoned miners’ cabins and mill sites, and the Monitor-Belmont Mill chimney originally built to mill bricks, then used for target practice by WWII Air Force pilots make for great exploration. Stay the night in Manhattan, where a church stolen from Belmont, stands.
Pioche was once one of the richest and most rough-and-tumble towns in Nevada – so much so that a whopping 72 people were buried in Boot Hill Cemetery before anyone died of natural causes. Those might be some of the spirits still roaming the Overland, which stands now exactly as it did in 1948 (when it was rebuilt after a fire). Room 10 is the sleepover spot if you’re really hoping to feel a ghostly presence.
