Visit Rhyolite Ghost Town

I love a good ghost town. I biked through a few while cycling across America on some rarely traveled roads in the northwest US.

I am always interested in how towns fail and curious what the last person to leave thought as they loaded up their belongings and left an empty town.

General stores, saloons, banks, brothels, all left empty.

There are several ghost towns in and around Death Valley. We only got to visit one, Rhyolite.

Rhyolite boasted the largest population of the ghost towns with about 10,000 residents at its population peak. Charles Schwab was even a major investor in the town. No matter, as they all walked away.

Like many ghost towns, gold and the lack thereof were responsible for the town’s rise and fall. The town sprang into existence in 1905 with the discovery of gold. About 1920, the population was zero once the mines stopped producing.

Over the decades since the town’s demise, tourists have visited the Ghost town and many movies have been filmed there.

Also, a strange open air museum has been created on adjoining property, giving ‘ghost town’ a little different meaning.

Here are our photos of Rhyolite and the Goldwell Open Air Museum.