Bellies full of eggs and juice, we drove back a short way down the street to downtown Tonopah for another round of sightseeing.
The post office:
One of the other top choices for lodging is the Jim Butler Inn, named for the town's founder. Apparently Butler's burro led him to the future lucrative mining site:
Although I'm sold on Tonopah Station, a plus of staying at the Jim Butler "Cozy As Grandma's" Inn is that you get to be right by the historic Mizpah Hotel, named for one of the more prosperous mining claims in the area.
Across the street is a western wear store. I don't know why, but I love that they're an official J. C. Penney catalog company.
See, the Star Trails ads are everywhere - on the lampposts and outside places to stay (here, it's the placard next to the curb):
I just read that the Jim Butler Inn keeps a loaner telescope handy for guests. Neat. Maybe the stargazing tourism will help prevent more "Tonopah is Dying" headlines.
Ah, the Mizpah. It turns 100 in November. Wyatt Earp didn't hang out here. (Although he may have spent time in the saloon that was there before the hotel.) Howard Hughes didn't get married here. (Although he was married in a motel room nearby.) Jack Dempsey probably didn't work here, unless he had a reason to lie about it.
But there is something breathtaking about it that makes myth want to form. (And envelop the New York Times factchecker in its mist?)
Wanna buy it? I mean, if you like brass and crystal and wood and stuff.
We peeked in. The lights are still on.
Come to think of it, that's a little weird.
(Mike hates when I do the vintage filter, but I like it. He says, "it doesn't look real." Well, duh. I prefer that pictures of me, even if mostly obscured and double-reflected, not look real.)
I love a good historic downtown. The Mining Park is right behind Main Street.
But nobody talks about the Belvada Hotel. It's all Mizpah-Mizpah-Mizpah. What's up with that?
Well, I guess it's because it's never been a hotel. It was a bank, built just before the Mizpah, designed by the same architect (the same guy who did the Goldfield Hotel and the Cook Bank in Rhyolite, actually). Then it was a saloon. And another bank. And another saloon. Then it became the Belvada Apartments at some point, but that all ended 40 years ago. A decade ago, the liquor store and junk shop on the first floor closed.
The sign in the window says it's opening in 2006. This article (from where I stole all the info above) says the same. It's 2008. No one's even looking after the plywood (which they put up to keep out the birds) anymore.
I hope it's just a little delayed. I'd like to have a reason to come back to Tonopah. As we walked around downtown, I turned to Mike and said, "This is it! This is the west! You watch some old movie with a guy swaggering down the middle of main street? They were talking about this!"
Did you notice the "T" in the hillside? We have a "B" outside of Las Vegas in the city of Henderson, formerly known as "Basic." I thought it was a one-off quirk. After seeing the G for Goldfield, the B for Beatty, the T for Tonopah, and - strangely - the P for Alamo, I looked up the Wikipedia article. It's an old-time college fad that has continued over the decades. Who knew?
We drove back down to the Clown Motel.
We parked in their lot (thanks scary-but-inviting Clown Motel!) and trod next door (no exaggeration) to the old cemetery, from the first ten(ish) years of the town's history.
Oh, next to the Clown Motel office was a Pontiac Fiero. A Pontiac Fiero. If you were 15 in 1985, and if you had any love at all for Hall and Oates, your nostalgia meter just surged red. Like a Pontiac Fiero. (Did they even make them in other colours?)
(Don't worry. By 1986, I was all about the Volkswagen Cabriolet convertible. The car I actually ended up with, three years later, was a Chevy Cavalier. I'll say one thing: it was stout-hearted. And, alas, very close to being light blue. I'm not really into cars whatsoever, but I have, well, views on light blue. Very picky views, with all kinds of bylaws.)
Mike pointed out that the Marojeveches died on the same day. I noticed the plaque:
Many of the markers have little plaques with more information about how the person died. Fires, consumption, mining accidents... life was hard. Perhaps that's the point.
Two things about Tonopah that I forgot to mention before:
- The Mexican restaurant had a Spanish version of "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps" playing. Any fan of Coupling must see that as a good omen.
- When we found those dark skies, we found something else, too. The brief skitter of a few bunnies (I hope) aside, it was the quietest place I've ever been. Stone quiet. It was so curious, being the sole source of all sound. The first time a plane flew overhead, tens of thousands (I guess?) of feet above, we kept saying, "What is that noise? Is a car coming?" Not until the third plane did we really get it. It was beyond even when a block's worth of power goes off. Near-total silence and darkness - to think we have to drive four hours to have both.
Mike hung out by the gate. I think he half-wished this one had been locked up and inaccessible, like the one in Rhyolite. Mike has views on things, too. Like cemeteries. And how one isn't to spend hours in them, photographing every tombstone.
Back up the highway for gas, turn east at the junction, and we were on our way across the width of the state to Rachel. The car seemed fine, we were having fun, so why not add an hour or so on to the drive and take the long way home?
The long way home, where you don't pass many other cars, cows wander the highway freely, and mountains hiding "Area 52" (the sequel) are your only view.
Soon, "once in a lifetime experience" would take on layers of meaning.
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