| | Located midway between Las Vegas and Reno at the intersection of U.S. Highways 95 and 6, Tonopah is the major crossroad of central Nevada. The boomtown of Tonopah was born in 1900, when Jim Butler accidentally discovered rich silver ore while chasing a wayward burro. Butler's discovery eventually produced more than $150 million in ore and spawned Nevada's last great mining rush.Today, nearly a century later, Tonopah and adjacent parts of central Nevada represent the final chapter in the settlement of the American west. Located at an elevation of 6020 feet amidst the hilly terrain of the San Antonio Mountains, Tonopah offers many things for visitors to enjoy.The Central Nevada Museum offers extensive information about the history of central Nevada, including outdoor displays of miner's cabins and railroad artifacts. The Tonopah Historic Mining Park collects, restores and displays mining artifacts on the site and in the original buildings.Visitors who take time to explore Tonopah and the surrounding hills and nearby ghost towns don't have to stretch their imaginations very far to get a sense of what it was like on that fateful day in 1900 when lucky Jim Butler found the strike that set off the great turn-of-the-century mining boom in central and southern Nevada. |  | | | |
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