Tonopah ( , Shoshoni language: Tonampaa) is an unincorporated town in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

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 ...

and the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of Nye County. Nicknamed the Queen of the Silver Camps for its mining-rich history, it is now primarily a

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

-based

resort city A resort town, resort city or resort destination is an urban area where tourism or vacationing is the primary component of the local culture and economy. A typical resort town has one or more actual resorts in the surrounding area. Sometimes ...

, notable for attractions like the Mizpah Hotel and the Clown Motel. Tonopah is located at the junction of U.S. Routes 6 and 95, approximately midway between

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 ...

and Reno. In the 2010 census, the population was 2,478. 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 Tonopah has a total area of , all land.

History

The American community began circa 1900 with the discovery of silver-rich ore by prospector Jim Butler. The legendary tale of discovery says that he went looking for a burro that had wandered off during the night and sought shelter near a rock outcropping. When Butler discovered the animal the next morning, he picked up a rock to throw at it in frustration, noticing that the rock was unusually heavy. He had stumbled upon the second-richest silver strike in Nevada history. However, this commonly-told story is likely apocryphal. Butler was married to a local Paiute woman named Belle—her family guided Butler to the area long known by indigenous peoples for its surface minerals. From February 1905, Tonopah experienced a disease outbreak known as "the Tonopah plague". The disease reportedly affected primarily adult men and caused acute

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

. Men of wealth and power entered the region to consolidate the mines and reinvest their profits into the infrastructure of the town of Tonopah.

George Wingfield George Wingfield (August 16, 1876 – December 25, 1959) was a Nevada cattleman and gambler who became a financier, investor and one of the state's most powerful economic and political figures during the period from 1909 to 1932. With future sen ...

, a 24-year-old poker player when he arrived in Tonopah, played poker and dealt faro in the town saloons. Once he had a small bankroll, he talked Jack Carey, owner of the Tonopah Club, into taking him in as a partner and filing for a gaming license. In 1903, labor unionists rioted against Chinese workers in Tonopah, killing a Chinese man, wounding several others, and destroying

Chinatown Chinatown ( zh, t=唐人街) is the catch-all name for an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, Asia, Africa, O ...

. This resulted in China enforcing a boycott in China of U.S. imported goods. By 1904, after investing his winnings in the Boston-Tonopah Mining Company, Wingfield was worth $2 million. When old friend George S. Nixon, a banker, arrived in town, Wingfield invested in his Nye County Bank. They grub-staked (provided with food, supplies and tools in an exchange for a percentage of mine yield) miners with friend Nick Abelman, and bought existing mines. By the time the partners moved to Goldfield, Nevada and made their Goldfield Consolidated Mining Company a public corporation in 1906, Nixon and Wingfield were worth more than $30 million. Wingfield believed that the end of the gold and silver mining production was coming and took his bankroll to Reno, where he invested heavily in real estate and casinos. Real estate and gaming became big business throughout Central Nevada. By 1910, gold production was falling, and by 1920, the town of Tonopah had less than half the population it had fifteen years earlier. Small mining ventures continued to provide income for local miners and the small town struggled on. Located about halfway between Reno and Las Vegas, it has supported travelers as a stopover and rest spot on a lonely highway. Today the Tonopah Station has slots and the Banc Club also offers some gaming. Also in Nye County is the Yomba Band of the Yomba Shoshone Tribe of the Yomba Reservation, a federally recognized band of Western Shoshone people. The Western Shoshone dominated most of Nevada at the time of American settlement in the 1860s. Since the late 20th century, Tonopah has relied on the nearby military Tonopah Test Range as its main source of employment. The military has used the range and surrounding areas as a

nuclear bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear exp ...

test site, a bombing range, and a base of operations for the development of the F-117 Nighthawk. In 2014, California-based

solar energy Solar energy is the radiant energy from the Sun's sunlight, light and heat, which can be harnessed using a range of technologies such as solar electricity, solar thermal energy (including solar water heating) and solar architecture. It is a ...

company SolarReserve completed construction on a $980 million advanced solar energy project near Tonopah. The Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project uses liquid sodium as a heat transfer medium for its solar energy storage technology. The plant began producing power in November 2015. On May 15, 2020, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck west of Tonopah, followed by a series of

aftershock In seismology, an aftershock is a smaller earthquake that follows a larger earthquake, in Epicenter, the same area of the Mainshock, main shock, caused as the displaced Crust (geology), crust adjusts to the effects of the main shock. Large earthq ...

s, the largest of which was a magnitude 5.1. However, no injuries were reported. It was the largest earthquake in Nevada since 1954.

Etymology and pronunciation

The founder, Jim Butler, named the settlement from what is thought to be a Shoshoni language word, pronounced "TOE-nuh-pah." Although the town previously had a variety of names, including Butler City, Jim Butler's name has survived. According to local history, the name is said to mean "hidden spring". Linguistically, the name derives from either Shoshone ''to-nuv'' ( greasewood), or Northern Paiute ''to-nav'' (greasewood), and ''pa,'' meaning water in both dialects.

Climate

Tonopah has an arid,

cold desert climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk'') is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

''BWk'') with cool winters and hot summers. Due to Tonopah’s aridity and high altitude, daily temperature ranges are quite large and lows in winter are similar to many

continental climate Continental climates often have a significant annual variation in temperature (warm to hot summers and cold winters). They tend to occur in central and eastern parts of the three northern-tier continents (North America, Europe, and Asia), typi ...

s. Nights are cool, even in summer. There are an average of 50.3 afternoons with highs at or above , 157.8 mornings with lows of or lower, 7.6 afternoons where the high does not top freezing and 1.7 mornings with lows below . The record high temperature in Tonopah was on July 18, 1960, and the record low on January 24, 1937 and January 23, 1962. There are an average of 38 days with measurable precipitation and about of precipitation that falls each year. The amount of minimal precipitation that does fall is roughly the same for each month at about to per month. The wettest calendar year was 1978 with and the driest 2020 with . The most precipitation in one month was in August 2023. The most precipitation in 24 hours was on August 20, 2023. Average annual snowfall is , though even in winter the median snow depth is zero and the maximum recorded only on February 11, 1968. The most snowfall in one year was from July 1946 to June 1947, including in November 1946.

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 2,627 people, 1,109 households, and 672 families residing in the CDP. The population density was . There were 1,561 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the CDP was 91.24%

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 ...

, 1.41% Native American, 0.76%

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 ...

, 0.42% Asian, 0.30%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

, 2.82% from other races, and 3.05% 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 people of any race were 6.17% of the population. There were 1,109 households, out of which 32.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.9% 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, 7.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.4% were non-families. 34.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.33 and the average family size was 3.03. In the CDP, the population was spread out, with 27.1% under the age of 18, 6.2% from 18 to 24, 29.3% from 25 to 44, 27.3% from 45 to 64, and 10.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females, there were 108.3 males. For every 100 women age 18 and over, there were 105.9 men. The median income for a household in the CDP was $37,401, and the median income for a family was $47,917. Males had a median income of $40,018 versus $22,056 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 $18,256. About 5.7% of families and 11.2% 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 7.3% of those under age 18 and 19.1% of those age 65 or over.

Transportation

During the silver bonanza of the first decade of the 20th century, the need in the precious-metal fields for freight service led to construction of a network of local railroad lines across the Nevada desert to Tonopah. Examples include the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad, the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad, and the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad. Coal was hauled to the silver mines to power mine operations and also the

stamp mill A stamp mill (or stamp battery or stamping mill) is a type of Mill (grinding), mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than Mill (grinding), grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking materia ...

s built in and around Tonopah to break apart the hard-rock ore for milling and refining. As the railroad lines were reduced with the decline of mining and restructuring of railroads in the late 20th century, 18-wheelers became the dominant method of moving freight. Tonopah took on a new identity as an extreme freight destination. The chorus of the song "Willin'" by Lowell George of

Little Feat Little Feat is an American rock band from Los Angeles, California formed by lead vocalist and guitarist Lowell George, bassist Roy Estrada (both formerly of the Mothers of Invention), keyboardist Bill Payne, and drummer Richie Hayward in ...

on the albums ''

'', '' Sailin' Shoes'', and '' Waiting for Columbus'' refers to Tonopah, Nevada: In the early 21st century, Tonopah is served by two U.S. Highways, Routes 6 and 95. There is no rail service. General aviation facilities are located at nearby Tonopah Airport. The nearest airport with scheduled passenger service is Mammoth Yosemite Airport, about away. The nearest major airports are Harry Reid International Airport in

, and Reno–Tahoe International Airport in Reno, each more than away. Daily bus service between Las Vegas, Tonopah, and Reno is provided by Salt Lake Express.

Notable people

Hugh Bradner Hugh Bradner (November 5, 1915 – May 5, 2008) was an American physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, University of California who is credited with inventing the neoprene wetsuit, which helped to revolutionize scuba diving and sur ...

(1915–2008), physicist and inventor of the neoprene wetsuit, which helped to revolutionize scuba diving * T. Brian Callister, physician and nationally known health care policy expert; practiced in Tonopah between 1991 and 1995 * Thomas Joseph Connolly, Catholic bishop of Baker *

Wyatt Earp Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American lawman in the American West, including Dodge City, Kansas, Dodge City, Wichita, Kansas, Wichita, and Tombstone, Arizona, Tombstone. Earp was involved in the gunfight ...

(1848–1929), Western lawman and fortune seeker; arrived in Tonopah in 1902 and opened the Northern Saloon * Barbara Graham (born Barbara Elaine Ford; 1923–1955), murderer; one of four women to be executed in California * William Robert Johnson (1918–1986), Catholic bishop of Orange * Andriza Mircovich (c. 1879–1913), only prisoner to be executed by shooting in Nevada * Tasker L. Oddie (1870–1950), 12th Governor of Nevada, and United States Senator; resident of Tonopah * Key D. Pittman (1872–1940), U.S. Senator; resident of Tonopah * Vail M. Pittman (1880–1965), 19th Governor of Nevada; resident of Tonopah * Mayme Schweble (1874–1943), gold prospector and politician, one of the first female residents of Tonopah * Stalking Cat (born Dennis Avner; 1958–2012), man known for his extensive body modifications * Sally Bould Stan (1917–2008), architect in California; born in Tonopah

Places of interest

* Mizpah Hotel, with construction begun in 1905, shortly after the town of Tonopah was founded, and finished in late 1908, after several delays. The Mizpah Hotel was once the tallest building in the state. *The Clown Motel, located next to the Tonopah Cemetery, is a popular place to stay because of all the reports of being haunted by "ghost clowns" and miners who were killed in the 1911 Belmont Mine Fire. The motel was featured as a haunted location on the

Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television television channel, channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, who previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in Manhattan, with ...

paranormal TV Paranormal television is a genre of reality television that purports to document factual television, factual investigations of the paranormal rather than fictional representations seen in traditional narrative films and TV. Over the years, the ge ...

series' '' Ghost Adventures'' in 2017 and ''

Most Terrifying Places in America ''Most Terrifying Places in America'' is an American paranormal documentary television series that premiered on October 9, 2009, on the Travel Channel as a stand-alone special. The special was subsequently broken down into an episodic series. Eac ...

'' in 2018.

In popular culture

* Tonopah was the subject of an episode of ''Death Valley Days'' titled "Birth of a Boom". *Tonopah was the subject of an episode of '' Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings''. Rhett and Link developed a slogan for the town "Visit Tonopah, We're Different". *A picture of Tonopah is featured as the last page of the ''

Lucky Luke ''Lucky Luke'' is a Western (genre), Western bande dessinée, comic album series created by Belgian cartoonist Morris (cartoonist), Morris in 1946. Morris wrote and drew the series single-handedly until 1955, after which he started collaborati ...

'' comic album '' Le Grand Duc'' (1973). *Tonopah is mentioned in the lyrics to the song " Willin'" by the

country rock Country rock is a music genre that fuses rock and country. It was developed by rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal sty ...

band

. * The Garden mentions Tonopah in the song "What Else Could I Be But a Jester." *The opening scene of the movie ''

Melvin and Howard ''Melvin and Howard'' (stylized as ''Melvin (and Howard)'') is a 1980 American comedy-drama film directed by Jonathan Demme. The screenplay by Bo Goldman was inspired by real-life Utah service station owner Melvin Dummar, who was listed as th ...

'' features the desert "outside of Tonopah" with

Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American Aerospace engineering, aerospace engineer, business magnate, film producer, and investor. He was The World's Billionaires, one of the richest and most influential peo ...

, played by

Jason Robards Jason Nelson Robards Jr. (July 26, 1922 – December 26, 2000) was an American actor. Known for his roles on stage and screen, he gained a reputation as an interpreter of the works of playwright Eugene O'Neill. Robards received numerous accola ...

, shown riding a dirt bike. *Tonopah figures in the storylines of a number of episodes of the 1960s television series ''State Trooper''. Though the show was largely filmed in Los Angeles, outdoor location shots featuring the Nye County Courthouse and downtown Tonopah were incorporated in the production. *The Cartoon Network series '' Ellen's Acres'' takes place near Tonopah.

Twin towns

Tonopah is twinned with the following towns: *

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

Medellín Medellín ( ; or ), officially the Special District of Science, Technology and Innovation of Medellín (), is the List of cities in Colombia, second-largest city in Colombia after Bogotá, and the capital of the department of Antioquia Departme ...

References

External links

* for town
Tonopah photos and information at WesternMiningHistory.com
retrieved 22 October 2009
Tonopah Historic Mining Park
at

Atlas Obscura ''Atlas Obscura'' is an United States, American-based travel and exploration company. It was founded in 2009 by author Joshua Foer and documentary filmmaker/author Dylan Thuras. It catalogs unusual and obscure travel destinations via professiona ...

*
Official website of the Central Nevada Museum
— located in Tonopah {{authority control 1900 establishments in Nevada Census-designated places in Nye County, Nevada County seats in Nevada History of Nye County, Nevada Mining communities in Nevada Populated places established in 1900 Silver mining in Nevada Unincorporated towns in Nevada History of racism in Nevada Anti-Chinese violence in the United States