BEATTY, ART AND GHOST TOWN OF RHYOLITE

The road to Rhyolite runs straight and true. Rhyolite is not your typical gold strike ghost town. It was a victim of bad timing and bad luck. It was started in 1904 When Shorty Harris found gold. In 1905 Rhyolite was established and the town site platted. The next year the San Francisco earthquake destroyed the CA financial district and funding for NE mines decreased. 1907 brought financial panic in the east and a further decrease in funding.

In 1908 Rhyolite boasted a population of 8000 but the mines began to fail. It had 50 saloons, 2 churches, 18 stores, 2 undertakers, 2 dentists, an opera house, a telephone company, an electric power plant, 3 ice plants, several hotels, 4 newspapers, 2 stock exchanges, as well as a number of profitable mines and mills, and was served by 3 railroads. By 1910 people began to leave when the mines completely failed. In 1919 the post office closed and the next year the population was estimated at 14.

What remains now are a few buildings, a few foundations, and the Goldwell Open Air Museum. It was established in 1984 as an artist project of Belgian sculptor Albert Szukalski, best known for his life-sized ghostly shrouded figures. To make the figures, he wrapped live models in fabric soaked in wet plaster, posed them, and refined the drapery. When the plaster set, the models slipped out leaving the rigid shroud that surrounded them. Other artists also contributed their work. This profile is artist Fred Bervoets Tribute To Shorty Harris. Bervoets said he often thought about the loneliness Harris might have felt in his work. His hopeful companion, a penguin, reflects the optimism of the mining endeavor.

Szukalski's Last Supper
Sofie Siegmann's Sit Here!

Icara by Dre Peeters represents a female counterpoint to the Greek myth of Icarus, the boy who tried to fly to the sun with wings made of wax. The figure was hand-carved and finished

on-site.

My favorite--Lady Desert: The Venus of Nevada by Hugo Heyrman Using cinder blocks to represent the pixels, he uses in his virtual 2-D computer work, Dr. Hugo has created a sculpture which at once refers back to classical Greek sculpture while maintaining a firm presence in the highly technological/pixilated world of the 21st century. What I like is the blond hair on the nude! Hilarious!

Szulaski's Ghost Rider

Present day Rhyolite

Tom Kelly's bottle houseand garden

Mine entrance

Las Vegas & Tonopah (TON a pa, told you wrong before) Depot

Rhyolite's second school By the time it was built most of the students had left.

Jail

Our original plan when we set out this am (Tues--apologies for the delay in posting. We were in slo-mo internet area then the blog site went down) was to visit the Beatty Museum and then Rhyolite. Since the museum was closed, we went to Rhyolite first. With half a day left to explore we decided to start the next leg of our tour in this area. Next--Death Valley.

Later dudes and dudettes,

Louise and Duane