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Goldfield is a semi-abandoned ghost town and the county seat of Esmeralda County, Nevada, United States, with a resident population of 268 at the 2010 census. It is located about 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 still continues in and around the town today. == History == 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.〔plaque on the Southern Nevada Consolidated Telephone-Telegraph Company Building, used from 1906 to 1963〕 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.〔Dan Plazak, ''A Hole in the Ground with a Liar at the Top'', Salt Lake: University of Utah Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-87480-840-7.〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=George Graham Rice )〕 Another prominent resident from 1908 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 then saw the potential of Goldfield after mining at Tonopah, only a few miles 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.〔Moe, Al W. ''The Roots of Reno'', (''The Roots of Reno'' ), 2008, p.20〕 Wingfield moved to Reno soon after realizing his great wealth could be spread across northern Nevada and northern California. Between 1903 and 1918, mining in two towns grew from $2.8 million to $48.6 million.〔Thomson, David, ''In Nevada: The Land, The People, God, and Chance'', pp. 127–129〕 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, he died on October 18, 1905. Wyatt Earp left Goldfield shortly afterward.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.historynet.com/frontier-lawman-virgil-earp.htm )〕 Goldfield reached a peak population of about 20,000 people in 1906 and hosted a lightweight boxing championship match between Joe Gans and Oscar "Battling" Nelson.〔 In addition to the mines, Goldfield was home to large reduction works. The gold output in 1907 was over $8.4 million, the year in which the town became the county seat; in 1908, output was about $4,880,000. By the 1910 census, its population had declined to 4,838. Part of the problem was the increasing cost of pumping brine out of the diggings making them uneconomic. By 1912, ore production had dropped to $5 million and the largest mining company left town in 1919. In 1923, a fire caused by a moonshine still explosion destroyed most of the town's flammable buildings. Some brick and stone buildings from before the fire remain, including the hotel and the high school. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Goldfield, Nevada」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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