Gold Point
Esmeralda County, Esmeralda County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Gold Point. Gold Point was initially called Lime Point for the nearby lime deposits found in 1868. Processing difficulties in the 1880s discouraged silver mining locally.Goldfield ore discoveries in 1902 stimulated area mining interest. In 1908 miners discovered high grade chlorargyrite, a form of silver chloride known as hornsilver. The town’s name was changed to Hornsilver, and a typical mining camp developed. A newspaper, post office, stores, and saloons began operations, and a town of over 225 wood-frame buildings, tents, and shacks appeared.The camp assumed the name Gold Point after 1930 when more gold was being mined than silver. Miners were drawn away to essential World War II industries in October 1942, and major mining ceased at Gold Point.
Erected by E. F. Denton
The Story
First called Lime Point for deposits found in 1868, this camp was reborn after the great Goldfield strikes of 1902 drew prospectors to the district. In 1908 miners uncovered rich hornsilver, renamed the town Hornsilver, and threw up more than 225 wood-frame buildings, tents, and shacks with a newspaper, post office, stores, and saloons. Renamed Gold Point after 1930 as gold outpaced silver, the camp faded when World War II drew its miners away to essential wartime industries in 1942.
Why it matters
Gold Point's shifting names track the fortunes of a single desert camp through boom, bust, and war, a compact record of how national events reached even the remotest mining towns.
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Related events
- · Goldfield Gold Rush
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lida
Esmeralda County, NV
Set in a valley long used as a gathering place by Shoshone and Northern Paiute people, Lida began drawing prospectors in the 1860s, and by 1872 a proper town had been platted amid the stores, stables, and post office of a working mining district. The richest ore was too valuable to trust to local mills and was hauled to Austin or Belmont for treatment. After 1880 the camp faded, flared briefly during the turn-of-the-century Goldfield rush, and dwindled to a tiny community that hung on until World War I.
Goldfield
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After two decades of decline that drained a third of Nevada's population, the state's fortunes turned overnight with rich strikes at Tonopah and, in December 1902, here at Goldfield. Nevada-born prospectors Harry Stimler and Billy Marsh found gold ore, and from 1904 to 1918 Goldfield boomed into the state's largest city, peaking near 20,000 people with a railroad linking it to Las Vegas. Before the mines gave out, they yielded more than $86 million in precious metals.
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This building was the nerve center of Goldfield's communications from 1908 to 1963, during and after the great gold rush that briefly made Goldfield the largest city in Nevada. Between 1904 and 1910 the district boomed with more than 15,000 residents, four railroads, and mines producing millions. Flood in 1913 and a fire that leveled 53 downtown blocks in 1923—which this structure survived—hastened the town's long decline.
Palmetto
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Prospectors who mistook the local Joshua trees for palms gave this 1866 silver camp the hopeful name Palmetto. A 12-stamp mill chased the ore, but thin deposits killed the town more than once, even as fresh strikes briefly revived it. A 1903 rush swelled Palmetto to 200 tents and a full commercial street by 1906, only for the miners to drift away that same autumn, leaving lease work and a notable nearby talc deposit behind.