Goldfield

History

The community was named for deposits of gold near the original town site. Gold was discovered at Goldfield in 1902, its year of inception. By 1904, the Goldfield district produced about 800 tons of ore, valued at $2,300,000, 30% of the state's production that year. This remarkable production caused Goldfield to grow rapidly, and it soon became the largest town in the state with about 20,000 people. One notorious, early Goldfield resident was George Graham Rice, a former check forger, newspaperman, and racetrack tipster, turned mining stock promoter. The collapse of his Sullivan Trust Company and its associated mining stocks caused the failure of the Goldfield State Bank in 1907. Rice quickly left Goldfield, but continued to promote mining shares for another quarter-century. A prominent resident from 1906 was George Wingfield, one of Nevada's entrepreneurs, who built the Goldfield Hotel. In collaboration with his partner George S. Nixon (who was to become a U.S. senator in 1904), Wingfield started in Belmont, Nevada in 1901, and saw the potential of Goldfield after mining at Tonopah, north, took off. Nixon and Wingfield made huge fortunes in Goldfield by forming the Goldfield Consolidated Mining Company. By 1906, they were worth $30 million. Wingfield moved to Reno, where his great wealth could be spread across northern Nevada and northern California. Between 1903 and 1918, mining in Belmont and Goldfield grew from $2.8 million to $48.6 million. Wyatt and Virgil Earp came to Goldfield in 1904. Virgil was hired as a Goldfield deputy sheriff in January 1905. In April, he contracted pneumonia and, after six months of illness, died on October 19, 1905. Wyatt left Goldfield shortly afterward. Goldfield reached a peak population around 20,000 people in 1906 and hosted a…

Race & ethnicity

Largest nearby schools

• Goldfield Elementary School
  Elementary · Goldfield · 25 students