Ghost towns near Las Vegas. Close, far and farther.

Nevada has more than 600 ghost towns, more than it has living cities. These are the ones in reach of Las Vegas and Pahrump, nearest to the Strip first.

• Goodsprings: 37 miles from Las Vegas, 80 from Pahrump.
• Nelson & Eldorado Canyon: 44 miles from Las Vegas, 95 from Pahrump.
• Searchlight: 58 miles from Las Vegas, 109 from Pahrump.
• St. Thomas: 63 miles from Las Vegas, 127 from Pahrump.
• Death Valley Junction: 92 miles from Las Vegas, 29 from Pahrump.
• Rhyolite: 124 miles from Las Vegas, 81 from Pahrump.
• Goldfield: 184 miles from Las Vegas, 142 from Pahrump.
• Gold Point: 184 miles from Las Vegas, 142 from Pahrump.
• Lida: 189 miles from Las Vegas, 146 from Pahrump.
• Ballarat: 206 miles from Las Vegas, 138 from Pahrump.
• Silver Peak: 214 miles from Las Vegas, 172 from Pahrump.
• Randsburg, California: 219 miles from Las Vegas, 209 from Pahrump.
• Belmont: 256 miles from Las Vegas, 214 from Pahrump.

Distances and drive times are from a routing service, rounded.

Goodsprings

37 miles from Las Vegas, about 45 minutes. 80 miles from Pahrump. Cattleman Joseph Good watered his herd at the springs here. Mormon miners worked lead at nearby Potosi from 1856, which may make it the oldest underground mine in Nevada. The Yellow Pine railroad from Jean arrived in 1911, and by 1916 Goodsprings had 800 people. The district produced $25 million, mostly lead and zinc. About 200 people still live here, and kids still go to the 1913 schoolhouse.

The Pioneer Saloon opened in 1913 and is the oldest bar in southern Nevada: stamped-tin walls from Sears and Roebuck and a Brunswick bar that came from Rhyolite. In 1942 Clark Gable waited here for news after Carole Lombard’s plane hit Mt. Potosi. It serves burgers and barbecue every day, 11 AM to 8 PM Monday through Thursday and 9 AM to 9 PM Friday through Sunday. The town itself has no admission, and the road is paved.

Nelson & Eldorado Canyon

44 miles from Las Vegas, about an hour. 95 miles from Pahrump. Prospectors were digging for gold and silver in Eldorado Canyon by about 1859. The three big mines, the Techatticup, the Wall Street and the El Dorado Rand group, produced more than $6 million. Steamboats came up the Colorado to the mouth of the canyon, and the Army kept a post here from 1867 to 1869. The 1880s were lawless, and the mines ran on and off until World War II.

The townsite of Nelson, on State Highway 165, is privately owned now and looks like a movie set, because it has been one. The crashed jet from 3,000 Miles to Graceland is a prop. Visitors check in at the general store. The Techatticup Mine is seen by guided tour only: daily at 9 AM, noon and 2 PM with four or more adults and a reservation, $20 for adults and $12.50 for kids 5 to 12. The road in is paved.

Searchlight

58 miles from Las Vegas, about an hour and ten minutes. 109 miles from Pahrump. Gold turned up here on May 6, 1897, and the town took its name from the Searchlight Mine. The Quartette Mining Company produced almost half the district’s ore and ran a 16-mile narrow-gauge line down to its mill on the Colorado River. The Barnwell & Searchlight Railroad arrived in 1907; a washout on September 23, 1923, ended train service for good. Senator Harry Reid was born here.

The town’s story is told at the Searchlight Museum in the community center, 200 Michael Wendell Way: open Monday through Thursday, 8:30 AM to 2 PM, and Saturdays by appointment with the museum guild. Edith Head, the pilot John Macready and Scott Joplin’s “Searchlight Rag” all have a place in it.

St. Thomas

About 63 miles from Las Vegas, the last three on a dirt road. 127 miles from Pahrump. Mormon settlers founded St. Thomas in 1865 where the Muddy and Virgin rivers met. It grew to about 500 people and was a stop on the Arrowhead Trail between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. Then Hoover Dam went in. Lake Mead started filling in 1935, and on June 11, 1938, Hugh Lord rowed away from his house, the last resident to leave. At high water the town sat 60 feet under the lake.

With the lake down, the ruins are out of the water again, in the north end of Lake Mead National Recreation Area near the Overton Arm. Most vehicles can handle the three miles of sometimes bumpy dirt; low cars go slowly. A dirt trail leads from the parking area to the townsite.

Death Valley Junction

29 miles from Pahrump, about 45 minutes. 92 miles from Las Vegas. The Pacific Coast Borax Company built this U-shaped complex in 1923 for its company town: offices, a hotel, a store, a dormitory and a social hall. In 1967 dancer Marta Becket peeked into the empty social hall, Corkill Hall, and stayed. She painted an audience on the walls and performed there until her final show in February 2012. She died in 2017, at 92.

The Amargosa Opera House is on the National Register of Historic Places. Tours run daily at 9 AM and 6 PM, $20 for adults and $10 for children, paid at the front desk. The 23-room Amargosa Hotel and the Amargosa Café are part of the same building, at California 127 and State Line Road.

Rhyolite

81 miles from Pahrump, about an hour and forty minutes. 124 miles from Las Vegas. The most photographed ghost town in Nevada, four miles west of Beatty and 35 miles from the Furnace Creek Visitor Center. The Cook Bank Building, Tom Kelly’s bottle house of about 50,000 bottles, the train depot and the Goldwell Open Air Museum next door. Free, sunrise to sunset, day use only.

Everything on Rhyolite is in our Rhyolite ghost town guide. For the town next door, see Beatty, NV.

Ballarat

138 miles from Pahrump, about four hours. 206 miles from Las Vegas. Ballarat came to life in 1897 with gold strikes in the Panamint Mountains. The Radcliffe mine alone produced 15,000 tons of gold ore from 1898 to 1903, and the town, named for an Australian gold camp, had 400 people in 1898. Today it is privately owned, with the ruins of several adobe buildings, off the Panamint Valley road west of Death Valley proper.

Inside Death Valley

• Harrisburg: a 1905 tent city of 300. What is left is Pete Aguereberry’s home and Eureka mine, two miles down the road to Aguereberry Point.
• Chloride City: a 1905 Bullfrog-rush town that was a ghost town by 1906. Adits, dumps and the remains of three stamp mills, on a four-wheel-drive road 3.5 miles east of Hell’s Gate.
• Panamint City: 2,000 people in 1874, a flash flood in 1876. The smelter chimney still stands. It is a five-mile hike from Chris Wicht’s Camp, six miles northeast of Ballarat, and became part of Death Valley in October 1994.
• Skidoo: founded in 1906, 700 people and the only hanging in Death Valley. Nothing of the townsite remains, and the road off Wildrose is high clearance only.
• Greenwater: a 1905 copper town of 2,000 where water sold for $15 a barrel. No ruins are left.

For the rest of the valley, see our Death Valley guide.

Goldfield

142 miles from Pahrump, about two hours and forty minutes. 184 miles from Las Vegas. In 1906 the largest city in Nevada, with 20,000 people; today about 250 and still the Esmeralda County seat. The International Car Forest of the Last Church, the 1908 Goldfield Hotel (closed, no tours), the 1907 courthouse and the 1905 Santa Fe Saloon. Full guide: Goldfield, NV.

Gold Point

142 miles from Pahrump, about three hours. 184 miles from Las Vegas. Lime Point in 1868, Hornsilver in 1908, Gold Point in the early 1930s. About 50 buildings still stand on the main street, restored by owners who left the weathered outsides alone, plus a private saloon with a 1909 pool table. Full guide: Gold Point, Nevada.

Lida & Silver Peak

Lida: 146 miles from Pahrump, 189 from Las Vegas. Silver Peak: 172 from Pahrump, 214 from Las Vegas. Lida was laid out in 1872 and hung on until World War I. Silver Peak had mills by 1865, was abandoned by 1917 and burned in 1948; today it is home to the only producing lithium mine in the United States. Both are in our Gold Point guide.

Belmont

214 miles from Pahrump, about four hours and forty minutes. 256 miles from Las Vegas. A silver town at 7,400 feet, past Tonopah. Ore was found in 1865, and Belmont was the Nye County seat from 1867 to 1905. It had a Chinatown, a racetrack and a reputation for saloon brawls and hangings. By 1890 most of the mines had shut. The courthouse survives, with tours by appointment, and Dirty Dick’s Belmont Saloon still pours. From Manhattan it is 15 miles on a well-maintained dirt road. For the town on the way, see Tonopah, Nevada.

Randsburg

209 miles from Pahrump by CA 127 and I-15, and 219 miles from Las Vegas, each about three hours and twenty minutes by Google Maps. Singleton, Burcham and Mooers found the Yellow Aster mine in April 1895, and Randsburg grew up around it. Johannesburg followed in 1896. The district later turned up tungsten at Atolia in 1907 and silver at Red Mountain in 1919.

The town today, its museum and Old West Days are in our full guide: Randsburg, CA. Bringing a bike? Read Randsburg OHV first.

• Relics: removing, disturbing or damaging ghost town relics in Nevada is illegal.
• Private towns: Gold Point, Nelson and Ballarat are privately owned. Every building and every artifact in Gold Point belongs to someone.
• St. Thomas: do not climb on the foundations or disturb artifacts.
• Rhyolite: public land, free, day use only, no camping.