"TONOPAH - BOOM-BUST-BOOM ---?" a Tonopah Travel Page by mtncorg

Tonopah’s history started with Jim Butler’s discovery of silver here in 1900. Shortly thereafter its establishment, 3000 people moved in to call this ‘home’. Booming mines pushed the town until WWI, after which mine production slowed and people began to slowly drift away. Another boom blasted out in 1979 when the population more than doubled with the construction of a nearby Air Force missile test site along with the opening of a molybdenum mine. Since then, the test site has been built and molybdenum prices have dropped quieting things around Tonopah once more. The town is the county seat for Nye County and serves as one of the main travelers’ stops along US 95, the main route between Reno and Las Vegas. Sights of Tonopah’s rambunctious past abound for the curious - Mizpah Hotel, the old silver-domed courthouse, and the excellent Tonopah Mining Museum are a few examples.