Rhyolite Ghost Town

Jamie and I have been wanting to go check out some history sites around Vegas for a while, mainly the ghost towns that are around here. So, last Saturday we decided to take a drive up to the middle of nowhere, literally, to a place called Rhyolite. It is about 2 hours northwest of Vegas, right by Death Valley and the California border. We researched out several different ghost towns before we went to see which one was the best, and found that this was one of the largest and oldest ones in Nevada. The ghost town is nestled in a valley of desert hills just outside of an extremely small town called Beatty, NV. Rhyolite was began in 1904 and by 1907 it had almost 12,000 people in it already! People made a living by mining this mineral called Rhyolite (hence the town's name) as well as gold. People fled there because there was so much mining, but soon ran out of Rhyolite and gold which caused a financial panic in 1907. Just as fast as people came there, they left just as quickly. By 1916 there were only 20 people left in the whole town. By 1920 the last person in that town died. When we read about the history of that place we could not believe it! Going from 12,000 people two 0 in only sixteen years is so crazy! We took a few hours to check out this ghost town. When you first drive in, you look to the side and there are these freaky white statues that look like ghosts all lined up. One is actually called the ghost rider, and the others are grouped together in a setting called The Last Supper, resembling Christ. Inorder for the artist to make these statues, he used a live person and draped the clay over the top of them while he sculpted. We took some pictures underneith them. They fit perfectly on, just like a blanket. There is also some weird huge, pink Lego lady out there. Odd to say the least. All the statues are only about 20 years old or so. The artist of the sculptures is from Belgium. We walked around and saw the railroad station that is still standing, what was left of the bank and school, a house that was made completely out of beer bottles, the mercantile store, prison, and some old homes scattered around. It was so neat to be there. We were the only ones walking around, so it was a little bit eery... but fun all at the same time. If you have ever watched the movie "The Island" with Scarlett Johanssen and Ewan McGreggor (from Star Wars), Rhyolite is actually where they filmed part of it. In the movie, they escape the cloning factory and enter into the deserted world, with half standing building and desert all around. They stay the night in the bank, where we actually took pictures as well. You might be able to find photos of the movie if you google it. Anyways, that was your history lesson 101. Now, here are some pics of our little adventure.

View from the top.

An old house...it's in actually really good shape.

Jamie infront of the mine.

The jail.

The school.

A general store.

Jamie infront of the bank. This is the exact spot where 'The Island' got filmed.

By the bank again... where they are running in 'The Island.'

An old boxcar.

The railroad station.

Just an old car.

Rhyolite mercantile

The house made out of bottles. (Click to enlarge.)

Old cannons.

Just a cool design on the ground.

Inside of an old small house.

Infront of the old small house. Below, I'm standing in the chicken coop.
"The Last Supper" view.

Spooky!

Some freaky Lego sculpture in the middle of nowhere.

This is suppose to be the silohette of the guy that started the town of Rhyolite. The artist made a penguin next to him because he was imagining how lonely this man must have been with noone around. The penguin is keeping him company.

The ghost rider. Freaky!