Gold Butte Ghost Town

​Visiting old ghost towns certainly is a tradition out west. A few are easy to access near paved roads, but most ghost town locations are very remote and a high ground clearance vehicle will be required to get there. The old historic Gold Butte mining camp is located next door to Las Vegas, but a visitor must take the long way around Lake Mead and traverse the entire Gold Butte National Back Country Byway to get there. This scenic byway is a rough dirt road from start to finish, but since Gold Butte Road literally goes to the front door of the ghost town, navigating the trek will not be a problem.

The Gold Butte region has always been an important hunting and gathering spot for local native people, so this landscape is not as lifeless as it initially may appear to be. This barren desert landscape does have all the elements to support human life, but knowing where to find water in this region does require some skill. There are promising pockets of ore bearing material in this mountainous region. The thought of riches beyond belief attracted nearly a thousand eager prospectors who established the Gold Butte mining camp during the same time period that the Boulder Dam was being constructed. 

Gold Butte actually was a tent city back in its heyday. Only a few concrete slabs were poured for buildings and the old slabs still exist. As it turned out, the gold bearing ore was not rich enough to bother with. Some of the overzealous prospectors set out to bilk investors, but this old west mining camp funding scheme was thoroughly worn out after the Great Depression and there were few takers. Rumors of Boulder Dam worker bootlegging operations are also interwoven into the brief history of Gold Butte. This little community was doomed from the start, but the residents did make a go of it for several years. 

All that is left of Gold Butte is some old rusty mining equipment, a truck bed, a few water tanks and the concrete slabs. Rusty old mattress bed springs lie in state along with the remnants of ore processing equipment from the gold rush days. Soon after Gold Butte was abandoned, local ranchers took over this area and the antique barbed wire fencing and wooden corral cattle chutes still remain. An old shade tree is the only living thing that survived in this ghost town, which is a welcome sight in this sun scorched barren desert.

Gold Butte Ghost Town certainly is located in a very remote spot and the dead silence of the desert does create an eerie feeling when gazing upon this abandoned mining camp. Every so often a gust of wind causes a rusty piece of metal to creak and this adds to the otherworldly effect. Gold Butte is an interesting place to visit and doing an overnight campout near this ghost town certainly can provide more insight into the daily life of the prospectors that once lived here. 

Wildlife abounds in Gold Butte, but a visitor has to be alert to catch a glimpse of the animals that hide around the fringes of this ghost town. The wildlife is well adapted to this region, so the animals tend to be naturally camouflaged and they blend in. The gray color jack rabbits sit motionless in the shade of sage brush, so they are not easy to spot. Birds of prey observe visitors from the mountain bluffs, with the hopes of seeing small game flushed out of hiding. Ravens taunt visitors as usual with their mocking caws from distant perches.  

Even the local snakes are difficult to see in Gold Butte, because their skin has taken on the same color tone as the reddish pink color dirt. As can be seen in the photos above, the Coachwhip Snake that I spotted had a unique reddish orange striped coloration that blends in with the local red rock terrain. Coachwhips are fast moving non-poisonous snakes that hunt mice and other bothersome creatures, so they are good to have around a mining camp. Coachwhips often raise their head high above the ground to take a look around for food or threats and this behavior does present good photo opportunities. 

Spending the afternoon at Gold Butte Ghost Town will provide some insight into old Nevada before Las Vegas became a big city. The eerie feeling that occurs when standing in the dead silence of the desert is amplified when visiting this old abandoned mining camp, which is difficult to put into words. A very lengthy drive over a bumpy rough dirt road is required get to Gold Butte Ghost Town, but the journey’s end certainly is rewarding for those who yearn to learn from the past.