Nevada is home to more than 600 ghost towns — more abandoned communities than living ones. The silver and gold booms of the 1860s through the early 1900s built hundreds of mining camps across the desert, and when the ore ran out, people walked away from entire towns in a matter of weeks.
But Nevada’s abandoned story is not just mining camps. One town on this list was drowned by a reservoir. Another was built on an agricultural dream the desert never agreed to. A couple are living towns where the dead half and the living half overlap. Some sites are preserved parks with interpretive signs; others are foundations and silence at the end of a dirt road. All of them are worth your miles.
What makes Nevada different from other Western states is how well these sites survived. The dry climate preserved wooden buildings, machinery, and artifacts that would have rotted away anywhere else. Some became tourist attractions with gift shops and entry fees. Others remain exactly as miners left them, at the end of dirt roads that demand high clearance and a sense of adventure.
We spent a full episode on Nevada’s ghost town country — Ep. 103: Nevada’s 600 Ghost Towns — and several of the towns below came up in that conversation. Consider this the field guide to go with it.
The 18 below run north to south, from fully preserved parks to foundations-only ruins. Every access note here was verified — but desert roads change with the weather, so check conditions before you commit to the remote ones.
Northern Nevada
1. Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park
The rare ghost town that gives you two wonders for one drive: a superbly preserved mining camp and the largest known ichthyosaur fossils in North America, in the same remote park.
Berlin was laid out in 1897 after the Nevada Company bought the local mine. Over its lifetime, the Berlin Mine’s three miles of tunnels produced an estimated $849,000 in gold and silver — back when gold was $20 an ounce. The Panic of 1907 gutted the operation, a brief revival fizzled, and the town had died by 1911. Workers simply left; the preservation was accidental, not intentional, which is why it feels so honest.
Today you get the 30-stamp mill (one of the finest examples in the state), homes, the assay office, the machine shop, and the Fossil House with Nevada’s state fossil. It’s a state park, so expect a day-use fee and standard park hours. The Diana Mine offers seasonal tours.
Source: Nevada State Parks – Berlin history
2. Unionville
Founded in 1861 in Buena Vista Canyon, Unionville boomed from 1863 to 1870 with up to 1,500 residents — and it has a literary claim no other Nevada ghost town can touch. Samuel Clemens arrived in 1862 to prospect for silver, described the place in Roughing It as “eleven cabins and a liberty-pole,” stayed about three weeks, and left disappointed. A cabin on the site is identified locally as Twain’s, though the specific identification rests partly on tradition.
When the rich ore ran out and the railroad chose Winnemucca instead, Unionville faded. Today it’s a living ghost town of about two dozen residents, with a one-room schoolhouse, the cemetery, old mills, and no formal preservation effort — just the real thing, down a gravel road about an hour from services.
One correction worth making: Unionville was the original county seat of Humboldt County, but the county lines moved — it sits in Pershing County today.
Source: Travel Nevada on Mark Twain’s Nevada
3. Metropolis
Metropolis is one of the strangest abandoned places in the state because it was built on an agricultural dream, not a mining strike. In northeastern Nevada, developers imagined a thriving farming community in terrain that was always going to fight back. Water problems and economic reality did the rest. Today the most striking remnant is the old schoolhouse, standing lonely in open country. It feels less like a ghost town and more like a failed argument with the land. If mining ruins are Nevada’s usual abandoned story, Metropolis offers a rarer one.
Central Nevada
4. Belmont
Silver was discovered here in 1865, and Belmont became the Nye County seat from 1867 to 1905 — until Tonopah stole both the ore and the courthouse’s job. The 1876 Italianate courthouse still stands, partially restored and open to the public, maintained by the nonprofit Friends of the Belmont Courthouse. Around it: the Cosmopolitan Saloon, the Monitor-Belmont Mill, and the still-operating Dirty Dick’s Belmont Saloon, which is reason enough to make the drive.
About ten residents remain. Access is straightforward — paved highway most of the way via US 6 and NV-376 — making Belmont one of the easiest genuine ghost towns to visit.
Source: Travel Nevada – Belmont Courthouse
5. Hamilton
The cautionary tale. Organized in 1868 during the White Pine Fever silver rush, Hamilton hit 10,000–12,000 residents by the summer of 1869 and became White Pine County’s first county seat. Then the shallow ore veins pinched out — the underlying killer — and a fire on June 27, 1873 destroyed the business district. Most burned businesses were never rebuilt. The county seat moved to Ely in 1887; the post office closed in 1931.
Today Hamilton is mostly rubble, stone walls, foundations, and mining equipment on public land, nine miles off US 50 west of Ely. Manage expectations: this one is for ruin-readers, not building-tourists.
Eastern Nevada
6. Pioche
Pioche is still an active town in eastern Nevada, yet it carries some of the darkest frontier energy in the state. The story goes that 72 men were buried in Pioche’s Boot Hill Cemetery before a single person died of natural causes — a legend the town has never been in a hurry to correct. The abandoned and near-abandoned structures around Pioche, including old mining remnants and the ore-bin tramway still hanging over the cemetery, matter because they are tied to a town that was never gentle. This is a place where the history is not quaint. It is sharp-edged, unstable, and still visible if you know where to look.
7. Cherry Creek
Cherry Creek, northeast of Ely, feels like the kind of place you almost convince yourself you imagined after you leave. Founded in the 1870s, it cycled through mining fortunes, fires, and long decline. What remains is scattered but compelling — weathered buildings, old foundations, cemetery traces, and the heavy quiet that good ghost towns require. This is not one of Nevada’s most polished stops, and that is part of the pull. Cherry Creek asks for a little patience and imagination.
8. Delamar
Delamar, often called the “widowmaker,” carries one of the grimmer backstories in Nevada. The gold was rich, but the rock was loaded with silica dust, and miners died in large numbers from what they breathed underground. Located in Lincoln County, Delamar was once a major gold producer; now the surviving foundations, cemetery, and scattered remnants sit under an almost oppressive stillness. Delamar is not the easiest or most immediately legible site for casual travelers. But if dark history matters to you, this place has gravity. The human cost lingers more than the architecture.
Western Nevada
9. Aurora
The border dispute. Gold and silver were discovered in August 1860, and by mid-1862 Aurora held 5,000–10,000 residents — the second-largest city in Nevada after Virginia City, having served as county seat of both Mono County, California and Esmeralda County, Nevada in 1861 before a land survey settled it in Nevada’s favor. Some $27–29 million in ore came out before the veins gave up by the end of the 1860s. (Mark Twain worked here too, briefly, at a stamp mill for $10 a week.)
Today nearly all buildings are gone — WWII brick recycling and 1970s vandalism finished what abandonment started. The historic cemetery is the best-preserved feature. Access is via SR 359 from Hawthorne then dirt over Lucky Boy Pass; 4WD is the safe recommendation, and there’s an active mining operation nearby — respect all posted signs.
Source: Travel Nevada – Aurora
10. Como
The honest one. Founded 1863 in the Palmyra gold district, Como was briefly the first county seat of Lyon County, peaked around 700 residents with a hotel and its own newspaper — then the mines proved unfruitful and a contemporary account called it “almost entirely deserted.” The last resident died in a cabin fire in 1874.
What remains: rock walls, stone foundations, cellars. No standing buildings. The 11-mile dirt road from Dayton is extremely rocky — high-clearance 4WD only, impassable when wet. Come for the history and the solitude, not for photo-ready ruins.
11. Wonder
Even the name feels like Nevada fiction. Wonder, southwest of Fallon, was another early-20th-century mining town that flashed bright and burned out. Little remains compared with the larger ghost towns, but it still has that essential Nevada quality — evidence of massive expectation followed by total retreat. This is a good stop for travelers already moving through western Nevada rather than a site that always justifies a standalone trip. Worth saying plainly: some abandoned places are destination anchors, others are excellent texture on a larger route. Wonder is the second kind, and there is no shame in that.
12. Candelaria
Candelaria, in Mineral County, rewards travelers who already understand the genre. You are not coming for a tidy preserved downtown. You are coming for scale, isolation, and the remains of a place that once mattered to mining investors and workers trying to carve out a future in brutal country. What survives is sparse, but the setting does heavy lifting. Candelaria makes sense for travelers who prefer lonely roads and incomplete stories.
Southern Nevada
13. Rhyolite
The most photogenic ruin in the state. High-grade gold ore was found here in 1905, and by 1907–08 Rhyolite had some 5,000 residents, electric lights, water mains, a stock exchange, and 50 saloons. The Panic of 1907 started the end; the mine and mill closed in 1911, the power was shut off in 1916, and 14 people were left by 1920.
What stands today: the skeletal walls of the three-story Cook Bank Building, Tom Kelly’s famous Bottle House (restored by Paramount Pictures in 1925), the railroad depot, and the old jail. It’s four miles west of Beatty on NV-374, paved all the way, free to visit, on a mix of federal and private land.
Source: NPS – Rhyolite Ghost Town
14. Goldfield
Goldfield is not fully abandoned, and that is exactly why it belongs here. It is one of those Nevada places where the living town and the dead one overlap. Once the largest city in Nevada during the gold rush years, it still has people, businesses, and enough surviving history to make the whole place feel haunted by its own former scale. Come for the Goldfield Hotel, the old school, and the battered downtown bones that suggest money once moved fast here. This is less about isolated ruins and more about a community that never completely escaped its boomtown mythology.
15. Gold Point
The ghost town you can sleep in. This Esmeralda County camp — called Hornsilver until it was renamed in 1932 — dwindled after World War II and might have vanished entirely if Herb Robbins and Walt Kremin hadn’t started buying and restoring buildings in the 1970s.
Today Gold Point is private property (the Robbins family), open to respectful visitors, with original miner’s cabins available as a B&B — breakfast and a town and mine tour included. There’s a restored main street, a saloon, and a 1909 Brunswick pool table. It’s about 30 miles south of Goldfield; the last stretch is dirt, so call ahead, especially in winter.
16. Nelson (Eldorado Canyon)
The easiest ghost town on this list to reach from Las Vegas — about 45 minutes southeast — and the most access-constrained. The Techatticup Mine, established 1861, was the oldest, richest, and most famous gold mine in southern Nevada, and the canyon camp around it was famously lawless in its early years.
Nelson is private property; the owners live on-site. You check in at the general store (small walk-around fee), stay within posted hours, and can take guided Techatticup Mine tours. The vintage car collection, antique shops, and film-shoot history (it’s appeared in movies, TV, and music videos) make it feel like a set — because half the time, it is one.
17. Goodsprings
More living community than pure ghost town, but essential. The mining district dates to 1856, with the big boom in 1910–11. The Pioneer Saloon, built in 1913, still operates — the oldest bar in southern Nevada, with the bullet holes from a 1915 card-game killing still visible, Clark Gable’s 1942 vigil after Carole Lombard’s plane crash in its history, and live music on weekends.
The 1913 schoolhouse is on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s 35 miles southwest of Las Vegas on paved roads via NV-161 — the lowest-effort, highest-reward stop on this list.
Source: Travel Nevada – Pioneer Saloon
18. St. Thomas
St. Thomas is abandoned in a way only Nevada can manage. It was not just deserted — it was drowned. When Lake Mead filled behind Hoover Dam, the town disappeared under the reservoir; in low-water years, its foundations, streets, and fragments reappear like a memory the state cannot quite keep buried. Because visibility depends on lake levels and access conditions, this is the most variable stop on the list. Check current conditions with the National Park Service before building a trip around it. When it is visible, though, St. Thomas feels less like a ghost town and more like a resurrection.
Before You Go
A few ground rules that apply to all 18: never remove artifacts, don’t climb on masonry, and don’t geotag fragile sites for engagement — vandalism follows coordinates. Check in where required (Nelson, Gold Point), respect closures, and carry more water and fuel than you think you need. The remote ones — Berlin, Como, Aurora, Hamilton, Delamar, Candelaria — punish the unprepared.
And if this list whets your appetite, the deeper cut is Ep. 103: Nevada’s 600 Ghost Towns, where Rhyolite, Goodsprings, Berlin, and Hamilton all came up.