Goldfield, Nevada
| Goldfield, Nevada | |
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| Census-designated place | |
Esmeralda County Courthouse in Goldfield
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 Goldfield
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| Coordinates: 37°42′31″N 117°14′08″W / 37.70861°N 117.23556°WCoordinates: 37°42′31″N 117°14′08″W / 37.70861°N 117.23556°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Nevada |
| County | Esmeralda |
| Established | 1902 |
| Area | |
| • Total | 1.48 sq mi (3.84 km2) |
| • Land | 1.48 sq mi (3.84 km2) |
| • Water | 0.0 sq mi (0.0 km2) |
| Elevation | 5,690 ft (1,730 m) |
| Population (2010) | |
| • Total | 268 |
| • Density | 181/sq mi (69.9/km2) |
| Time zone | Pacific (PST) (UTC-8) |
| • Summer (DST) | PDT (UTC-7) |
| ZIP code | 89013 |
| FIPS code | 32-28900 |
| GNIS feature ID | 854468 |
Goldfield is an unincorporated community and the county seat of Esmeralda County, Nevada, United States. It is a census-designated place (CDP), with a resident population of 268 at the 2010 census, down from 440 at the 2000 census. It is located 247 miles (398 km) southeast of Carson City, along U.S. Route 95.
Goldfield was a boomtown in the first decade of the 20th century due to the discovery of gold — between 1903 and 1940, Goldfield's mines produced more than $86 million. Much of the town was destroyed by a fire in 1923, although several buildings survived and remain today, notably the Goldfield Hotel, the Consolidated Mines Building (the communications center of the town until 1963), and the schoolhouse. Gold exploration continues in and around the town today.
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 prominent, or 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.
Another 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 US senator in 1904), Wingfield started in Belmont, Nevada in 1901, and saw the potential of Goldfield after mining at Tonopah, 27 miles (43 km) north, took off. George S. Nixon and Wingfield made huge fortunes in Goldfield by forming the Goldfield Consolidated Mining Company. By 1906, they were worth $30 million.
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Wikipedia