Name: Why Nevada has so many ghost towns
Uploaded: 2025-11-17T17:21:34.000Z
Duration: 10 min 32 s
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I mean, it's a ghost town that's not even labeled on here.

Nevada is home to more than 600 ghost towns, which means that there are more ghost towns than even populated towns in this state.

unfortunately, there are a lot of places that were once mining towns became ghost towns and are now maybe a name on a map.

I'm not even certain I know the answer to that question.

On this journey, we're going to try and find some of these unmarked ghost towns and see what remains of the Wild West.

But our final destination is more than just empty buildings.

We live here full time, and this is our only home.

So what draws people to living in ghost towns?

And what can these towns tell us about the real Nevada?

Now, before we get any further, I just want to mention that this video is presented by Travel Nevada.

Nevada's ghost towns have long fascinated people, but

I knew that there had to be more to the story than just abandoned buildings.

So when I learned that Nevada still produces over 70% of the gold in the U.S.

i knew that the 1800s gold rush was more than just a fad.

So in this video, we're going to go see some real ghost towns, check out some of the technology that made all this gold possible, and

also meet some of the people who are still living in these century old towns.

So if you're down for an adventure, keep watching.

This is a state that's vast and varied, curiously uncommon and wild at heart.

It's also important to note that Travel Nevada didn't dictate the content of this story, but

their support made our reporting and this adventure possible.

We knew that visiting these ghost towns would unlock some answers to how gold changed the state of Nevada.

But we needed a local expert to point us in the right direction.

So we met up with Tammy Force, a ghost town historian who has been to hundreds of sites in Nevada.

And I've always loved exploring ghost towns.

And kind of in my middle age, I decided my goal was to go to every ghost town in Nevada in the eastern Sierra and photograph them.

Tammy documents her travels on her website, Nevada Ghost towns and Beyond.

Why does Nevada have so many ghost towns?

I would say about 90% are directly related to mining.

Since the 1800s, the hunt for gold has shaped the Wild west, including the state of Nevada.

The first mining discoveries in Nevada were made by people who were traveling across Nevada to the California Gold Rush.

This is Professor Eric Nystrom, who studies the history of mining and technology at the University of Nevada, Reno.

And along the way, the people that were heading for gold in California, you know, you've got the equipment, and

so why not just kind of try panning here and there?

I think Gold Canyon probably gets the credit for the first mining settlement in Nevada.

But the one that matters, the one that comes later, is Virginia City and Gold Hill Silver City, those towns collectively known as the Comstock Lode.

The mining developments at the Comstock Lode were critical to the rapid population rise in the area.

And so the Comstock Lode was literally this enormous vein of rich material coming out of the mountainside.

This gold mine proved to be both rich and risky.

Early mining in the Comstock was a dangerous endeavor.

Within the first year or two of underground mining at the Comstock, they started to experience major collapses in the mines because the rock itself was not strong enough.

So the answer to that square set timbering, square set timbering is like a set of Legos.

What they did is they had little notches on the end so that all of these timbers would fit together and, and

that would enable you to hold up these chambers in the rock even as they grew to be really tremendous size.

The timbers were generally about the size that a person could stand in what started here on the Comstock Square set, timbering became, across the American west, the standard way of supporting roofs in underground mines.

And so it's a story not only of invention, but also of innovation.

But almost as quickly as technology built up these mining towns, they also depleted them.

Once the mines ran out of gold and silver, many of these towns were abandoned, becoming ghost towns.

We went with Tammy to visit one of these ghost towns, Sutro, home to the Sutro Tunnel.

We're going to cut up and around so you can see Sutro up on the right hand side.

When I decided to visit every ghost town, Sutro was one that I thought I would never make.

Like square set timbering, the infrastructure of the Sutro tunnels changed the mining industry in Nevada.

This was because the deeper you dug into the earth, the hotter the water would get.

The tunnel allowed the mines to get water in and out of the Comstock load and also gave miners an alternative escape path in case of mining disasters.

But once the Comstock mines were depleted, places like Sutro also became ghost towns.

Today, it's being revitalized to bring historical tourism into the area.

After a visit to Sutro, Tammy sent us back on the road with a map of Nevada and some coordinates to an unmarked ghost town.

One of my favorite ghost towns is Tunnel Camp.

So I think we finally found this ghost town.

This is the one that Tammy had recommended we check out.

I mean, you can't even find this on Google Maps.

Despite the lack of phone service and a few wrong turns, we made it to the coordinates that Tammy gave us.

You can see remnants of an ore mill where gold and silver were likely processed.

You can see some of the one bedroom cabins and other abandoned buildings.

Hundreds of ghost towns like Tunnel Camp are scattered throughout the state.

But there is still one more town we needed to see.

A place that some might argue was never truly abandoned.

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Why Nevada has so many ghost towns

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