rhyolite

There is nothing here but a few broken buildings with no amenities nor any info. In the words if my husband not worth the drive off the highway. I'm not sure why this place gets a listing. It appears that its a place where serious bike riders do rides from the Sunday afternoon we were here there were 20 or so people blocking the road, suiting up for a ride.

Love the Last Supper sculpture and the other sculptures. Plenty of old ruins to see. This is a must see ghost town in Nevada!

There is really not much to see here. A few broken down buildings and most of the buildings are fenced off, so you have to view from a distance. We saw the whole thing in about 15 minutes. I would suggest passing this one up.

Returning to Las Vegas from Death Valley NP via NV267 thru Beatty and then US 95 Ryolite is 4 miles before you get to Beatty. It is a ghost of the gold rush days and a town of 10,000 around the turn of the 20th century. There are a several partial buildings and a house made of bottles. You cannot enter any of the ruins which are fenced off with warnings. There is also a small active cementary dateing from the 1900's. Worth a stop if you are passing thru but not worth a large detour.

Leaving Beatty, Nevada, where we camped for a few days, headed towards Death Valley National Park, we see the sign for "Rhyolite" and hang a right. Driving in about a mile, you're all of a sudden met with the skeleton of what was once a thriving community. With a few signs present, we make out the Bank, a jail and a school. The building that actually survived fairly well is the "bottle house" which you really need to see to believe! Take a walk through the cemetery and you may feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up just a bit. This is actually a cool place to visit and walk through. Be sure and check out the information building as the folks here are real nice and full of good stories!

My wife and I stopped in on our way to Stovepipe Wells in DVNP. What we though would be a 20 minute stop turned into and hour and a half.Aside from the remains of the banks and the jail and the train station are the one of a kind bottle house and what was especially eerie yet beautiful was the cemetery. There have been fairly recent burials there. There is also the bizarre artwork near the entrance. This is definitely an off the beaten path type place.

Rhyolite is a ghost town just a few miles west of Beatty, off 374 to the north. The town was active in the early years of the 20th century, so don’t expect many wooden buildings like at Bodie. Rhyolite is mostly cement and concrete. There are not many buildings left, nor ruins, but there are many foundations of erstwhile buildings, many of those built of stone, plus a few wooden huts. Rhyolite, as a ghost town, has an eerie and forlorn and pretty disconsolate atmosphere – especially if you can get there with very few other people around. Beside the mere ghost town character, Rhyolite boasts the Tom Kelly bottle house, at least the walls of which are built entirely of bottles, with adobe plastered between to hold it all together. There is a tiny museum with some open-air exhibit, the most of which are the white ghost-like figures representing The Last Supper, done by a Belgian artist. Down the hillside off an unpaved road there is an old cemetery.

If you spend the night in Beatty and are returning to Death Valley, it is well worth your while to take the turn off to see the ruins of Rhyolite. I got an early start and the brilliant morning sunshine was totally spectacular. It is not far out of your way and does not take a lot of time to take a quick look. When you are the only person around for miles and miles, it really does feel like a ghost town. It only takes a few more minutes to view the art at the Godwell museum. The Last Supper sculpture looks eerie at sunrise.

This town is right off the Rt 374 enroute to Death Valley. There are a number of abandoned crumbing buildings out in the middle of a desert of tumbleweeds. It is interesting to imagine what had been. There was Kelly's Bottle House here which was an oddity, but it wasn't open as we came early. It was a nice interesting diversion on the way to Death Valley. Beware of walking through the brush as there are rattlesnakes in this area.

We aren't into "ghosts" but we like history. We were in the area and had time to kill so we went to Rhyolite. The buildings are in very bad condition but we could imagine what it could have been like. We were the only people there...the visitors center/museum was not open. Perhaps if it had been open we could have gotten information on the history....I guess the big draw for them is the "ghost" part of the town. There are a lot of oddities like the statues in front of the visitors center. You hear clanks and clunks of handmade wind catchers and see beaded strings hanging in different places. The overall feeling is not of a "ghost" town, but eerie. We went to the cemetery on the way out. You could see "things" left there for what ever reason...whether it was to make tourist talk, for spiritual ceremonies (offerings) or whatever(penny's for the boatman). The strangest part was that certain graves were covered with chicken wire held down by stones (not allowing them to escape??? Who knows). Anyway, there is not enough history to justify demonic aura of this place. I debated on writing a review, but decided if I had taken my child there I would have deeply regretted it. So I thought I should forewarn other parents.

The Rhyolite "ghost town" is a unique chance to see and learn about the mining era a hundred years ago. Many of the buildings ruins are visible, just use caution when walking around because there is lots of small pieces just laying around. We wandered behind the bottle house (all the walls are imbedded with bottles, so it's very colorful and so interesting), the wash is littered with old coils, wires, cans... we even saw an old, rusted out car. Carefully walking up the slope on the other side of the wash, we stopped to get a "birds-eye" view. It was so amazing to see the whole town spread out just below us and imagine what it might have been like in it's heyday. I had looked into the history of the town beforehand just to get a sense of why this town was built and what caused it to fall into ruin. We probably spend about 2 hours between walking to about the various building ruins and then walking through the wash and up the rocky hillside. Although my husband would probably say it was just an okay place to visit, I thoroughly enjoyed this peek into the past and definitely suggest it for any history buffs. Keep in mind that this area is remote so there is no cell service- wear sturdy shoes as there's lots of loose, gravelly terrain. Bring a camera- my husband loved the picture I took of him standing in the doorway to the old bank vault- there's many great pictures to be had.

See a strange mix of mining era ruins, outsider and regular art. You can visit Rhyolite in a hour or less. The grounds have some regular art (fiberglass draped ghostly figures), folk art (small tableau and a very cool "bottle house" that includes a small city of encrusted concrete, very good find for those who enjoy "roadside attractions"). Most of the buildings are ruins but the casino is still in good shape.

It is so fascinating to look at just the few remains of the buildings and try to consider how it was just over 100 years ago. These are old pictures in the little museum, the gentleman on duty was very helpful as well. Just wander round to imagine the world then.As well as the building remains there is the grave of Isabella Haskins down near the 'red light' district. That prompted us to ask at the museum for directions to the cemetery. We had seen a sign pointing to it going up to the town but were not sure where to go. So follow the sign, and on your left of the tarmac road you will see a long straight unmade road (actually a mile long and it leads down to Highway 374). Halfway down on the left is the cemetery with parking spaces. This is the evocative point, the place of rest of original citizens and some more recent ones.A reflective spot to view the old town.

Wish I new we were stopping here so I could have looked into the history beforehand but it was still interesting. A good place to get out and stretch your legs. The art here is really unique and eerie. This whole ghost town is eerie but like other reviewers have said, not much left too see! Probably wouldn't go out of your way

The town itself was only mildly interesting, best was the bottle house and the outdoor art museum with some very weird sculptures. But it's free so check it out, it is worth a stop