Three Railroads in Three Years

When gold is found in a remote desert, railroads follow, and they follow fast. The strike in the Bullfrog Hills in nineteen oh four was remote enough that for the first year, all freight to and from the mines moved on the backs of horses and mules, a slow and expensive arrangement. An estimated fifteen hundred horses and mules were engaged in hauling ore, supplies, and equipment across the desert by the middle of nineteen oh five.

Then came the railroads, and then came three of them in quick succession. The Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad arrived in Beatty on October twenty-second, nineteen oh six. The Bullfrog Goldfield Railroad followed on April twenty-fifth, nineteen oh seven. The Tonopah and Tidewater line reached Beatty in October of the same year. Three competing railroads in a town that had not existed three years earlier.

The railroads transformed Beatty's role in the region. It was already the supply center for the Bullfrog Mining District, positioned at the river crossing below the mines. With three rail connections, it became a transit hub as well. Goods came in, ore went out, and passengers moved in both directions in numbers the desert had never seen.

The gold did not last. When the mines played out and the neighboring city of Rhyolite emptied out, the railroads followed. The Las Vegas and Tonopah line ceased operations in nineteen eighteen. The Bullfrog Goldfield line ended in nineteen twenty-eight. The Tonopah and Tidewater ran until nineteen forty. One by one, they were gone.