Rhyolite Ghost Town

Death Valley National Park


Just outside the Death Valley eastern park boundary (about 35 miles from Furnace Creek), Rhyolite epitomizes the hurly-burly, boom-and-bust story of Western gold-rush mining towns in the early 1900s; it had 8000 residents during its peak years between 1904 and 1916. Among the skeletal remains of houses, highlights are the Spanish Mission–style train station, a three-story bank building and a house made of 50,000 beer bottles.