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Trip: We begin our day in Eureka but to start the tour we have to drive 40 miles east on Highway 50 to the Illipah Reservoir turnoff. The access road is well marked, and the reservoir offers a BLM managed campground. The reservoir was originally built to provide water to the town of Hamilton, but the town died before the water company could ever make any money. Just after the turnoff to Illipah, there is another turnoff, to the right, that will lead us to Hamilton. This is the old Lincoln Highway and main road to Hamilton. The winding and very dusty road is graded and accessible to most any vehicle. About nine miles in we make a left turn up a small rise, which brings us to the first evidence of Hamilton’s existence.
From the cemetery on, you are in Hamilton. You wouldn't know now, this was a sprawling city of 15,000 people, and the White Pine County seat. The town boasted of having 22 lawyers, 101 saloons, and 59 general stores. Much of the town, was destroyed by fire in 1885, and the seat was moved to Ely. But not before $22 million in silver bullion had been mined and shipped. The few remains sitting silently in the sagebrush seem at odds with the many stories of the area's wilder days. There are many stories of restless miners that amused themselves with wagon and stagecoach races that left passengers shaken and bruised. There were also footraces and even baseball teams with names like the Pogonips and the Fat Man’s Baseball Club of White Pine, whose members were all between two hundred twenty and two hundred sixty pounds each. There was prizefighting as well. One notable bout between Johnny Grady and Johnny McGlade lasted thirty four rounds over two and a half hours and only ended when McGlade, who was winning, had to quit because his hands had received too much punishment from beating on Grady. From Hamilton we drive up the mountain toward Treasure City. The drive up isn’t long, but it is tough – the road is for high clearance four-wheel drive vehicles only. The views on the way up become increasingly spectacular. We’re at nearly nine thousand feet, so we can see for miles in all directions.
On the day of our visit the morning has warmed up considerably, so it’s easy to forget how tough life was for the people of Treasure City. Many of the miners endured difficult winters with extremely low temperatures in little more than tents. There is even a Treasure City story about an unfortunate man who spent much of a cold winter night in a Treasure City saloon getting “warm." He then walked down the hill to Hamilton. On his way down nature called, and in answering that call he contracted a nasty case of frostbite in a place better left unmentioned. The road we take leaving Treasure city is even rougher than the one the one we used to get there. Those who choose to drive this way should definitely expect a few brush scratches on their vehicle.
The sun is getting low and it’ll soon be dark in the canyon, so we decide to return to Eureka for the night. We’ll be back early tomorrow to pick up where we left off. On the second day of our tour, about a mile and a half south of Eberhardt, we turn right and head up a canyon toward Shermantown. The sagebrush here has grown very high and it sure doesn’t look like there was ever a community of thousands here, but there was. In Shermantown we get a better sense of what archaeologists are up against. There are probably many artifacts here for them to study, but there is so much growth covering the site that they can’t get a good look at everything. Shermantown was the mill town for the White Pine Mining District. This town had adequate water and timber to build stamp mills so it became the center for processing ore in the district. Behind the saloon, up a slope, is an old access road that originally came from up the canyon and headed to a smelter. Smelting was the main reason for the existence of Shermantown, and the people here had to live with the constant roaring.
From Shermantown, we head out to finish the tour. We follow the canyon for about five miles, much of which is extremely rocky – easily the worst road we’ve traveled. At points, some of it doesn’t even look like a road at all. Needless to say, a high clearance and four wheel drive vehicle is the only way to make it. Our final stop is the Belmont Mill, which in comparison to our previous stops looks practically new. The Belmont Mine and Mill were worked around 1920 by the Tonopah Belmont Development Mining Company. Silver-lead ore from this mine was processed at this mill and then shipped off to Eureka. Visiting historic sites like the Ghost Trail is an enjoyable way of exploring our past, but as Fred and Tom have reminded us on this trip, it is so important to leave them intact and in good condition. That way, others will be able to visit and appreciate them. Thanks to the advisors and contributors of Wild Nevada Program #210:
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On
this trip, we have the chance to accompany Fred Frampton and Tom Flanigan
of the U.S. Forest Service on a tour of the ghost towns of the White
Pine Mining District. 
The
town site's main cemetery is located to the left of the road. It is
large and in fairly good repair. It's worth a stop and a bit of looking
around. Tom tells us that this place was also known as Mourner’s
Point - for obvious reasons. 
A
couple of miles further down the road we stop at the remains of Eberhardt,
a mining site that was active from about 1869 to around 1885. It was
named for the fabulous glory hole mine on Treasure Hill and started
up around the Stanford Mill. Eberhardt eventually gained 200 citizens,
a post office, saloons, carpenter shop, wagon shop, blacksmith, stores
and an "active temperance organization." Now, only rock ruins
of mills and foundations and a cemetery remain.
There
is evidence in Shermantown that not everyone respects the artifacts
they find at historic sites. We discover a number of looter pits in
the area. Looters and bottle hunters ruin the archaeological record
of a site by removing and destroying the context of artifacts.