Tonopah, Nevada: Where Modernity Meets History Including A Ghost

Travel Adventure

Some Australians think America is a concrete jungle, and gunfire is constantly reverberating through the cities. While it’s true America has more gun violence, I must say in all my travels in the U.S.A. and while living there, I have not heard so much as a pop gun. In fact, America has large tracts of desolate land despite the many large cities.

We drove from Reno, Nevada, to Las Vegas a few years ago. Other than these two cities, Nevada looks pretty desolate, with its desert landscape as stark as anything in Australia. However, roughly halfway between Reno and Vegas sits the town of Tonopah.

As we approached Tonopah from the north, far in the distance, we could make out a very tall tower, looking very much out of place. It gradually grew more prominent as we approached the town. We discovered the tower was part of the new solar project called Crescent Dunes, purported to be the largest solar power plant in the world.

We took the 15-mile drive to the plant and drove alongside the complex. There was a security entrance, so we could only view it from the road. The tower stands over 500 feet high and contains molten salt heated by 17,000 mirrors surrounding it. The unique thing about this technology is that the heated molten salt stores the heat and generates steam when needed, which drives a turbine to make electricity. It produces enough electricity for 75,000 homes in Las Vegas. However, the plant has been offline as much as it has been working due to technical difficulties.

The Town of Tonopah hit the jackpot in the early 1900s with the discovery of gold and silver. It was typical of mining boom towns in the late 1800s and early 20th century. The Mizpah mine became the largest in the state, and the Mizpah Hotel, built in 1907, became the tallest building in Nevada at the time. The name Mizpah came from the Hebrew Genesis, meaning to reconnect.

As remote as the place is, the hotel has a renowned history. In 1913, the future world heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Dempsey, worked as a labourer in the silver mines and was a bouncer at the hotel. Wyatt Earp stayed at the hotel in its early days. Billionaire and entrepreneur Howard Hughes secretly married actress Jean Peters there in the 1940s. Also, Chuck Yeager, a test pilot who was the first to break the sound barrier, stayed there in 1943.

So, is it true that the hotel is haunted? People claim several ghosts reside in the hotel, most famously the "Lady in Red". She was a prostitute who was at the hotel in the 1920s and was murdered by one of her male friends who was staying in room 502 because he was extremely jealous of her other partners. It took place on the fifth floor, which looks quite ominous when you go there. Is that an apparition at the end of the hallway? Oops, sorry, it's my wife.

Since the murder, people say the lady's spirit makes itself known by rattling the chandeliers, squeaking the floorboards, or knocking on doors. We had a strange experience the night we stayed there; we woke up from sleep at 12:30 am with a knock on our door. I turned on the light, looked through the keyhole, and saw no one. I then gently opened the door and looked up and down the hallway, but I could see no one. So, who knows what the knock was about? Was it someone playing a prank, or was it an actual ghost? It did give us some chills up and down the spine. It was a talking point the following day when we checked out, and the manager at the reception merely gave us a "Who knows?"

The hotel has undergone several renovations, the most recent in 2011 when the Clines––a couple who own vineyards in the Napa Valley––purchased it. They spent much money restoring the hotel to its glory days. We did enjoy our time in this little gem of outback Nevada, including our "ghostly" visitor in the middle of the night.