Beatty

History

Before the arrival of non-indigenous explorers, prospectors, and settlers, Western Shoshone in the Beatty area hunted game and gathered wild plants in the region. It is estimated that the 19th-century population density of the Indians near Beatty was one person per . By the middle of the century, European diseases had greatly reduced the Indian population, and incursions by newcomers had disrupted the native traditions. In about 1875, the Shoshone had six camps, with a total population of 29, along the Amargosa River near Beatty. Some of the survivors and their descendants continued to live in or near Beatty, while others moved to reservations at Walker Lake, Reese River, Duckwater, or elsewhere. Beatty is named after "Old Man" Montillus (Montillion) Murray Beatty, a Civil War veteran and miner who bought a ranch along the Amargosa River just north of the future community and became its first postmaster in 1905. The community was laid out in 1904 or 1905 after Ernest Alexander "Bob" Montgomery, owner of the Montgomery Shoshone Mine near Rhyolite, decided to build the Montgomery Hotel in Beatty. Montgomery was drawn to the area, known as the Bullfrog Mining District, because of a gold rush that began in 1904 in the Bullfrog Hills west of Beatty. During Beatty's first year, wagons pulled by teams of horses or mules hauled freight between the Bullfrog district (that included the towns of Rhyolite, Bullfrog, Gold Center, Transvaal, and Springdale) and the nearest railroad, in Las Vegas, and by the middle of 1905, about 1,500 horses were engaged in this business. In October 1906, the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad (LV&T) began regular service to Beatty; in April 1907, the Bullfrog Goldfield Railroad (BG) reached the community, and the Tonopah and Tidewater (T&T) line…

Geography

Beatty lies along U.S. Route 95 between Tonopah, about to the north, and Las Vegas, about to the southeast. State Route 374 connects Beatty to Death Valley National Park, about to the west. Yucca Mountain and the Nevada Test Site are about to the east. The most densely populated part of the census-designated place (CDP) of Beatty is at (36.909337, −116.754531), although the CDP extends well beyond this urban center. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of , all land. The most populated area lies at above sea level between Beatty Mountain and Bare Mountain to the east and the Bullfrog Hills to the west. The Amargosa River, an intermittent river that ends in Death Valley, flows on the surface through part of the CDP but has not been counted as water in the Census Bureau statistics. Nevada's main climatic features are bright sunshine, low annual precipitation, heavy snowfall in the higher mountains, clean, dry air, and large daily temperature ranges. Strong surface heating occurs by day and rapid cooling by night, and usually even the hottest days have cool nights. The average percentage of possible sunshine in southern Nevada is more than 80 percent. Sunshine and low humidity in this region account for an average evaporation, as measured in evaporation pans, of more than of water a year. Beatty receives only of precipitation a year. The wettest year was 1941 with and driest year was 1953 with . and the lowest was on February 2, 1933. }}

Race & ethnicity

Largest nearby schools

• Beatty High School
  High · Beatty · 108 students · 21.6:1 ratio
• Beatty Elementary School
  Elementary · Beatty · 73 students · 24.3:1 ratio
• Beatty Middle School
  Middle · Beatty · 26 students · 26:1 ratio