Millers
Esmeralda County, Esmeralda County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Millers. As a result of mining excitement at Tonopah in 1901 and subsequent construction of the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad, Millers was first founded in 1904 as a station and watering stop on that line. The name honored Charles R. Miller, a director of the railroad and former governor of Delaware. He was also vice-president of the Tonopah Mining Company and was instrumental in having its 100-stamp cyanide mill built here in 1906. In 1907, the town boomed with the construction of the T. & G. R.R.’s repair shops and another large mill. The population grew to 274 in 1910, when the town boasted a business district and post office. By 1911, the railroad shops and a mill had been moved away, and Millers began to decline. It was abandoned in 1947 when the railroad went out of business.
Erected by American Legion, Nevada Dept.
The Story
Millers owed its existence to the railroad, founded in 1904 as a watering stop on the Tonopah and Goldfield line and named for Charles R. Miller, a railroad director and former governor of Delaware. His influence helped bring a hundred-stamp cyanide mill to town in 1906, and a year later the railroad's repair shops and a second mill set off a brief boom that pushed the population toward three hundred. But by 1911 the shops and a mill had been carted off, the town began to fade, and it was finally abandoned when the railroad shut down in 1947.
Why it matters
Millers is a compact lesson in how thoroughly railroad and milling decisions dictated the life and death of desert towns whose existence depended entirely on the ore trade passing through.
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Related people
- · Charles R. Miller
Themes & tags
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