Don Barrett (aka DBs travels)'s photos

A surprising image of life in the mines, at the Nevada State Museum.

I was in Carson City to see an exhibit at the Nevada State Museum titled “Fueling the Boom: Chinese Woodcutters in the Great Basin 1870-1920.” Though a small exhibit consisting mainly of posters like this, it was fascinating. I had never heard of the role of Chinese woodcutters in creating the charcoal that fueled the gold and silver rush of the late 1800’s. Some of the Chinese that ended up being woodcutters had been recruited for working on the transcontinental railroad and stayed, while others were immigrants specifically recruited for supporting the mining camps. Due to strong anti-Chinese feelings, they were relegated to doing the sorts of work where they could be largely invisible to the rest of society – often living in very rudimentary housing in the mountain forests. The stories on the posters of their living conditions and perseverance were fascinating, as well as were the stories of their abilities to import some items from China to their camps and thus have some semblance of connection to their culture. nvculture.org/nevadastatemuseumcarsoncity/exhibits/fueling-the-boom-chinese-woodcutters-in-the-great-basin-1870-1920

What appears to be an abandoned mill, in Gold Hill. Gold Hill was a separate town immediately adjacent to Virginia City.

Why Virginia City prospered (originally) – mining. Like much of Nevada, the mining success was relatively short lived, though substantially longer here than in other towns visited on this trip – silver was discovered here in 1859 and the mines didn’t apparently start being depleted until 20 years later.

Heading south out of Virginia City, I believe the snow capped mountains towards the center of the picture are on the east side of Lake Tahoe in California.

An impressive structure that stood out – but with no apparent name or history.

Fortunately, I discovered that you could go one block up the hill, and get further in to at least see some of the historic buildings – though parking was impossible. This is the Storey County Courthouse, build in 1876.

I violated my normal principle of staying out of major tourist destinations, and went partially into Virginia City, NV to see what it was about. I quickly discovered that it was, in fact, a major tourist destination with all of those old buildings filled with shops, bars, and eating places catering to tourists. I decided to escape.

Though Nevada is often described as a purple state – a state with strong support for both Democrats and Republicans – the Democratic support is in the urban areas and the rural parts of the state tend to be more conservative (Republican). Where I took this photo was on the far fringes of the Reno/Carson City metropolitan area and was far enough out that I did not expect to see a sign for Bernie Sanders. Fort Churchill is in Lyon county, which went 67% for Trump.

No, the white spots aren’t dirt on the lens. With the storms in the area, the winds were fairly high and the cottonwood pods were everywhere. Taken just north of Yerington, NV on US-95.

Late May snow in the mountains on the east side of Walker Lake.

Walker Lake, just north of Hawthorne, NV. It is a natural lake, the ending point of the Walker River which is fed by snow melt from the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. Considering the heavy snows of this year in the Sierras, I expected the lake to be somewhat fuller than it has been in the past -- it was not noticeably higher, but it is difficult to make comparisons on such a large lake. Linked below is a photo of Walker Lake taken in 2014 from a point about 2 miles north. Walker Lake lost about 90% of its volume by the early 1900’s due to diversion of the Walker River for agriculture and increasing urban use. It continues to lose volume now, see the NASA link below: Walker Lake 2014: www.flickr.com/photos/donbrr/15232534532 NASA link: earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/91921/disappearing-walker-lake

Not a great picture because I couldn’t get the elevation needed to show the location, but this was a new addition to town. Technically it’s an RV park, which also has some manufactured homes for rent (you can see them in the background on the left side of the picture.) Though ‘RV park’ in many places means a place for travelers/tourists to park their RV for just a few days while in the area, this looked to be more like the RV parks I’ve seen in other parts of the country where people stay for many months while they are working on some extended contract. While it made sense for this to be built during the construction of the nearby very large solar field in 2014-15, it wasn’t clear what current economic activities would call for a large number of contract workers.

A Tesla charging station in Tonopah? A town seeming set culturally set decades back? It seemed odd to see this among the mix of abandoned and revived buildings from the 1920’s, in a town with little visible economy, but there it was. It makes sense, though, since this is roughly the halfway point between Reno and Las Vegas and most Tesla’s don’t hold enough charge for the full trip (440 miles). Per the article linked below, you can recharge your Tesla in an hour – just enough time to stretch your legs and have coffee. Unfortunately, for people like me (I have a plug-in hybrid) it doesn’t help since it is a proprietary system. Source: www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-travel-road-trips-tesla-nevada-electric-highway-20190520-story.html

Like Goldfield, 25 miles south (adjacent pictures), Tonopah started out as a mining town in the early 1900’s, grew very rapidly but then the ore ran out and within 20 years the town was close to dying. Tonopah, though, benefited much more by WWII and then the Cold War. Just east of Tonopah, the Tonopah Army Air Field was a major training ground during WWII and, a little further east, the Tonopah Test Range was a major part of the Nevada Test and Training Range, the huge nuclear and advanced weaponry range that extends across much of southern Nevada. However, over the years the activities of the Nevada testing area became more concentrated and the military/defense industry support for Tonopah diminished. When I first started visiting the Tonopah area in the early 2000’s, there seemed to be some residual economic impact from the military presence, but in later years that seemed to diminish and Tonopah was looking increasingly desperate. Fortunately, being the largest commercial area around the halfway point on the only road between Reno and Las Vegas, there was always some demand for fuel and accommodations. Just in the past few years, something seems to be happening for Tonopah resulting in increased revenue. Part of that success may be from a very large solar field constructed outside of town in 2014 (see solar link below), but considering the low manpower demand from a solar field once it is in operation, there must be something else that is resulting in growth. As a comparison, linked below is a photo of downtown Tonopah from 2006 showing the tall building on the right (the Belvada building), and the gray brick building adjacent to it, both looking empty and almost abandoned. As is evident from this picture, all of downtown was in much better shape on this most recent trip (also see adjacent Tonopah picture). Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonopah%2C_Nevada Solar field 2014: www.flickr.com/photos/donbrr/39416317250 Downtown 2006: www.flickr.com/photos/donbrr/3315244221

Not until researching for this did I find out that the Belvada building did not start out as a hotel (see the link below). The Belvada, vacant and ready to be demolished when I saw it in 2006, is now close to being brought back to life as a hotel by the same family that rescued the Mizpah (see the link) from oblivion. Downtown 2006: www.flickr.com/photos/donbrr/3315244221 Belvada: www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nevada/entrepreneur-with-roots-in-tonopah-restoring-historic-belvada-1510242 Mizpah: www.flickr.com/photos/donbrr/6713694655

Luckily when I first discovered Tonopah I also discovered the Tonopah Airport, the former Tonopah Army Air Field and subsequent Tonopah Air Force Base. What was most interesting to me was the remnants of a large military base that were still scattered around the large plot of land adjacent to the airport, and particularly the very large wooden hangars that were apparently built in the early 1940’s when the base was a training site for WWII bombing aviators. The picture here is a composite of a picture taken in 2008 (link below) and a picture taken on this trip. The collapsed hangar in the larger picture isn’t the same hangar as the one in the inset, but all three (four?) of the hangars remaining at the airfield were similar in construction, thus it represents a fair comparison. Considering the deterioration of the older hangars, I suspect that what destroyed the hangar in the larger picture was simply a windstorm. Though not depicted in this picture, I did notice some other changes around the Tonopah airport. When I had visited the airport in previous years, the existence of various industrial sites around much of the abandoned sections of the airport suggested that there was an effort to create an industrial park there. On this visit, it seemed that all of those industrial efforts had been removed. 2008 hangar: www.flickr.com/photos/donbrr/3138033248 Tonopah Air Force Base: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonopah_Air_Force_Base

In the center of Goldfield, the office of the Esmeralda county Yucca Mountain (nuclear waste) Repository Oversight Program. I was surprised to see this office since the plans to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain (66 miles southeast) had been abandoned during the Obama administration. It turns out the Trump administration has restarted consideration of Yucca Mountain for storing nuclear waste. However, as per Trump’s usual style of governing, Trump himself is sending confusing signals to the people of Nevada. The Wikipedia entry on this issue appears to be fairly comprehensive and up-to-date: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository