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Rhyolite is a ghost town in Nye County, Nevada, United States.

It is in the Bullfrog Hills, about 120 miles (190 km) northwest of Las Vegas, near the eastern boundary of Death Valley National Park. The town began in early 1905 as one of several mining camps that sprang up after a prospecting discovery in the surrounding hills. During an ensuing gold rush, thousands of gold-seekers, developers, miners and service providers flocked to the Bullfrog Mining District. Many settled in Rhyolite, which lay in a sheltered desert basin near the region's biggest producer, the Montgomery-Shoshone Mine. Schwab bought the Montgomery-Shoshone Mine in 1906 and invested heavily in infrastructure, including piped water, electric lines and railroad transportation, that served the town as well as the mine. By 1907, Rhyolite had electric lights, water mains, telephones, newspapers, a hospital, a school, an opera house, and a stock exchange. Published estimates of the town's peak population vary widely, but scholarly sources generally place it in a range between 3,500 and 5,000 in 1907–08. Rhyolite declined almost as rapidly as it rose. After 1920, Rhyolite and its ruins became a tourist attraction and a setting for motion pictures. From 1988 to 1998, three companies operated a profitable open-pit mine at the base of Ladd Mountain, about 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Rhyolite.

McCracken in A History of Beatty, Nevada, Harris said during a 1930 interview for Westways magazine, "The rock was green, almost like turquoise, spotted with big chunks of yellow metal, and looked a lot like the back of a frog." The Bullfrog Mining District, the Bullfrog Hills, the town of Bullfrog, and other geographical entities in the region took their name from the Bullfrog Mine. "Bullfrog" became so popular that Giant Bullfrog, Bullfrog Merger, Bullfrog Apex, Bullfrog Annex, Bullfrog Gold Dollar, Bullfrog Mogul, and most of the district's other 200 or so mining companies included "Bullfrog" in their names.

Rhyolite is at the northern end of the Amargosa Desert in Nye County in the U.S. state of Nevada. To the west, roughly 5 miles (8.0 km) from Rhyolite, the Funeral and Grapevine Mountains of the Amargosa Range rise between the Amargosa Desert in Nevada and Death Valley in California. State Route 374, passing about 0.75 miles (1.21 km) south of Rhyolite, links Beatty to Death Valley via Daylight Pass. Rhyolite is about 25 miles (40 km) west of Yucca Mountain and the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, which is adjacent to the Nevada Test Site. Prior to its demise, the rival town of Bullfrog lay about 0.75 miles (1.21 km) southwest of Rhyolite, and the Montgomery-Shoshone Mine was on the north side of Montgomery Mountain, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) northeast of Rhyolite.

On August 9, 1904, Cross and Harris found gold on the south side of a southwestern Nevada hill later called Bullfrog Mountain. He had water piped in, paid to have an electric line run 100 miles (160 km) from a hydroelectric plant at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range to Rhyolite, and contracted with the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad to run a spur line to the mine. Patera in Rhyolite: The Boom Years states published estimates of the peak population have been "as high as 6,000 or 8,000, but the town itself never claimed more than 3,500 through its newspapers". The newspapers estimated that 6,000 people lived in the Bullfrog mining district, which included the towns of Rhyolite, Bullfrog, Gold Center, and Beatty as well as camps at the major mines.

A company known as Bond Gold built an open-pit mine and mill at the site, about 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Rhyolite along State Route 374.

"Preliminary Account of Goldfield, Bullfrog and Other Mining Districts in Southern Nevada".

Quick Facts

• By 1907, Rhyolite had electric lights, water mains, telephones, newspapers, a hospital, a school, an opera house, and a stock exchange.
• It is in the Bullfrog Hills, about 120 miles (190 km) northwest of Las Vegas, near the eastern boundary of Death Valley National Park.
• Prior to its demise, the rival town of Bullfrog lay about 0.75 miles (1.21 km) southwest of Rhyolite, and the Montgomery-Shoshone Mine was on the north side of Montgomery Mountain, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) northeast of Rhyolite.
• To the west, roughly 5 miles (8.0 km) from Rhyolite, the Funeral and Grapevine Mountains of the Amargosa Range rise between the Amargosa Desert in Nevada and Death Valley in California.
• Schwab bought the Montgomery-Shoshone Mine in 1906 and invested heavily in infrastructure, including piped water, electric lines and railroad transportation, that served the town as well as the mine.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Rhyolite, Nevada". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.