Rhyolite Historic Mining Ghost Town

Prior to venturing into Death Valley National Park, we explored Beatty and Rhyolite, which were small towns in Nevada, just outside the national park area. The environment in this region made you feel as if you’d stepped back in time. In Beatty, we had breakfast at Mel’s Diner, a charming restaurant with an interior design that was wildly colorful—busy with floor patterns, knick-knacks, photos and posters. It felt like a playful, unsophisticated version of a Las Vegas casino. The best part was that waiting for your meal didn’t feel like a big deal. You could easily get absorbed in the wall hangings of celebrities —from Marilyn Monroe and Elvis to The Beatles. There were also several framed black-and-white images of the town’s historic sites, complete with captions. This diner was certainly a work of art in and of itself.

Watching the sunrise from Rhyolite ghost town was a beautiful way to start off the day. This barren place felt refreshing—a stark contrast to Las Vegas just days earlier. If you are a historic relics buff, then this 1900s mining camp is right up your alley. It features dilapidated buildings like the John S. Cook & Co. Bank and Rhyolite Casino. Nearby stood Tom Kelly’s Bottle House, which the miner Kelly built from 50,000 discarded beer and liquor bottles. He came here in search of gold and lived in the three-roomed home until his 80s, eventually raffling it off.

Within walking distance of the Rhyolite historic townsite was the Goldwell Open Air Museum, an outdoor sculpture park. Among the works on display were The Last Supper by Albert Szukalski, an interpretation of Leonardo Da Vinci’s fresco, and Lady Desert: The Venus of Nevada by Dr.Hugo Heyrman, which looked as if it were built from Lego bricks.