On my trip to Vegas this year, I drove 100+ miles out past Beatty, to a ghost town named Rhyolite. If you don’t mind the drive, and enjoy photography or ghost towns, I highly recommend it. It’s free, and seems to be open to the public 24/7. It’s also situated right alongside the Goldwell Open Air Museum, which I wrote about earlier.

Rhyolite is an old mining town where gold was discovered in 1904. The town itself was established in 1905, but according to the flyer I picked up at the Bottle House, the population began leaving in 1910, and by 1920 the population was estimated to be 14.

There are some pretty well-preserved ruins left of an old bank, jail, school house, residence, train station, and the Tom Kelly Bottle House (a house made from bottles, and the spot where you should begin your tour and pick up a flyer).

Rhyolite is clearly marked from the main road. The road will take you up past the Goldwell Open Air Museum (you might as well check it out since it’s right there), and continues along some of the Rhyolite ruins. At the end of the street is an old train station and bathrooms. There also appears to be a few mobile homes up there.

Some photos I took in Rhyolite: