Rhyolite

Formerly a Rhyolite station building

"Bottle House"

Rhyolite is a ghost town in Nye County in the US state of Nevada . It was created by and passed away with a gold deposit and was named after the rhyolite that characterizes the landscape . Rhyolite is northwest of Las Vegas on the way to Death Valley near Beatty , about 2 miles north of Nevada State Route 374 .

history

Rhyolite was created after 1904 in the so-called "Bullfrog Mining District" after a gold discovery. Between 1905 and 1910, Rhyolite had a population of over 10,000, making it the third largest city in Nevada. Its facilities included three railway lines, a telegraph station, an electricity company, three newspapers, 50 gold mines, an opera, a symphony, three hospitals, a public swimming pool, 19 hotels, 18 drug stores and 53 saloons . By 1914 the gold deposits were exhausted, the decline of the city came as fast as its rise. In 1919, the Rhyolite post office was the last to close and the last resident, the postal worker, left town.

Today Rhyolite is a listed building and is an open air museum that is maintained by the Rhyolite Preservation Society . The city consisted mainly of wooden houses, none of which exist today. Only a few stone buildings such as banks, hotels, the prison and the station building of the former Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad are still standing.

The Bottle House is still one of the architectural sights of Rhyolite . It was built in 1906 as a residential building from around 50,000 bottles grouted together - most of them thrown away Busch Beer bottles from the neighboring saloon.

Albert Szukalski in Rhyolite 1988 with a photo of his acrylic open-air sculpture "The Last Supper"

At the end of the 1980s, the Belgian-Polish artist Albert Szukalski lived temporarily in Rhyolite and, in the meantime, created some ghost statues from hardened acrylic . His figures are the only permanent "residents" of the ghost town today. Rhyolite is open year round, and a volunteer guide from the Rhyolite Preservation Society is always on site. The visit is free, donations are requested.

The city was used as a filming location for scenes in the films Cherry 2000 1987, Six-String Samurai (1998) and The Island (2005).

Web links

Commons : Category: Rhyolite, _Nevada - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ Rhyolite Ghost Town. Retrieved February 24, 2011 .
↑ General Information and Press Kit. (PDF; 589 kB) Goldwell Open Air Museum (Las Vegas, Nevada, USA), June 9, 2004, accessed October 5, 2013 (English).

36.903888888889 -116.82916666667Coordinates: 36 ° 54 ′ N , 116 ° 50 ′ W

[1] Rhyolite Ghost Town. Retrieved February 24, 2011 .

[2] General Information and Press Kit. (PDF; 589 kB) Goldwell Open Air Museum (Las Vegas, Nevada, USA), June 9, 2004, accessed October 5, 2013 (English).