Rawhide NV - Ghost Town
Inspired by Article in Desert Magazine June 1947 When Rawhide Roared by Harold Weight
Harold Weight visited Rawhide in May of 1946. It was a ghost town with many building still standing. One of the houses was used as a vacation retreat by the Grutt family. He was fortune to meet Leo and Gene (Eugene) on his visit. He was shown around and picked up many stories.
From Fallon: East on US 50 for 31.6 miles; turn south on SR 838 for 19.9 miles; head east 6.0 miles on local road
From Fallon: 57.5 miles

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In December 1906, prospector Jim Swanson made a discovery of a rich gold and silver deposit in the hills near what became Rawhide.
Charles ("Scotty") A. McLeod, also found sizeable deposits nearby on Hooligan Hill.
McLeod had recently been ordered to cease prospecting around the nearby camp of Buckskin, and bitter about this, he suggested the name of Rawhide for the new camp, as a play on the name of the Buckskin camp he held with contempt.

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There was a lot of speculation and stock-jobbing propositions but:
Rawhide really did have gold. Its mines produced $2,000,000 in yellow metal. It had the richest surface indications of any camp in the West.

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The town soon had a population of about 5000, with three banks, four churches, a school, twelve hotels, twenty-eight restaurants, a theater, and thirty-seven saloons.
Eugene Grutt, back in 1908, had been known as the "Daddy of Rawhide" because of his activities in developing the town. He was the first sheriff elected in Mineral county when it was created in 1911, and served several terms.
There was a telephone system and telegraph lines. A water company was laying pipe, and the grade for the Rawhide Western railroad had almost reached camp. A special night stage brought in strawberries for morning breakfasts. There was a refrigeration plant to cool beer and champagne while water was still sold by the barrel nd the standard price of a bath was $5. "We had three daily papers," Leo said, "the Rustler, the News and the Times.

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A couple of stories:
"Duffy was always broke. I'd meet him and start to dig. 'No, Gene,' he'd say, 'I don't want charity. Come into the saloon and I'll sing. When I'm through, throw half a dollar on the stage, and the others will throw some too.' We'd go into the nearest bar and he'd sing Dying Hobo' or maybe 'Take Me Back to Montana' and get a stake of 10 or 20 dollars. Duffy loved to sing."
When the Gum Shoe Kid was claims recorder," Leo recalled. Gold Tooth Bess and her friend of the evening staggered into the Kid's office one night. Bess said the Kid was a public official and she wanted him to marry them. The Kid said he didn't have the legal right. Bess outlined the things she would do to him unless he complied. So the Kid took a Lode location notice, filled it out, signed it— and pronounced them man and wife.

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"That's Stingaree Gulch," Leo Grutt. " I guess it's the only place that ever really rivaled the Barbary Coast. It as crowded for half a mile on either side with dance halls, red light houses and dives." Where he pointed, a rutted road wound through an empty valley. Not one wall of the old Gulch remained. "There must have been five or six hundred girls on the line," Leo went on. "All nations and all colors. A lot of them made real money. The girls peddling wine at $10 a bottle would get half, and cash in $100 or $200 a night. There was Rag Time Kelly's, nd the Zanzibar and Squeeze Inn. Some places the dives and the mines ran right together, and it was hard to keep the men on the night shift working."

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In the short span of two years the town went from its peak population of 7000 people (Mar. to June, 1908), to fewer than 500 people by the latter part of 1910. Helping push the decline of the town even further along was a disastrous fire which swept through Rawhide in September 1908, along with a flood in September 1909.
The big fire hit Rawhide on the morning of September 4, 1908. A lighted gasoline stove in the Rawhide drug store, window curtains, and the ever-present wind got together—and within 55 minutes the entire business district was burning. Rawhide, born with fireworks, was dying in the sullen thunder of explosions. The heart of town, three blocks wide and five-deep, was one great crimson mass. Flames rose hundreds of feet into the smoke-blackened sky. In the boiling thermals created, sheets of corrugated iron were lifted higher than the flames, to be released in the cooler air and crash back onto the town.
Although the fire finally was controlled, smoldering flames lit the sky through the night, while armed guards patrolled the ruins and occasional belated explosions ripped the silence.
"The Vienna Bar had what looked like the best safe in town. Over six feet high and so massive nobody ever tried to crack it. The girls and gamblers put their money into it rather than the bank. When the fire came, the swamper and one of the owners lifted that safe up onto a wheelbarrow and rolled it into the open. It was made of papier-mache."
"And when the Gum Shoe Kid saw the fire coming," Gene contributed, "he rolled a barrel of whiskey out of his cabin and into a hole. Covered it with dirt. After the fire he couldn't decide where it was he'd buried it. The Gum Shoe Kid a staid and substantial citizen now, the Kid frequently comes back on vacations, sharpens an iron bar, and probes the earth near where his cabin once stood. He's still looking for that barrel of whiskey. "I don't want to drink it," he explains, mournfully. "I just want to know what happened to the darned thing."

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Rawhide rebuilt after the fire.

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A small cemetery was still visible near Stingaree Gulch, a mile north of town.

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The site of Rawhide has been dismantled by recent mining activity, with little or nothing remaining to be seen.
Razed by a mining company - absolutely nothing left. Rawhide has been destroyed by the modern Rawhide Mining Company, which has a currently active mill and mine there (very ugly!). What it hasn't destroyed is fenced off and inaccessible to the public. The cemetery is about a mile north of the town site (now the mine site), off the road to the right (east)
The Denton-Rawhide Mine), operated jointly by Kennecott Minerals and Pacific Rim Mining Corp. created a huge open pit mine,
The mine wound down operations in 2002-2003, and the pit itself has been permitted for use as a landfill; however the landfill is not in operation yet (as of March 2008). Visitors to the area will find nothing remaining of what was once Rawhide.
Pony Express Trail

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Gabbs, Ichthyosaurs, & Paleontology
Nye County has certainly changed over the (last few million) years. Before the mining boom, the town of Gabbs, NV was actually renamed in honor of a paleontologist who studied fossils in the area of Berlin Mine, known as William Gabb. Gabb worked in paleontology during the mid to late 1800s and cataloged fossils found around California and Nevada. And boy, Gabb certainly found plenty of fossils in Gabbs, NV. Not just any fossils though.
Crescent Dunes
The Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project is a 110 megawatt net solar thermal power project with 1.1 gigawatt-hours of energy storage, located near Tonopah, about 190 miles northwest of Las
William Gabb discovered the fossils of the majestic ichthyosaur, a giant marine reptile dating back an unimaginable 225 million years ago who swam in an ocean that covered what is now central Nevada. As these creatures eventually died off, they sank to the bottom of this ocean and were fossilized over time. The final resting place of one of the most complete concentrations (of some of the largest specimens ever found) just so happens to be within modern-day Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park boundaries, about 20 miles east of Gabbs. Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that the ichthyosaur is Nevada’s state fossil.
Dunes are visible from Highway 95 a few miles north of Tonopah. This small dune complex is often deserted. Mostly used by local riders. There are no signs, and the area feels very remote. Winter temperatures can be quite cold.
The dunes have been designated a Special Recreation Management Area (SMRA) by the BLM.
Elevation - 5032 ft.
3,000 acres
Carson & Colorado Rail Road

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