Aurora townsite

Looking south. Not much left! Mineral County, Nevada, USA.
Aurora was a gold-silver camp first active in the 1860s, and intermittently thereafter up to the 1930s or so. A major gold mine is operating a couple of miles east of the townsite even now.
At the time the camp was founded, the position of the Nevada-California state line hadn't been surveyed, and since Aurora was thought to lie in California, it became the county seat of Mono County in 1861. Nevada territory also claimed the town, however, and later that year Aurora became the count seat of Esmeralda County in Nevada. (Mineral County, where Aurora now lies, was split off Esmeralda County later.) Finally a Federal survey in 1863 determined the town lies in Nevada. This seems to have been a unique historical case, that the same town was simultaneously the seat of two different counties in two different states. Of course, during the time of the uncertain location Aurorans were happy to vote in both Nevada and California elections!
Most of Aurora's buildings were torn down for used brick after WW II. Apparently they _were_ bought and paid for, but the loss of the history is still unfortunate. The buildings were largely constructed from locally fired bricks. This is why Aurora is so much more poorly preserved than Bodie, where construction was largely from wood.
EDIT: I misremembered the tale relating to the placement of Aurora and the voting informalities! Fixed now--sorry about that.