Rhyolite Ghost town

Description: Like so many settlements, Rhyolite was established after a gold discovery in 1904. By 1910, over 10000 people lived in the small town. Amenities included three railroads, a telegraph station, an electric power plant, three newspapers, 50 gold mines, an opera house, three hospitals, a public swimming pool, 19 hotels, 18 drugstores, and no less than 53 saloons. After the gold mines were exhausted in 1914, the people disappeared from the area as quickly as they had arrived, and the town gradually became a ghost town. Today, Rhyolite is a historic landmark and open-air museum maintained by the Rhyolite Preservation Society. The mostly wooden buildings are no longer there, but a few remains of the stone-built houses, such as the bank or the jail, are still partially preserved. One of the architectural sights is the Bottle House. It was built in 1906 from about 50,000 bottles - most of which were discarded bottles from the neighboring saloon.

Our rating: For me, Rhyolite was once again one of those places of which you have very different ideas before the visit. From the photos I had seen I actually thought that except for a few art installations is nothing more to see. On site, however, a completely different picture emerged, because there is still so much to explore. We found it totally interesting to drive over the remaining streets and to learn the history of the remaining ruins on the informative panels. In such places, you always wonder what stories the buildings would have to tell.