GOLDFIELD HOTEL

Goldfield Hotel

The town of Goldfield was born when gold was discovered in 1902 and within just a few short years, it became the largest city in Nevada. Between 1903 and 1940, Goldfield's mines produced more than $86 million in gold. In addition to its numerous saloons, the city once boasted three newspapers, five banks, a mining stock exchange, and a population of nearly 35,000.

In 1908, the Goldfield Hotel, designed by Architect George E. Holesworth, was opened built on the former site of the Nevada Hotel, which had burned down in a fire in 1905, the hotel was first owned by J. Franklin Douglas and several other investors. The four story building of stone and brick cost over $300,000 to build and included 154 rooms with telephones, electric lights and heated steam. The lobby was paneled with mahogany and furnished in black leather upholstery, beneath gold-leaf ceilings and crystal chandeliers. The hotel imported chefs from Europe and boasted one of the first Otis elevators west of the Mississippi River. Considered to be the most luxurious hotel between Chicago and San Francisco, it appealed to society's upper class, making it an immediate success.

George Wingfield, primary owner of the Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company, and hotel entrepreneur, Casey McDannell, saw the Goldfield Hotel as a great investment opportunity and bought it. Wingfield was a multi-millionaire by the age of 30 and became a political powerhouse in the State of Nevada. After making his fortune in the gold fields, he went on to own a chain of banks, numerous ranches, and several Reno hotels, in addition to his interest in the Goldfield Hotel

Eight years after Goldfield was founded, the volume of gold being found began to decrease and many of its residents began to move on to more prosperous gold fields. By 1920, the gold was almost gone and the city was reduced to just about 1,500 people. Three years later, a devastating fire wiped out 27 blocks of homes and businesses.

In 1923, the Goldfield Hotel was sold to Newton Crumley, another hotel entrepreneur who owned the Commericial Hotel in Elko, Nevada. Newton dug two mine shafts beneath the hotel in 1925 neither shaft yielded any gold.

By the 1930s, when the town supported fewer than 1,000 residents, it had become little more than a stop over for cowboys and weary travelers. During World War II, it housed Army Air Corp personnel assigned to the Tonopah Air Base 25 miles north of Goldfield. After the soldiers checked out the hotel in 1945, the hotel closed its doors for the final time.

The latest purchase was made in 1985 by a San Francisco investor named Lester O'Shea who planned to restore and reopen the hotel. O'Shea's company went bankrupt before the restoration could be completed. In 2003, the county auctioned off the old hotel, as well as nearly ninety other parcels of historic land. A rancher from Carson City the only bidder and bought the hotel for $360,000. Today this once thriving town has a population of less than 500 residents.

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