The Esmeralda Hotel, found in Aurora, Nevada, was named for the county in which it resided

(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, P0126, 1-01.)

Gravestone in Aurora, Nevada, illustrating the violence in young boomtowns

(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, P0126, 1-04.)

A hearse taking killed miners to their final resting place

(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, P0126, 1-03.)

Picture of one of the Aurora, Nevada, saloons. Saloons were the center of most towns.

(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, P0126, 1-02.)

Supply trains like these brought in all the supplies needed to build towns like Aurora and Rhyolite

(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, P0126, 1-11.)

Shorty Harris (on the right), the man who claimed discovery of the ore at Rhyolite, and an associate eating at the side of the road

(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, P0126, 1-10.)

A long-distance view of the Death Valley area

(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, P0126, 1-09.)

A house in Rhyolite built with about 30,000 champagne and beer bottles. Building supplies were scarce; bottles from saloons were everywhere.

(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, P0126, 1-08.)

Each boomtown fought for a railroad line to come to their town in order to support the mine and quicken the shipping time

(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, P0126, 1-07.)

A view of Rhyolite ten years after the mine began running out of ore

(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, P0126, 1-06.)

The town fading back into the desert

(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, P0126, 1-05.)

The train depot in present-day Rhyolite

The bare bones of a building

The emptiness of Rhyolite

The desert with some Rhyolite remains

The bond high school built with such high hopes that were never realized

All that’s left of the Rhyolite Mercantile are boards, inside and out

People came in a hurry and left in a hurry. This picture shows a model of main street made from items that were left behind

A road to nowhere. With the death of the town brought death of state infrastructure in that area.

The Bottle House rebuilt for a movie filmed in this ghost town

Front view of the Rhyolite Bottle House

How to build a house with bottles and cement