![[Floodgap Roadgap presents the Summer of 6]](../extras/so6.gif)
Floodgap Roadgap's Summer of 6 -- U.S. Highway 6, Part 2: US 6 in Nevada (State Line to Tonopah; Mineral County, Esmeralda
County, Nye County)
![[A lightning strike at a mining cap near Tonopah, 1904.]](zap.jpg "[A lightning strike at a mining cap near Tonopah, 1904.]")
US 6's routing in Nevada today is a very long one, over 305 miles (although
the champion is of course Colorado), but for many years was a route given
shorter shrift than US 40 and US 50 because it served no major city and
very few minor ones (Ely the shining exception), and several portions were
not sealed for some time. Thus, I dispute US 50's prize as awarded by the state
as the Loneliest Highway in Nevada -- I think US 6 is far lonelier and passes
through more isolated areas, but this is sort of a hard crown to win in what
even in the present day is a sparsely populated region except for
Las Vegas-Henderson (US 95) and Carson
City-Reno-Sparks (US 395) in the west.
This is a shame, because the highway serves some of the wildest and more
historic places in Nevada no one has ever heard of, and makes a tremendous
road adventure through the western Great Basin. Nothing makes this more
obvious than the 1904 photograph at right, taken during a furious desert
storm by Senator Key Pittman at one of the mining camps
near Tonopah. In this first part we will
explore up and through that famous settlement of Tonopah on our way into
the deserts, and from there the long, interminable space of true isolation
and miles of road through almost nothing.
Nevada until 1976 used a nearly completely different set of route numbers,
converting almost all of them (except certain historical exceptions) to
three-digit grouped numbers instead of the former quasi-sequential system.
For historical purposes we will give the former NV state route number,
where known, to the modern highways we reach. US 6 itself covered several
old route numbers: from California to Basalt, it was former NV 10; from
Basalt to Coaldale Junction, NV 15; from Coaldale Jct to Tonopah, NV 3
(later co-signed, see below); Tonopah to Ely, NV 4; Ely to Majors Junction,
NV 7 (with US 93); and Majors Jct to Utah, NV 14. Most of these routes were
removed in 1939 except NV 3.
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Distance signage at the border as we cross into Nevada.
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Mineral county, of course, is named for the rich mineral ore mined in the
region. Like most of the routing of US 6, few people live in it; in 2000,
the Census reported 5,071 residents but the state in 2005 estimated only
4,910 and by 2010 it had shrunk to just 4,772.
The majority inhabit Hawthorne, the county seat, which
is served by US 95. We will see almost none of them on this relatively short
trip through.
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Grand Army of the Republic Highway signage. I have not, to date, seen any
of the traditional smaller signage in Nevada, just these greenies.
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"Welcome to Pioneer Territory" and first US 6 shield. I miss the California
cutouts already.
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Not sure what it's 6 miles to (east), but they do miss us already (westbound).
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Although we technically enter the Inyo National Forest, there's not a lot of
forest along our route.
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Very shortly over the border we pass by Boundary Peak, the highest point in
Nevada at 13,143' (the sign is spelled wrong). Although nearby Montgomery
Peak in the same range is 13,441', Montgomery Pk is in California. In this
picture, Boundary Peak is properly the tallest mountain visible.
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PM 4. Nevada uses postmile markers similar to California's, installed after
the renumbering.
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Curving up the hill to Montgomery Pass.
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Crossing the Pass, 7,167'.
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Starting the downgrade. (Six percent! Get it?)
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This casino used to siphon off truck traffic to Tonopah and Ely, but was long
closed by the time I drove by in 2006. It made a (possibly phony) appearance
in Highway 395 as the tweekers'
hideout, back around 1999 when the movie was filmed, but doesn't seem to have
seen much activity since then.
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Down into the valleys of the Excelsior Mountains.
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Leaving the National Forest.
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Various alkali flats are visible from the road where rain and flooding collect
during inclement weather, and then bake in the sun.
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Advance signage for NV 360 and the "settlement" of Basalt.
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NV 360 is a cutoff from US 6 to US 95
at Tonopah Junction, south of Mina, on the way to Hawthorne for traffic heading
on US 95 towards Fallon and I-80/old US 40. It is the continuation
of former route NV 10.
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And ... that's all there is for Basalt.
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Distance signage leaving Basalt, now as old NV 15.
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PM 13.
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Esmeralda county line, and final Mineral county postmile (PM 15.20).
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Esmeralda county was one of Nevada's original nine territorial counties in
1861 (Mineral county was actually derived from it in 1911). Tradition
indicates the name came from early prospector J. M. Corey, who
named the local mining district for Esmeralda, the gypsy dancing girl
in The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo. Originally, its county
seat was Aurora (see US 395 Part 16 for some of
the contentious history of that town) until 1883, then Hawthorne in modern
Mineral county until 1907, and finally the town of Goldfield (along US 95)
in the present day. Boundary Peak is actually part of Esmeralda county, even
though we saw it while driving US 6 through Mineral.
Esmeralda county is the least populated in the entire state, which for Nevada
is really saying something -- only 783 residents [2010].
It has the second-lowest population density of
any county or county-equivalent outside of the famous Loving county in Texas,
which has 67 people. Goldfield, once the largest town in Nevada due to
its eponymous gold strikes during the turn of the 20th century,
today maintains
roughly half the county's residents for a 2000 population of merely 440.
That's quite a fall for a town that had nearly 30,000 inhabitants
during the peak of gold
production in 1906, and that ultimately produced almost $90 million of the
precious metal from the initial 1902 strike until the cessation of most
commercial mining operations around 1940. Wyatt Earp was once a sheriff in
Goldfield, in 1904.
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BLM signage entering Esmeralda county.
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Junction NV 264 from Fish Lake Valley and Dyer.
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NV 264 passes through some
very lonely territory, Dyer being the only settlement of note, before
crossing the California state line and becoming CA 266. CA 266 is one of
California's most remote state highways, serving only as a loop route through
Oasis (and the modern eastern terminus of CA 168) before becoming NV 266 on
the other side through Lida to US 95 south of Goldfield. The route is not
advised for gas guzzlers because there is none until you do in fact get to
Goldfield, which from here is almost 100 miles away.
NV 266 was originally the southernmost leg of the circuitous former
NV 3, the old Bonanza Highway (we will actually reach that highway further
north in a moment); NV 264 was originally NV 3A (south of NV 773).
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PM 4.
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Descending another 6% grade as we leave the Excelsior Mountain range
completely.
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Into the desert plains.
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Junction NV 773.
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This otherwise nondescript short
state highway connects to NV 264 on its south end, and functions as a cutoff
for traffic from the Fish Lake Valley heading east to Tonopah. It was
the original routing of NV 3A, but does not appear to have been designated
until rather later.
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PM 16.
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These colourful, striated low hills are typical of the low terrain.
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Advance signage as we approach the junction with US 95 at Coaldale
Junction.
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Notice that US 95 is signed south to Las Vegas (which it enters), and north
to Reno (which it doesn't, connecting ultimately via I-80 [former US 40]).
There is a historical reason for the Reno signage; read on.
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Looking at the separation.
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Distance signage looking west on US 6, with 78 miles to Bishop (Part 1).
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Curving around to join US 95.
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US 6/US 95: Bonzanza Highway
![[NV 3 between Coaldale and Tonopah, 1939.]](nv3.gif "[NV 3 between Coaldale and Tonopah, 1939.]")
At this point, we join the Bonanza Highway proper. The name likely harks
back to the mining strikes, and referred specifically to old State Route 3
which ran from the state line east of Oasis, CA to Goldfield (intersecting
and terminating NV 5), then up to Tonopah and west to Coaldale Jct. From
there NV 3 went up to Schurz, split west to Yerington and Holbrook Junction,
and then north through Gardnerville to Carson City. A curious split routing
went west to Lake Tahoe, CA, or north to Reno, terminating at old NV 1 (US 40).
In 1935, US 395 was extended and NV 3 was truncated at it in Holbrook
Jct, south of Gardnerville, in 1939. US 6 did not bisect NV 3 in 1937, however,
instead
being co-routed with it until US 95 was extended south in 1940 mostly along
NV 8, NV 1A, NV 2 NV 3 and NV 5. This routing
did split NV 3 into two parts, the southernmost section to Goldfield
and the northern section from Holbrook Jct to Schurz (which became US 95 ALT
between Schurz and Yerington in 1941). The remaining sections were renumbered
to NV 266 and NV 208, respectively,
during the Nevada Great Renumbering.
Modern US 95 is (with US 93) one of Nevada's two major north-south plumb line
routes and today is best
known to outsiders as the second of Las Vegas' major through freeways (even
though the southern leg is co-signed with I-515 and US 93). It services most
of Nevada's significant population centers (except, of course, Reno and Elko)
and much of the western Great Basin, unmolested by most Interstates; you can
see its southern reaches in Floodgap's
US 95: Vegas to Blythe.
After all that, we mentioned that the Reno on the sign may be a historical
holdover, and now you know what it is: the Bonanza Highway did in fact go
to Reno, and US 95 inherited most of it, so it's possible US 95 is still
signed for there for that reason
even though it doesn't go there. Or, it's a giant coincidence and it's just
because Reno is a major city, but I like my story better.
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US 6/US 95 cosignage, but notice both the distance signage (248 miles to
Vegas -- remember this number -- and 208 miles to Ely) and the postmile,
which only shows US 6 (because this alignment is legislatively US 6).
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That's about it for Coaldale Jct.
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Daytime headlight zone due to the long stretches and high speeds.
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PM 20.
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Curving around and between the small groups of mountains through the
wash valleys.
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PM 25 and NV 265 [NV 47], a "one way" route terminating near Blair
and Silver Peak.
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EB US 6-US 95.
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Distance signage. Halfway there.
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As we get closer to Tonopah, the lower hills become replaced by the
Monte Cristo Range and the southern Silver Peak Range.
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PM 45.
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Miles of sand and asphalt.
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Finally, the end of the headlight zone must mean we're approaching
civilization, or at least a slower speed limit.
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Right of way marker beside us, and a fine local accommodation.
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Nye county? Aren't we in Esmeralda county? Well, we are, but not for much
longer ...
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... because we are about to enter Nye county and its seat, the famous
Tonopah.
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County line and final postmile for Esmeralda county (PM 57.74).
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For some reason (looking back at the other side of the Tonopah sign),
US 6/US 95 is signed as the Veterans Memorial Highway,
which is the name for US 95, but US 6 was here first (as the Grand Army of
the Republic Highway).
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Nye County, NV and Tonopah, NV |
Nye county was not one of the original 1861 Nevada counties, instead created
in 1864 and named for James W. Nye, governor of the Nevada Territory and later
Senator. First established with its seat at Ione City, the seat moved to
Belmont in 1867 and then finally Tonopah. Nye is not as grossly unpopulated as
Esmeralda county was, but it's close: the third largest county by area in the
continental United States, behind Coconino county, AZ, and of course the
gargantuan San Bernardino county, CA, 43,946 [2010]
people inhabit its 18,159 square miles, most of them in Art Bell's famous
Pahrump to the south. There are no incorporated cities in Nye county, but there
are prostitutes, and I didn't visit any. Ninety-two percent of Nye county
is owned by the Feds, in some cases controversially due to the presence of
the nuclear Nevada Test Site and the Yucca Mountain waste repository, and
Nevada's portion of Death Valley National Monument.
![[Tonopah in 1950.]](tono50t.jpg "[Tonopah in 1950.]")
The town of
Tonopah is significantly smaller; while Pahrump has 36,441 [2010]
residents, Tonopah is less than a tenth of that size at 2,478 [2010].
The name probably originates from an Indian (Hohokam?) term for springs,
and was apparently known in antiquity to them but was otherwise virtually
uninhabited in the territorial days. Today the small settlement of
modern Tonopah has changed
little from the 1950 Nevada Highways and Parks picture at right, but in
the early 20th century was a mining hotbed when
sometime prospector Jim Butler stormed out angrily in search
of a wayward donkey. Finding the creature wandering in the distance and
looking for
a stone to hurl at it in frustration (goes one apocryphal story),
Butler found the heavy rock
he had picked up was actually high quality silver
ore, and forgot all about the fortunate animal. Ironically, his initial
assays were underwhelming, but Butler stuck to it
and his strike turned out to be
the second-richest in the state. Butler's original 1900 claims led
to a massive boom town (named for him), becoming
the county seat and adopting the name of Tonopah in 1905, and peaking
during the 1920s when the gold and silver strikes in the region finally
ran out. Most of the 10,000+ residents moved on to try their luck elsewhere
in the intervening decades,
leaving a small background population working their own local mines and
small farms, and, of course, the remnant local bureaucracy. In 1957, the
Department of Energy opened the nearby Tonopah
Test Range (a/k/a Area 52) which housed several weapons projects and
classified development operations. We will see one famous product of Area 52
presently.
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Entering Tonopah.
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Only-In-Nevada Department.
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Main Street and downtown Tonopah. Compare this view with
this enlargement (85K) of the
NHandP photograph above. The Shell station was still there, at least
in 2006 (slightly to the left of the frame), and the landmark
Mizpah Hotel is still
present, which in the 1950 image did not yet have its famous sign.
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![[Mizpah mine, ca. 1960 (Library of Congress).]](mizpah.jpg "[Mizpah mine, ca. 1960 (Library of Congress).]")
The Mizpah Hotel is a longtime local fixture,
named for the famous Mizpah mine, operated by the Tonopah Mining Company
and the richest mine in local history. An image of the exterior frame is
shown at right. Long after most of the other strikes had faded, the Mizpah
was still actively producing ore into the 1940s
until the local railroad finally tore up its ties in 1947.
In 1968, Howard Hughes picked up several local claims, including the Mizpah,
and started exploration and some limited reconstruction. None of the claims
paid off, and the total production of the Tonopah district remains today a
still-astounding $150 million. Hughes donated the mines to form a local
historical park and wrote off the investment, and then went looking for
manganese nodules on the bottom of the ocean.
The hotel itself started in 1901 as, of course, a saloon. Popular hooey holds
that Wyatt Earp himself kept bar and Jack Dempsey bounced out undesirables,
and there is not a scrap of evidence to support this. The saloon was replaced
by the hotel in 1908 and was Nevada's tallest building until 1929 when the
Hotel Nevada in Ely replaced it. We will visit this hotel as well. The modern
hotel is still in operation.
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The post office.
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Area 52's biggest export: the F-117A stealth fighter. One of the US Air
Force's most famous skunkworks projects, the entire fleet during the early
1980s lived at the Tonopah Test Range airport while it was still classified.
Revealed as the Nighthawk fighter in 1988, the F-117A fleet moved to New Mexico,
which also ended the passenger air flights running between Nellis and
Tonopah. When the Stealth Fighter program ended in 2008, the F-117s flew
back to Tonopah and were retired there, literally stripped of their wings,
in their original hangars. At a
total cost of $111.2 million, only 64 were built, and they are no longer
used for USAF operations.
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Approaching the US 6-US 95 separation at the east end of town.
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Separation. US 95 continues from here to Las Vegas along old NV 3. Don't
forget Vegas, however, as we will recall it for Ely when we reach US 93.
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US 6
This begins the former routing of NV 4.
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Now, again, US 6 alone.
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Leaving town.
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