Beatty: Gateway to the Valley of Death
Near Beatty, Nevada
Beatty, Nevada, sits in the Amargosa Desert at the northern gateway to Death Valley National Park, the lowest and hottest place in North America. The town was established around nineteen oh five when the Bullfrog Mining District to the southwest was booming and competing railroads were racing to connect the new strike to the outside world. The Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad and the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad both served the area in the boom years.
The mines played out within a decade, and Beatty contracted to a population of fewer than a thousand. It has survived as a service town for Death Valley visitors, a role reinforced when the park's highway opened in the nineteen twenties. The surrounding desert looks barren but contains Oasis Valley along the Amargosa River, the habitat of the critically endangered Amargosa toad, found nowhere else on earth.
