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| “The Last Supper” |
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| Don is SUPER confused |
The museum was dotted with other outdoor sculptures, including the “Ghost Rider,” the “Desert Flower,” “Lady Desert: The Venus of Nevada,” “Icara,” “Tribute to Shorty Harris,” “Chained to the Earth,: “Sit Here!,” and “Rhyolite’s District of Shadows.”
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| “Lady Desert: The Venus of Nevada”; 1992 by Dr. Hugh Heyrman. It refers back to classical Greek sculpture while maintaining a pixilated presence in the high tech world of the 21st century. |
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| “Sit Here!”; 2000 by Sofie Siegmann. Originally created for an artist-in-residence project facilitating kids at the Lied Discovery Children’s Museum in Las Vegas, the couch was rescued and relocated in 2007 where it continues to be restored and maintained. |
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| “Icara”; 1992 by Dre Peeters. Icara represents a female counterpoint to the Greek myth of Icarus, the boy who tried to fly to the sun with wings bound with wax. The figure was hand-carved on site. |
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| “Tribute to Shorty Harris”; 1994 by Fred Bervoets. Shorty Harris was a legendary prospector in Rhyolite. His hopeful companion, a penguin, reflects the optimism of the miner’s endeavor. |
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| “Ghost Rider”; 1984 by Albert Szukalaski. Constructed like the “Last Supper,” a local Beatty resident donated his effort and bicycle to the piece. |
If you are interested in seeing the museum, you can’t miss it if you’re headed in to check out the ghost town. Since it’s right there at the entrance, the museum is technically open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, I would obviously recommend seeing it in the daytime.
Right beyond the Open Air Museum is the start of the town.
You will notice on this map numbers 17-20 off to the left. Number 20 is the graveyard; the other buildings sit beyond the graveyard on a long dirt road. Numbers 17 and 19 are the Bullfrog Ice House and the Bullfrog Jail. Bullfrog was a town that attempted to compete with Rhyolite for development; the town lost that fight and was slowly taken over by the Rhyolite boom. Number 18 is the Red Barn Art Center, owned by the Goldwell Open Air Musuem; they use it for studio space and visiting artists.
The main town is just a bit beyond the Open Air Museum; there’s a dirt parking lot to the right of the main entrance directly next to the Tom Kelly Bottle House, first main stop on the tour. The Tom Kelly Bottle House was built in 1905 using 30,000 bottles. It took Mr. Kelly approximately 5 and half months to build and he eventually raffled it off for a mere $5.00.
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| Don and Donna getting cuddly on the bench |
The town of Rhyolite (at least how the Ghost Town stands now) has one main thoroughfare, a paved vehicle-access road called “Golden Street.” Colorado Street, Broadway Street, and Esmeralda Street make up the three cross roads in the town. There are numerous side dirt roads you can walk around and explore, just watch for rattlesnakes!
First along the self-guided tour should be the Beatty Mercantile, however, as you can see by the notes in the picture, it was destroyed by lightening on September 20, 2014. To your left across the street is the Rhyolite School. It opened in 1909, ironically when the first major exodus of people was beginning to occur. The bond for its construction was about $20,000, which would be almost $500,000 in today’s dollars.
Slightly beyond the school is the Overbury Building, housing a bank and some other local businesses. It was built by John Overbury who, impressed by the architecture on a recent trip to Europe, returned to Rhyolite to build (at the time) one of the most modern buildings in the West. It contained 3 stories and over 25 elegant offices. It cost about $45,000 to build (well over one million dollars in today’s figures). Unlike the school, which was built when the core populace were leaving, John Overbury planned his elegant structure at a better time – it was finished at the height of Rhyolite’s boom.
Across the street on the right side is the Adobe Dance Hall and Saloon, built in 1905. What remains of it today are some of the structure’s walls.
Beyond the Adobe Dance Hall and Saloon on the same side of the street is the Porter Brother’s Store, built in 1906. Their motto was “we sell everything but whiskey.” It was owned and operated by two brothers who ran freight teams and stores throughout California and Nevada.
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| My beautiful Mama in front of the Porter Brother’s Store |
On the left side of the street, slightly past the Overbury Building is the Cook Bank built in 1908. The bank was on the main floor of the building, and the lower floor housed the Post Office. It held its fame as the tallest building in Rhyolite and the last to leave town in 1919. What also made it particularly elegant at the time is that it had marble floors. It cost approximately $90,000 to build (well over 2 million dollars in today’s figures).
Beyond the Cook Bank is the Forrill Building, which housed the water company and Newton’s Grill.
Golden Street ends at the LV&T Railroad (stands for “Las Vegas & Tonopah”). The first train ran in 1906, and the railroad eventually shut down in 1917. It was owned by Montana mining millionaire William Andrews Clark. It served as a variety of things after Rhyloite lost its mining boom appeal, such as a casino, a boarding house, a museum, and a gift shop. In 1917 the line officially stopped running and the railroad was abandoned and used for scrap metal in World War I.
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| Donkeys hanging out on the train car |
As you meander around the side of the railroad, the tour kind of continues down a dirt pathway/road(ish) that runs parallel to Golden Street. This area is generally referred to as the “red light district” of Rhyolite, hence it’s location slightly off of the main drag. The first thing you will hit is a small private residence on the left hand side, likely built sometime in 1905.
This was the part of the tour when I got distracted because a found a Horny Toad! They are one of my favorite desert animals. They’re super cute and docile. Andy said his name was Henry.
After I said goodbye to Henry, the tour continued. The dirt road goes down a ways and eventually you run into the Rhyolite Jail, built in 1907. The Judge’s office was in the front and the back of the Jail contained six steel cells for the prisoners.
Beyond the jail to the left is Mona Belle‘s grave. Mona Belle was a very famous prostitute in the Red Light District area. She was very popular and had many friends. Tragically she was murdered by an abusive boyfriend, Fred Skinner, in 1908. Because she was a prostitute, the upper class women of Rhyolite at the time objected to her being buried in the main Rhyolite cemetery. As a result, her friends made a special grave for her in the Red Light District area to honor her memory. Today, Mona Belle’s memory and grave remain as a Rhyolite legend and bit of a feminist icon. The grave clearly has been visited numerous times by random travelers, some of them leaving gifts and tokens for Mona. Many of these gifts are feminine, such as a pair of shoes, perfume, sunglasses, and lipstick.
After we visited Mona’s gravesite, we headed to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes near Stovepipe Wells. The dunes were my favorite spot in Death Valley as a kid; we’d slide down them like sledding on snow.
The dunes were formed after thousands of years of blowing sand. When sand particles can go no further (for example when they hit a mountain range), the wind whips the sand into even smaller particles and they fall to the ground. Over time, large, peak-like structures form, creating the sand dunes.
The official parking lot is north of Highway 190. The hike to the east sand dune peak is about 1.5-2 miles round trip depending on how many dunes you choose to go up and down on your trek out there. It’s worth the entire hike, as it’s so beautiful. There is no real official trail head necessarily, although the hike does start out with a little trail lined with stones.
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| At the start |
What makes the dunes so beautiful is it is surrounded on all sides by gorgeous mountain ranges. To the south is the Tucki Mountains; to the west are the Panamint Mountains (Death Valley’s highest mountain range); to the east are the Grapevine Mountains and the Funeral Mountains. The dunes are gorgeous but super hot – even a relatively mild day will increase in temperature just by walking across the hot sand. We set out with tons of water and made it all the way to the top of the dunes!
Once we made it up to the top, I attempted to slide down, but I didn’t have anything to slide down on. When I was a kid I was small and light enough to slide down on plastic bags, and while that might have worked again, we didn’t have any plastic bags. I instead tried to slide down on a small foam insert in my father’s backpack. I got about two feet down the dune, got stuck and ended up with sand in my shorts and shoes. So, at that point I just rolled all the way to the bottom!
What a great day!!
