Osceola, Nevada, 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 ...

in the eastern part of the U.S. state of

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 ...

. The town was a placer camp devoted to mining

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

. Gold was first discovered in 1872, followed by exploitation of the deposits using

hydraulic mining Hydraulic mining is a form of mining that uses high-pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment.Paul W. Thrush, ''A Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms'', US Bureau of Mines, 1968, p.560. In the placer mining of ...

techniques. Two ditches, the Osceola West Ditch and the Osceola East Ditch were built to convey water from the mountains for use in mining. Water production was less than hoped and hydraulic mining ceased in 1900, when the population had declined from 1500 at its peak to 100. A fire in the 1940s destroyed much of the town, but a few buildings and a cemetery remain. The town is just to the west of

Great Basin National Park Great Basin National Park is a national park of the United States located in White Pine County in east-central Nevada, near the Utah border. Established in 1986, the park is most commonly entered by way of Nevada State Route 488, which is c ...

. Some small-scale mining activities continue.

References

External links

Osceola, Nevada
at Great Basin National Heritage Route

at Great Basin National Park Ghost towns in White Pine County, Nevada Populated places established in 1872 1872 establishments in Nevada Ghost towns in Nevada Great Basin National Heritage Area {{WhitePineCountyNV-geo-stub