Goldfield, NV

Highway 95

Goldfield Hotel then and now

The town's four-story Goldfield Hotel opened in 1908 at a cost of $450,000 (in 1908 dollars) and was reported to be the most spectacular hotel in Nevada at the time. At the opening of the hotel, champagne flowed down the front steps in the opening ceremony. The rooms were outfitted with pile carpets, many with private baths, and the lobby was trimmed in mahogany, with black leather upholstery and gilded columns. It also featured an elevator and crystal chandeliers.

The hotel ceased operations in 1946 but the abandoned building remains as of 2008. The building was used in the 1971 movie Vanishing Point as the site of Super Soul's radio station, KOW. At the 2003 Goldfield Days auction, the Goldfield Hotel was sold to Red Roberts, a rancher and engineer from Carson City. Roberts has plans to refurbish the bottom two floors of the four-story hotel and open them to the public.

Goldfield's famous former residents include former Governor/Senator Tasker Oddie, Wyatt Earp and Virgil Earp. Virgil Earp was hired as a deputy sheriff in Goldfield in January 1905; Virgil died there, in bed with pnumonia in October 1905, and Wyatt left Goldfield shortly thereafter.

Goldfield, an unincorporated community, is the county seat of Esmeralda County, Nevada, United States. It is about 170 miles southeast of Carson City, along U.S. Route 95. The population was 440 at the 2000 census, almost half of the county's population, though for several years in the early 20th century Goldfield was the largest town in Nevada. Goldfield was a boomtown in the first decade of the 20th century due to the discovery of gold — between 1903 and 1940, Goldfield's mines produced more than $86 million. While a small permanent population remains in Goldfield, it is largely a ghost town. Gold exploration still continues in and around the town today.

Gold was discovered at Goldfield in 1902, its year of inception. By 1904 the Goldfield district produced about 800 tons of ore, valued at $2,300,000, 30% of the state's production that year. This remarkable production caused Goldfield to grow rapidly, and it soon became the largest town in the state. One prominent, or notorious, early Goldfield resident was George Graham Rice, a former forger, newspaperman, and racetrack tipster, turned mining stock promoter. The collapse of his Sullivan Trust Company and its associated mining stocks caused the failure of the Goldfield State Bank in 1907. Rice quickly left Goldfield, but continued to promote mining shares for another quarter-century.[1] Goldfield is the county seat of Esmeralda County, Nevada Goldfield reached a peak population of about 30,000 people in 1906. In 1907 Goldfield became the county seat.