Gateway to Death Valley National Park
and The Heart of the Bullfrog Mining District
Beatty, Nevada History
The Shoshone wintered along the Amargosa River in Oasis Valley. In the mid-nineteenth century
there were several families, totaling about thirty people. Most lived at Sakainaga on the Amargosa bottom lands at the mouth of Beatty Wash,
about three miles from the present town of Beatty, Nevada. They gathered wild foods and learned to cultivate staple crops from the Southern
Paiute.
By the end of the 1870s homesteaders had taken up most of the springs and seeps along the
Amargosa river. White ranchers began settling in the Oasis Valley in the late nineteenth century. Most married Shoshone women. In the fall of
1879, Eugene Lander started a ranch in Oasis Valley. September 22, 1882, Lander moved on and "Old Man of the Desert," William M. Stockton, took
over the ranch.
"Old Man" Beatty, for whom the town of Beatty was named, settled in the Oasis Valley, took a
Shoshone wife, and left his name on the land. Montillion Murray Beatty was a Gold Mountain miner and Amargosa borax worker in his late fifties
when he took over the original Lander ranch in the spring of 1896, shortly after Stockton's death. Up until the time gold was discovered in the
Bullfrog Hills he lived a quiet life. When the Bullfrog Boom started he was bitten once again by the mining fever; sold his ranch for $10,000;
gave his name to the town; and started a new ranch at Cow Creek in Death Valley. There he was active in mining until his death in December,
1908.
Most of the Amargosa ranchers held 160-acre homestead claims. During the mining booms hay was
their main crop, which they marketed in the mining camps. A lot of the ranchers planted small vegetable gardens with corn, beans, potatoes,
beets, cabbage, onions, squash, and melons. Orchards of apples, peaches, pears, figs, plums, apricots, nectarines, almonds, and walnuts were also
planted. When a crop produced surplus it was usually sold in the mining camps. All of the ranchers kept some stock consisting of cattle, horses,
and hogs. A few also raised chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese. The cattle and horses grazed on open range from spring to fall; and were fed
hay, barley and mesquite beans during the winter. The ranch houses were constructed from a variety of materials. Some were no more than a simple
lean-to, while others were elaborate adobe. The ranches were usually several miles apart making the homesteaders' life somewhat
lonely.
August 9, 1904, Frank "Shorty" Harris and Ernest "Ed" Cross discovered gold on the south side
of Bullfrog Mountain. When word got out of the discovery the stampede was on. The Bullfrog Mining District was formed August 30, of the same
year. Before the stampede ended over two thousand claims had been staked covering an area of a mere 30 miles. Some of the mines that showed
promise were the Gold Bar and Homestake, a few miles north of the Bullfrog; the Tramp and Denver, on Bonanza Mountain to the east; and the
Mayflower and Pioneer, up near the head of Oasis Valley; the most promising of all was the Montgomery-Shoshone.
Ernest Alexander "Bob" Montgomery was one of the first to join the stampede from Goldfield.
Arriving at Bullfrog early in September of 1904, he stayed only a couple days and found nothing of great value, but did stake several claims.
When he started heading Home he stopped at Howell's ranch in Oasis Valley and met a young Shoshone known as Hungry Johnny. Bob hired him to scout
out a couple good claims. When Bob returned to Bullfrog three weeks later, Johnny met him at Beatty's ranch and lead him to the new claims on
Montgomery Mountain. At first the ore did not prove worthy of mining, but after tunneling deeper they hit ore 70 feet thick with assays running
as high as $16,000 a ton.
The Montgomery-Shoshone instantly became the talk of the Bullfrog Mining District. At the time
of the great Shoshone strike there were half a dozen rival camps in the area: the first and largest camp, Amargosa, originally called Aurum, was
located half a mile below the Original Bullfrog mine and opened the first saloon; Bullfrog, laid out at the mine; Bonanza, near the mountain of
the same name, was closer to the center of the district, had the Miners' Union, Local No. 235 of the Western Federation of Miners; Gold Center,
farther east at the mouth of Oasis Valley, becoming the railroad and milling center; Beatty, located a few miles farther up the Amargosa, just
west of old man Beatty's ranch, had the most attractive location and an abundance of water; and Rhyolite, named for the rosy country rock, was
the newest camp and closest to the Montgomery-Shoshone mine.
Beatty was the best location of all the communities established in the Bullfrog area. The site
was flat and had a good supply of water. Bob Montgomery played a major role in the development of the townsite of Beatty. The town of Beatty was
laid out in late 1904 and early 1905. Bob Montgomery filed the first plat map of the community containing the names of Beatty's first streets. Many of the current day
street names are the same as on the original plat map, including Montgomery Street, named for the founder. The Beatty, Nevada Post Office was
established January 19, 1905, with old man Beatty being the first postmaster.
Montgomery sold part of his interest in Beatty to Charles Schwab in February, 1906. Shortly
after the arrival of the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad in Beatty, Schwab sold his Beatty holdings to Dr. William S. Phillips. Phillips, a con
man, stated he intended to make Beatty the "Chicago of Nevada." With the arrival of the Bullfrog Goldfield Railroad, Phillips announced he was
going to build a $100,000 hotel, a hospital, a city hall, a church, and other amenities you would find in a city of substantial size. He sold as
many lots as he could and left town owing many unpaid debts.
Three railroads reached Beatty. Senator William A. Clark's Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad (LV&T) was completed in January, 1905. On October 22, 1906, full
scheduled service from Las Vegas to Beatty began. October 22 and 23 were officially designated as Beatty Railroad Days. The Beatty LV&T
depot was located at the southeastern edge of town between Second and Third Street. The LV&T passed through Beatty to the north, circling
first to Rhyolite, and then on to Goldfield. It ceased operation October, 1918. the Bullfrog Goldfield Railroad (BG) arrived April 25, 1907. At Goldfield it connected with the Tonopah and
Goldfield Railroad, which ran on to Tonopah. The BG traveled south through Beatty, through the Beatty Narrows, and circled round the south end
of the Bullfrog Hills to Rhyolite. The last train of the BG departed Beatty in January, 1928. Borax Smith's Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad
(T&T) reached Beatty October 27, 1907. The tracks of the T&T only went to Gold Center and then used the BG tracks on through the
Beatty Narrows and into Beatty. All operations of the T&T ceased on June 14, 1940.
Beatty was considered a convenient site for constructing mills because of its railroads and
availability of water. In 1907 there was talk of a $1.5 million smelter being built at Beatty. This never materialized. In 1924 high-grade ore
was found at the Original Bullfrog Mine and a small mill was built at Beatty to process what was dug out. Beatty served as a railhead for many
small mines in the area prior to the closure of the railroads.
Continued
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