Ward Mining District
White Pine County, White Pine County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Ward Mining District. The ghost town of Ward, in the foothills of the Egan Range, lies some eight miles west of here. Booming from 1876 until 1882, with a peak population of 1,500, Ward was somewhat of a lawless mining camp. Early killings did occur, but justice was meted out by the vigilante committee and the hanging rope.A million dollars worth of silver was taken from a single chamber of the Ward mine, yet an abandoned house was used for the first school and no movement was ever started to build a church.The town was abandoned by the late 1880s, but new discoveries and better mining methods prompted a resurgence of activity in 1906 and again in the 1960s.
Erected by White Pine Museum, Inc
The Story
In the silver-hungry decades after the Civil War, the Egan Range foothills briefly roared to life as Ward, a boomtown that swelled to about 1,500 souls between 1876 and 1882. A single chamber of the Ward mine gave up a million dollars in silver, yet the camp raised its first school in an abandoned house and never built a church, settling disputes instead by vigilante committee and hanging rope. Abandoned by the late 1880s, Ward saw brief revivals in 1906 and the 1960s as new methods reopened old ground.
Why it matters
Ward captures the volatile boom-and-bust rhythm of the Great Basin silver frontier, where fortunes and whole towns rose and vanished within a decade.
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Related events
- · Ward silver boom, 1876–1882
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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