Tonopah, NV reflections (#1131)

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