Beatty ( ) is an
unincorporated town along the
Amargosa River in
Nye County,
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.
U.S. Route 95
U.S. Route 95 (US 95) is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway System, United States Highway in the western United States. It travels through the states of Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Idaho, staying inland ...
runs through the town, which lies between
Tonopah, about to the north and
Las Vegas
Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
, about to the southeast.
State Route 374 connects Beatty to
Death Valley National Park
Death Valley National Park is a national park of the United States that straddles the California–Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. The park boundaries include Death Valley, the northern section of Panamint Valley, the southern sect ...
, about to the west.
Before the arrival of non-
indigenous people
There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...
in the 19th century, the region was home to groups of
Western Shoshone. Established in 1905, the community was named after Montillus (Montillion) Murray "Old Man" Beatty, who settled on a ranch in the Oasis Valley in 1896 and became Beatty's first postmaster. With the arrival of the
Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad in 1905, the town became a railway center for the Bullfrog Mining District, including mining towns such as nearby
Rhyolite
Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture (geology), texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained matri ...
.
[McCracken, ''History'', pp. 56–59] Starting in the 1940s,
Nellis Air Force Base
Nellis Air Force Base ("Nellis" colloquialism, colloq.) is a United States Air Force military installation, installation in southern Nevada. Nellis hosts Aerial warfare, air combat exercises such as Exercise Red Flag and close air support exerc ...
and other federal installations contributed to the town's economy as did tourism related to Death Valley National Park and the rise of Las Vegas as an entertainment center.
Beatty is home to the Beatty Museum and Historical Society and to businesses catering to tourist travel. The
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 ...
of Rhyolite and the
Goldwell Open Air Museum (a sculpture park), are both about to the west, and
Yucca Mountain and the
Nevada Test Site
The Nevada National Security Sites (N2S2 or NNSS), popularized as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a reservation of the United States Department of Energy located in the southeastern portion of Nye County, Nevada, about northwest of ...
are about to the east.
History
Before the arrival of non-indigenous explorers, prospectors, and settlers, Western Shoshone in the Beatty area hunted game and gathered wild plants in the region. It is estimated that the 19th-century population density of the Indians near Beatty was one person per . By the middle of the century, European diseases had greatly reduced the
Indian population, and incursions by newcomers had disrupted the native traditions. In about 1875, the Shoshone had six camps, with a total population of 29, along the Amargosa River near Beatty. Some of the survivors and their descendants continued to live in or near Beatty, while others moved to
reservations at
Walker Lake,
Reese River
The Reese River is a tributary of the Humboldt River, located in central Nevada in the western United States.
The Reese rises in the southern section of the Toiyabe Range, on the flanks of Arc Dome. In its upper reaches, the Reese River is ...
,
Duckwater, or elsewhere.
[McCracken, ''History'', pp. 8–12]
Beatty is named after "Old Man" Montillus (Montillion) Murray Beatty, a Civil War veteran and miner who bought a ranch along the
Amargosa River just north of the future community
[McCracken, ''History'', pp. 21–22] and became its first postmaster in 1905.
[McCracken, ''History'', p. 6] The community was laid out in 1904 or 1905 after Ernest Alexander "Bob" Montgomery, owner of the Montgomery Shoshone Mine near Rhyolite, decided to build the Montgomery Hotel in Beatty.
[McCracken, ''History'', pp. 48–49] Montgomery was drawn to the area, known as the Bullfrog Mining District, because of a
gold rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, ...
that began in 1904 in the
Bullfrog Hills
The Bullfrog Hills are a small mountain range of the Mojave Desert in southern Nye County, southwestern Nevada. Bullfrog Hills was so named from a fancied resemblance of its ore to the color of a bullfrog.
Geography
To the range's east are Bea ...
west of Beatty.

During Beatty's first year, wagons pulled by teams of horses or mules hauled freight between the Bullfrog district (that included the towns of Rhyolite,
Bullfrog
''Bullfrog'' is a common English language term to refer to large, aggressive frogs, regardless of species.
Examples of bullfrogs include:
Frog species Americas
*Helmeted water toad (''Calyptocephalella gayi''), endemic to Chile
*American bullf ...
,
Gold Center, Transvaal, and Springdale) and the nearest railroad, in Las Vegas, and by the middle of 1905, about 1,500 horses were engaged in this business. In October 1906, the
Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad (LV&T) began regular service to Beatty; in April 1907, the Bullfrog Goldfield Railroad (BG) reached the community, and the
Tonopah and Tidewater (T&T) line added a third railroad in October 1907.
The LV&T ceased operations in 1918, the BG in 1928, and the T&T in 1940.
Until the railroads abandoned their lines, Beatty served as the railhead for many mines in the area, including a
fluorspar
Fluorite (also called fluorspar) is the mineral form of calcium fluoride, CaF2. It belongs to the halide minerals. It crystallizes in isometric cubic habit, although octahedral and more complex isometric forms are not uncommon.
The Mohs scal ...
mine on
Bare Mountain, to the east.
Beatty's first newspaper was the ''Beatty Bullfrog Miner'', which began publishing in 1905 and went out of business in 1909. The ''Rhyolite Herald'' was the region's most important paper, starting in 1905 and reaching a circulation of 10,000 by 1909. It ceased publication in 1912, and the Beatty area had no newspaper from then until 1947. The ''Beatty Bulletin'', a supplement to the ''Goldfield News'', was published from then through 1956.
Beatty's population grew slowly in the first half of the 20th century, rising from 169 in 1929 to 485 in 1950. The first reliable electric company in the community, Amargosa Power Company, began supplying electricity in about 1940. Phone service arrived during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, and the town installed a community-wide sewer system in the 1970s.
[McCracken, ''History'', pp. 92–93] When a new mine opened west of Beatty in 1988, the population briefly surged from about 1,000 to between 1,500 and 2,000 by the end of 1990.
Since the mine's closing in 1998, the population has fallen again to near its former level.
Geography and climate
Beatty lies along U.S. Route 95 between
Tonopah, about to the north, and
Las Vegas
Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
, about to the southeast.
State Route 374 connects Beatty to
Death Valley National Park
Death Valley National Park is a national park of the United States that straddles the California–Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. The park boundaries include Death Valley, the northern section of Panamint Valley, the southern sect ...
, about to the west.
Yucca Mountain and the
Nevada Test Site
The Nevada National Security Sites (N2S2 or NNSS), popularized as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a reservation of the United States Department of Energy located in the southeastern portion of Nye County, Nevada, about northwest of ...
are about to the east.
The most densely populated part of the
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
(CDP) of Beatty is at (36.909337, −116.754531), although the CDP extends well beyond this urban center. According to the
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the CDP has a total area of , all land. The most populated area lies at above
sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...
between Beatty Mountain and
Bare Mountain to the east and the Bullfrog Hills to the west. The Amargosa River, an intermittent river that ends in Death Valley, flows on the surface through part of the CDP but has not been counted as water in the Census Bureau statistics.
Nevada's main climatic features are bright sunshine, low annual precipitation, heavy snowfall in the higher mountains, clean, dry air, and
large daily temperature ranges. Strong surface heating occurs by day and rapid cooling by night, and usually even the hottest days have cool nights. The average percentage of possible sunshine in southern Nevada is more than 80 percent. Sunshine and low humidity in this region account for an average evaporation, as measured in
evaporation pans, of more than of water a year.
Beatty receives only of precipitation a year.
[ Precipitation of at least falls on an average of 21 days annually.] The wettest year was 1941 with and driest year was 1953 with . The monthly daily average temperature ranges from in December to in July. On average, there are 26 days of + highs, 97 days of +, and 38 days where the high remains at or below ; the average window for freezing temperatures is November 2 to April 6. Snow is uncommon and measurable (≥) amounts occur in less than 60 of seasons. The highest recorded temperature was on June 11, 1961, and the lowest was on February 2, 1933.
Demographics
As of the census
A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
of 2000, there were 1,154 people, 535 households, and 270 families residing in the CDP. The population density was . There were 740 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the CDP was 90.9% White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 0.1% African American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
, 1.5% Native American, 1.2% Asian, 3.1% from other races, and 3.2% from two or more races. Hispanic
The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
or Latino of any race were 8.9% of the population. There were 535 households, out of which 26.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 39.8% were married couples
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...
living together, 6.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 49.5% were non-families. 43.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 15.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.16 and the average family size was 3.04. In the CDP the population was spread out, with 26.1% under the age of 18, 5.6% from 18 to 24, 24.7% from 25 to 44, 29.5% from 45 to 64, and 14.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females, there were 119.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 121.6 males. The median income for a household in the CDP was $41,250, and the median income for a family was $52,639. Males had a median income of $44,438 versus $25,962 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year.
In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...
for the CDP was $16,971. About 10.4% of families and 13.4% of the population were below the poverty line
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...
, including 7.1% of those under age 18 and 19.6% of those age 65 or over. As of the 2010 census, 1,010 people lived in Beatty.
Government
Under the terms of the Unincorporated Town Government Law of Nevada, Beatty is governed by the Nye County Commission assisted by a local board acting as a liaison between the citizens of Beatty and the commissioners. The Beatty Town Advisory Board consists of five elected members who meet twice a month at the Beatty Community Center. The Beatty General Improvement District manages the community's parks, swimming pool, putting course, and other recreational grounds.
Bruce Jabbour, Frank Carbone, Donna Cox, Ron Boskovich, and Debra Strickland are the county commissioners in 2024. Among the many county departments are administration, works and roads, building and code compliance, sheriff
A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland, the , which is common ...
, animal control, planning, property assessment, the Fifth Judicial District Court
District courts are a category of courts which exists in several nations, some call them "small case court" usually as the lowest level of the hierarchy.
These courts generally work under a higher court which exercises control over the lower co ...
, health and human services, senior centers including the Beatty Senior Center, and lower courts including the Beatty Justice Court. The Nye County Sheriff's Office has a substation in Beatty. Among other things, the office handles dispatch for the Beatty Volunteer Fire Department, which provides firefighting and ambulance services.
Gregory Hafen II, a Republican, represents Beatty and the rest of District 36 in the Nevada Assembly
The Nevada Assembly is the lower house of the Nevada Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Nevada, the upper house being the Nevada Senate. The body consists of 42 members, elected to two-year terms from single-member distri ...
. In the Nevada Senate
The Nevada Senate is the upper house of the Nevada Legislature, the state legislature of U.S. state of Nevada, the lower house being the Nevada Assembly. It currently (2012–2021) consists of 21 members from single-member districts. In the pr ...
, Beatty, as part of District 19, is represented by Pete Goicoechea
Peter J. Goicoechea (born September 8, 1949) is an American politician who served as the Nevada State Senator from the 19th district from 2012 to 2024. He previously served in the Nevada Assembly, representing the 35th district from 2002 to 201 ...
, a Republican.
Steven Horsford
Steven Alexzander Horsford (born April 29, 1973) is an American politician and businessman serving as the U.S. representative for Nevada's 4th congressional district since 2019, previously holding the position from 2013 to 2015. He also served ...
, a Democrat, represents Beatty and the rest of Nevada's Fourth Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...
. Jacky Rosen
Jacklyn Sheryl Rosen (née Spektor; born August 2, 1957) is an American politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, junior United States Senate, United States senator from Nevada since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party ...
and Catherine Cortez Masto
Catherine Marie Cortez Masto (born March 29, 1964) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States senator from Nevada, a seat she has held since 2017. A member of the Democratic Pa ...
, both Democrats, represent Nevada in the United States Senate
The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...
.
Economy
Early businesses in Beatty included the Montgomery Hotel, built by a mine owner in 1905, and freight businesses first centered on horse-drawn wagons and later on railroads serving the mining towns in the Bullfrog district. Beatty became the economic center for a large sparsely populated region. Aside from mining, other activities sustaining the community during the 1920s and 1930s included retail sales, gas and oil distribution, construction of Scotty's Castle, and the production and sale of illegal alcohol during Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...
.
Nevada's legalization of gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of Value (economics), value ("the stakes") on a Event (probability theory), random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy (ga ...
in 1931, the establishment of Death Valley National Monument in 1933, and the rise of Las Vegas as an entertainment center, brought visitors to Beatty, which became increasingly tourist-oriented.[McCracken, ''History'', pp. 101–02]
As underground mining declined in the region, federal defense spending, starting with the Nellis Air Force Range in 1940 and the Nevada Test Site in 1950, also contributed to the local economy. However, in 1988, an open-pit mine
Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock or minerals from the earth.
Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or ...
and mill began operations about west of Beatty along State Route 374. Barrick Gold
Barrick Mining Corporation is a mining company that produces gold and copper. It has mining operations and projects in Argentina, Canada, Chile, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Mali, Pakista ...
acquired the mine in 1994 and continued to extract and process ore at what became known as the Barrick Bullfrog Mine. At its peak, the mine employed 540 workers, many of whom lived in Beatty.[McCracken, ''History'', pp. 155–57] The mine closed in 1998.
In 2004, the federal Environmental Protection Agency
Environmental Protection Agency may refer to the following government organizations:
* Environmental Protection Agency (Queensland), Australia
* Environmental Protection Agency (Ghana)
* Environmental Protection Agency (Ireland)
* Environmenta ...
(EPA) named the closed Barrick Bullfrog mine site as one of six slated for pilot reclamation projects under the national Brownfields Mine-Scarred Land Initiative. A local group, the Beatty Economic Development Corporation (BEDC), in discussions with the EPA, suggested solar-power generation as a potential use for the site. Barrick Gold later transferred of its land to Beatty. In February 2009, the ''New York Times'' published a Greenwire
E&E News is an American news organization that covers energy, environmental policy, climate change, markets and science. As of 2020, the organization has more than 65 reporters and editors across 10 cities. It was acquired by ''Politico'' in Dece ...
article suggesting that part of the economic stimulus money from the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) (), nicknamed the Recovery Act, was a stimulus package enacted by the 111th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in February 2009. Developed in response to the G ...
might finance the Beatty project. "Studies show that the Beatty area has some of the best solar energy potential in the United States, as well as a high potential for wind-power generation," the Greenwire story said.
The Beatty Chamber of Commerce web site describes the community as the ''Gateway to Death Valley'', a small rural locality that has "everything the desert visitor needs" including motels and recreational vehicle
A recreational vehicle, often abbreviated as RV, is a motor vehicle or trailer that includes living quarters designed for accommodation. Types of RVs include motorhomes, campervans, coaches, caravans (also known as travel trailers and ca ...
(RV) sites. Aside from tourism, businesses contributing to the local economy include mining, retail trade, public administration and gambling.
Burro races
From 1961 until 1972 the local Lions Club
Lions Clubs International, is an international service organization, currently headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois. , it had over 46,000 local clubs and more than 1.4 million members (including the youth wing Leo clubs, Leo) in more than 200 ge ...
held annual burro
The donkey or ass is a domesticated equine. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as a separate species, ''Equus asinus''. It was domes ...
races that drew competitors from the United States, Canada, and as far away as Iran. National attention was brought to the race when Reg Potterton wrote a feature article about the 1971 race for ''Playboy'' magazine. The story, appearing in the May 1972 issue, featured stories about the town, the contestants, and the tourists who attended. Eventually the races were discontinued after organizers decided that the visitors they attracted were not good for Beatty's image.
Infrastructure and culture
The community is home to the Beatty Museum and Historical Society. The 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 ...
of Rhyolite and the Goldwell Open Air Museum, a sculpture park, are about to the west. Bailey's Hot Springs and bathhouses are about north of Beatty in the Oasis Valley. In addition to highways, Beatty has a general aviation airfield, Beatty Airport, about south of downtown. Beatty Medical Center, which opened in 1977, provides family medicine and other services. The Beatty Library is the only library in Nevada that is housed in a geodesic dome
A geodesic dome is a hemispherical thin-shell structure (lattice-shell) based on a geodesic polyhedron. The rigid triangular elements of the dome distribute stress throughout the structure, making geodesic domes able to withstand very heavy ...
. Beatty's combined elementary and middle school
Middle school, also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school, is an educational stage between primary school and secondary school.
Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, middle school includes g ...
s, serving kindergarten
Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...
through eighth grade, and Beatty High School, grades 9–12, are part of the Nye County School District. The Beatty Water and Sanitation District supplies drinking water from three wells to the town residents and treats the community's wastewater.
References
Works cited
* Lingenfelter, Richard E. (1986). ''Death Valley & the Amargosa: A Land of Illusion''. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. .
* McCracken, Robert D. (1992). ''A History of Beatty, Nevada''. Tonopah, Nevada: Nye County Press. .
* Moffat, Riley Moore (1996). Population History of Western U.S. Cities and Towns, 1850–1990. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. .
External links
Beatty Chamber of Commerce
Beatty Museum and Historical Society
Beatty, Nevada, town website
Goldwell Open Air Museum
{{Good article
1905 establishments in Nevada
Amargosa Desert
Census-designated places in Nye County, Nevada
History of Nye County, Nevada
Populated places established in 1905
Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad
Unincorporated towns in Nevada