Bullfrog

The camp that gave the district its name

Bullfrog is a small townsite in Nye County, Nevada, in the Bullfrog Mining District. Destination 4x4 places the district about 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The district dates to a 1904 gold discovery by the prospectors Frank “Shorty” Harris and Ed Cross. The National Park Service says Harris and Cross found quartz across a hill, and that Harris described the quartz as “just full of free gold.”

Sources give the discovery date differently. The Legends of America district history and Destination 4x4 both say August 9, 1904. The Nevada Expeditions page says August 4, 1904, at what became the camp of Amargosa.

The townsite itself has a layered history. According to Nevada Expeditions, Carl Stoddard had founded a townsite called Bonanza by November 1904, about three miles southeast of Amargosa. In March 1905 the Amargosa Townsite Company bought Bonanza, and the Amargosa tent camp moved there and was renamed Bullfrog. The Bullfrog post office ran from March 21, 1905, to May 15, 1909. The Bullfrog Miner newspaper ran from March 31, 1905, to March 23, 1906. Permanent buildings included a hotel, a jail and a water system. The hotel burned on June 25, 1906.

Overshadowed by Rhyolite

Legends of America says Bullfrog and Rhyolite were started in November 1904 by competing townsite companies. Nevada Expeditions says Bullfrog’s population declined as businesses moved to nearby Rhyolite, and puts Bullfrog’s population at about 300 soon after the 1905 consolidation, and says few residents remained by 1907. Legends of America counts about 2,500 people in Bullfrog and Rhyolite combined in August 1905, without separating the two. Nevada Expeditions says the town “finally croaked” in 1909, the year the post office closed.

Rhyolite fared better for a while but declined as well. The National Park Service says the panic of 1907 is seen as the start of the town’s decline, and says the Montgomery Shoshone mine and mill were voted closed on March 14, 1911.

What remains

Legends of America describes very little left at Bullfrog, mainly an icehouse and a jail. It says nothing remains of Original (Amargosa). Nevada Expeditions shows photographs from 2023 of an ice house, a jail and general views of the townsite, plus the Tramp mine and tunnel. None of the sources used here describes how to reach the townsite or what the roads are like, so check current access and conditions with the Bureau of Land Management before going. Rhyolite, the better-known ruin nearby, sits on a mix of federal and private land and is reached by a paved road north from Highway 374, according to the National Park Service. Stay out of any building or mine opening that looks unsound. Leave every artifact where it lies.