Lida, Nevada is a small

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 ...

Esmeralda County, Nevada Esmeralda County is a county in the southwestern portion of the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2024 estimate, the population was 720, making it the least populous county in Nevada, and the 20th least populous county in the United States. Esm ...

, near the border with

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. The

GNIS The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and location information about more than two million physical and cultural features, encompassing the United States and its territories; the associated states of the Marshal ...

classifies it as a populated place. It is located on State Route 266, north of Magruder Mountain. The first white settlers at Lida arrived in 1867. The town was named for the wife of prospector David Buel of nearby

Austin Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...

. It is located on the site of a former

Shoshone The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ), also known by the endonym Newe, are an Native Americans in the United States, Indigenous people of the United States with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshon ...

and

Northern Paiute Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...

camp. The first wave of settlement was fueled by the discovery of silver reserves. But most mining activity ended by 1880 with the exhaustion of local ore. Another boom came in 1905, driven by gold found in nearby Goldfield, bringing Lida's population to a peak of around 300. But the boom only lasted two years. A third, smaller jump in activity came shortly before

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. In 1913, the Roosevelt Midland Trail, one of the first marked transcontinental auto trails in America, routed through Lida on the way to

. Both the

Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921 The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921, also called the Phipps Act (, ), sponsored by Sen. Lawrence C. Phipps (R) of Colorado, defined the Federal Aid Road program to develop an immense national highway system. The plan was crafted by the head of t ...

and the

Pershing Map The Pershing Map was an early blueprint for a national highway system in the United States, with many of the proposed roads later forming a substantial portion of the Interstate Highway System. It's the first official United States road map, and m ...

of 1922 envisioned making the Lida route part of the growing national highway system. But when the

United States Numbered Highway System The United States Numbered Highway System (often called U.S. Routes or U.S. Highways) is an integrated network of roads and highways numbered within a nationwide grid in the contiguous United States. As the designation and numbering of these ...

was first set in 1926, Lida was nowhere to be found. Planners instead chose the Arrowhead Trail through

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 ...

to connect traffic to

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

, redesignating it U.S. Route 91. A post office was in operation at Lida between 1873 and 1932. The population was 16 in 1940. The site now rests on private property.

Gallery

References

External links

Photo of Lida in 1906
Populated places established in 1872 Ghost towns in Esmeralda County, Nevada 1872 establishments in Nevada Ghost towns in Nevada {{EsmeraldaCountyNV-geo-stub