Palmetto

A camp that died and revived three times

Palmetto is a mining camp in Esmeralda County. Nevada State Historic Marker No. 158 says prospectors named it in 1866, believing the local Joshua trees were related to palm trees. Noehill’s rendering of the marker adds that the town “died” and revived three times. Sources differ on the origin of the name. A 2021 Nevada ghost town write-up says the prospectors named the camp after their home state, South Carolina, and that it was first called Palmetto Wash.

That write-up names the 1866 prospectors as T.W. McNutt, H.W. Bunyard and Thomas Israel, and says a twelve-stamp mill was running by the end of the year. In 1868 the New York and Silver Peak Mining Company, led by Colonel Catherwood, moved a twelve-stamp mill from Silver Peak to Palmetto. It shipped three bullion bars worth $4,600 on January 16, 1869. The veins were shallow, the mills went quiet, and Catherwood returned east.

A second camp grew in the 1880s around the McNamara Mine. Many of its buildings were made of stacked local rock. The post office opened on April 24, 1888, and mail moved to Lida on June 7, 1894.

The third boom began in 1903. The same write-up credits J.G. Fesler with finding the Windypah section of the district. The post office returned on December 16, 1905. The state marker says the town grew to about 200 tents on a platted townsite. The marker says that in 1906, the peak year, the commercial street was over half a mile long and held every business a mining camp needed (the write-up calls it a mile long). The write-up lists stores, boarding houses, restaurants, saloons and a short-lived weekly, the Palmetto Herald, which began in February 1906.

The decline

The marker says local miners drifted away in the autumn of 1906 and that mining since then has been minimal and done on a lease basis. It adds that an important talc deposit lies nearby. Mail went back to Lida on December 31, 1907. According to the write-up, small silver and gold shipments continued in 1908 and the town was then abandoned. In 1920 a 50-ton concentration mill was built, but the town stayed empty.

Sources disagree on how much the district produced. The write-up gives about $6.5 million in silver and gold for the Palmetto Mine. A 4x4 travel site puts total output at around $1 million. Neither figure can be checked against the other here.

What remains and visiting today

The 2021 write-up says most surviving structures belong to Old Palmetto, and little of New Palmetto is left beyond foundations and tin cans. It describes a two-story rock store overlooking the site, mill foundations across the hillside, and a stacked rock cabin beside the highway. The travel site lists partly collapsed stone and adobe walls, open shafts and adits, and scattered relics.

Sources also differ on the road. Noehill lists the marker on State Route 266 and the write-up says the town sits along the side of Highway 266. The travel site instead says a rough dirt track leaves State Route 168 and recommends a high-clearance vehicle. The travel site suggests checking with the Bureau of Land Management Tonopah Field Office before going; road conditions change. The travel site says there are no services and warns of unstable mines. Stay out of open shafts and adits, bring water, and leave every artifact where it lies.