Rhyolite Nevada - Little More than a Memory- Page 2

Rhyolite, Nevada

1906 was a busy year for Rhyolite, which by then, had an abundance of water and three water companies. The Countess Morajeski opened the Alaska Glacier Ice Cream Parlor to the delight of the local residents. Ernest L. Cross, one of the original prospectors finding gold in the area sold his share of the Bullfrog claim for $25,000 and bought a ranch near San Diego, California, living there until he died in 1958. Shorty Harris would continue prospecting the desert for the rest of his life.

On May 18, 1906 another killing occurred in Rhyolite when a man named Steve O'Brien stabbed his wife with a miner's candlestick. When a town deputy sheriff and the judge showed up, the crazed O’Brien stabbed the judge. In retaliation, the deputy shot and killed O’Brien.

Rhyolite jail today, April, 2005, Kathy Weiser.

Months later, on October 26, 1906, two men named Tom J. Malone and Jack Maher had a dispute over money and soon Malone lay mortally wounded in the street from Maher’s lethal gun. Malone held on for almost a day, but died the next night in the hospital. Mayer was arrested and tried but in the end, he was let go due to a finding of self defense.

At this time, Rhyolite did not yet have a jail and the lawmen had to transport the offenders to a jail in Bullfrog. At a cost of $15 a day to rent the horse rig, the town began to see the need for building its own jail.

It was in 1906 that an enterprising miner named Tom T. Kelly built the Bottle House out of 50,000 beer and liquor bottles. This building still stands today and sometimes locals will give tours of the building. Rhyolite also saw the building of two railroads – the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad and the Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad. The LV&T sent the first passenger train into Rhyolite on December 14, 1906, arriving through the heart of the residential district. Later the T&T Railroad would pass through the outskirts of town. At one time, the railroad sidings could accommodate 105 train cars waiting to be unloaded of incoming freight and reloaded with outgoing ore.

By the end of 1906 Rhyolite boasted several hotels, stores, an ice plant, two electric plants, foundries, machine shops, a miner’s union hospital, a stock exchange and a Board of Trade.

As in most mining camps, there was a red light district doing a booming business, drawing women from as far away as San Francisco. A protest was soon lodged with the Board of Trade, the town's only local government at the time. The town authorities decided that the red light district must be segregated from the rest of the town and boundaries were drawn. Amargosa Street, between Broadway and Colorado was the north and south boundary, while the alley between Main and Amargosa was the western boundary. Prostitutes were not allowed to cross the lines, including going to any saloons outside of the prescribed limits; however, they could go as far east as they wanted.

The town also had an active social life including baseball games, dances, whist parties, tennis, a symphony, Sunday school picnics, basketball games, Saturday night variety shows at the opera house and pool tournaments.

Bottle Building in Rhyolite, Nevada today, April, 2005,

Kathy Weiser.

In January 1907 a network of 400 electric streetlight poles were installed in Rhyolite and the town boasted plumbing and telephone service. A number of very impressive buildings were erected including a three story bank building and a large mercantile store. In March 1907, the jail was built out of concrete with four steel cells. The Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad depot was built of cut stone hauled from Las Vegas. On June 18, 1907, Rhyolite saw the arrival of yet another passenger train – the Bullfrog & Goldfield. In August, a mill was completed that would handle 300 tons of ore a day at the Montgomery Shoshone Mine. The mine had become nationally known because Bob Montgomery once boasted he could take $10,000 a day in ore from the mine.

By this time Rhyolite had reached a population of about 10,000 and supported forty-five saloons, an opera house, a slaughterhouse, two railroad depots, three public swimming pools and dozens of businesses. Over eighty-five mining companies were active in the hills around the city.

However, in the summer of 1907, the American economy was showing signs of weakness as a number of business and Wall Street brokerages went bankrupt. In October, the respected Knickerbocker Trust in New York City and the Westinghouse Electric Company both failed, touching off a series of events known as the Panic of 1907. This was to spell the doom for Rhyolite.

In the wake of the initial business collapses, stock market prices plummeted and depositors made a massive run on the nation’s banks. Because most of Rhyolite’s investors were from the east, they began to withdraw their backing. Smaller mines began to close but the devastating effects of the panic did not dramatically affect Rhyolite until the spring of 1908.

Continued Next Page

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This old home still stands in Rhyolite today, April, 2005,

Kathy Weiser.

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