History of Beatty, Rhyolite beckons travelers

The sole survivor of a mining frenzy that created several towns and camps in Southern Nye County in the early 1900s, Beatty grew up as a supply center for the thriving Bullfrog Mining District. Established in 1904, Beatty rapidly developed into a community of several hundred people with a commercial core and transportation connections that supplied goods and services to the area. Today, Beatty still serves the traveling public as a major stop on busy U.S. 95 and as the eastern entrance to Death Valley National Park.

Lying 115 miles from Las Vegas, Beatty beckons to travelers between Las Vegas and Reno ready for a break in their journey, a snack or meal, fuel enough for the next leg of the long drive on U.S. 95 or an overnight stay. It offers gas stations, cafes, convenience stores, motels, casinos, RV parks, picnic sites, antique stores, Death Valley information and a fine museum. Travelers to Death Valley turn off U.S. 95 in the center of town onto Highway 374 for the 40-mile drive to park headquarters at Furnace Creek.

Beatty boasts a population of about 1,000 people. A little of the flavor of bygone days remains along its quiet side streets where a scattering of buildings date from the early mining area. Many original buildings stand empty or have been repurposed, such as the 1906 Exchange Club, which for a century welcomed clientele for dining in its restaurant, drinking at its handsome carved wood bar and gaming in its small casino.

The best place in town for a visit to yesteryear is the Beatty Museum at 417 Main St., two blocks from the junction with Highway 374. Open daily except holidays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., the museum charges no entrance fee, although donations are always welcome. It occupies a historic church building expanded with a modern annex. Created in 1995 by a group of local women concerned about the loss of the area’s artifacts, the Beatty Historical Society assembled museum exhibits that rapidly outgrew their original home in a small cottage, as well as a second home in larger quarters.

The museum aims to preserve the colorful history of Bullfrog Mining District. It houses an eclectic collection of relics, documents, photos, minerals, mining and ranching equipment and remnants of pioneer furnishings, the product of donations by generous area residents and others bent on preserving the past. It also contains artifacts from the native people who made winter camps in the Oasis Valley before ranchers arrived in the 1870s. Both Western Shoshone and Paiutes frequented the valley for hunting and gathering and planting small plots of edibles. Museum displays point out plants of the region useful to the native people.

Before the discovery of gold in nearby Death Valley in 1904, just three ranchers settled in the valley. The town of Beatty grew at the site of one of those ranches, taking the name of its early owner as its own in 1904. Prospectors scoured the region for minerals, establishing the Bullfrog District. With mines producing, getting equipment and supplies to the district and ore out of it was a problem until railroads arrived in 1906. Beatty found its place as a busy supply center and remained a railroad town until highways supplanted rails by 1940. The tracks were pulled up and shipped off for recycling into the war effort in 1942.

One of those early boomtowns lies just four miles from Beatty just off Highway 374. Visitors pass an open-air art collection, mostly shrouded statues, on the way to Rhyolite, marked by a handful of weathered buildings and ruins.

Look for the finest example of a structure made of bottles still standing in Nevada, a three-room house constructed of an estimated 30,000 castoffs from Rhyolite’s 53 saloons in 1905. It was repaired and rehabilitated in 2005 using bottles donated by the Beatty Historical Society and Tonopah’s Central Nevada Museum.

A striking example of railroad deposits of the early 20th century stands nearby, still sturdy and handsome. At the time it was built, the depot served three railroads that came to Rhyolite, then the third largest Nevada city in 1908 with a population of 8,000. Close by, the spectral walls of a once-prosperous bank remain the most-photographed ruins in the Silver State.

Margo Bartlett Pesek’s column appears on Sundays.