Aurum is a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

White Pine County White Pine County is a largely rural, mountain county along the central eastern boundary of the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,080. Its county seat is Ely. The name "(Rocky Mountain) white pine" is an old ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

, United States.

History

Originally known as "Silver Canyon", after the nearby geographical feature, Aurum was founded as a

mining community A mining community, also known as a mining town or a mining camp, is a community that houses miners. Mining communities are usually created around a mine or a quarry. Historical mining communities Australia * Ballarat, Victoria * Bendi ...

in 1878. When a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

opened on April 4, 1881, the community received its present name, Aurum. Aurum had two neighborhoods, defined by differing elevation. In the higher sections of the community, boarding houses accommodated

miner A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face (mining), face; cutt ...

s working in the local area. Areas of the community with lower elevation contained mainly private residences, commercial businesses, and the post office. The higher-elevation neighborhood where the miners resided was referred to locally as "Doughburg." On February 11, 1884, an

avalanche An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a Grade (slope), slope, such as a hill or mountain. Avalanches can be triggered spontaneously, by factors such as increased precipitation or snowpack weakening, or by external means such as humans, othe ...

occurred in Silver Canyon, above the

boarding house A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and ...

of the Sadie L Mine. Three people were killed. Two of the victims, H. W. Mickel, and Wallace McCrimmon, were buried at Aurum. The other victim, John Fox, was taken into Cherry Creek for burial. Over the following decades, the community experienced multiple periods of

boom and bust Business cycles are intervals of general expansion followed by recession in economic performance. The changes in economic activity that characterize business cycles have important implications for the welfare of the general population, governmen ...

. During booms, the community's population rapidly swelled to hundreds of people. However, during busts, miners left, businesses closed, and the population rapidly dwindled. During one of these "busts", the population dropped to only one inhabitant - a local man named Simon Davis. Eventually, the mining activities in the area shut down permanently. The post office closed for the last time on May 31, 1938, and the area has been mostly uninhabited since. The population was 10 in 1940.

Notable people

* Milton H. Erickson, psychiatrist

External links

Aurum
(ghosttowns.com)

References

Ghost towns in White Pine County, Nevada Ghost towns in Nevada Great Basin National Heritage Area {{WhitePineCountyNV-geo-stub