Blair
Esmeralda County, Esmeralda County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Blair. The Pittsburgh-Silver Peak Gold Mining Company bought the major mines in the area in 1906. Land speculators at nearby Silver Peak bought up the land. As a result, the mining company surveyed a new townsite north of Silver Peak and named it Blair. The company built a 100-stamp mill in 1907. The company also constructed the 17 ½ mile Silver Peak railroad from Blair Junction to the Tonopah & Goldfield main line.By 1920, Blair was all but deserted. The remnants of stone buildings and mill foundations are the only survivors of the once thriving, but short-lived, mining town.
Erected by Harold C. Hendersen
The Story
When the Pittsburgh-Silver Peak Gold Mining Company bought up the major mines in 1906 and found land speculators had cornered nearby Silver Peak, it simply surveyed its own townsite to the north and named it Blair. The company built a 100-stamp mill in 1907 and ran a 17½-mile railroad from Blair Junction to the Tonopah & Goldfield main line. Yet the boom was brief: by 1920 Blair was all but deserted, leaving stone-building remnants and mill foundations as its only survivors.
Why it matters
Blair is a company-town cautionary tale, showing how quickly corporate mining could conjure—and abandon—an entire settlement in the early-twentieth-century Nevada gold rushes.
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Themes & tags
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