Tybo

A lead and silver camp in the Hot Creek Range

Tybo sits in northern Nye County, about 8 miles northwest of US 6 at a point roughly 10 miles northeast of Warm Springs. According to the 1974 National Register nomination for its charcoal kilns, the name is a corruption of a Shoshone word, “Tybbabo,” meaning “white man’s district.” Sources differ on when mining began. Nevada State Historical Marker No. 172 dates ore discovery to 1866; the nomination says the first locations were made in the summer of 1870, after a local Native man showed the ore to prospectors, and that the main lode, the Two G, was found later that year.

The boom did not start until spring 1874. A townsite was platted, two smelters were built, and from 1875 to 1877 the camp was, in the nomination’s words, the sensation of the county. Population approached 1,000. The camp had a brick school, a post office, and a literary society, and the Tybo Sun began publishing in May 1877. The state marker calls Tybo one of the nation’s leading lead-producing districts. It says production was erratic and that the last mill closed in 1937. The nomination puts output between 1874 and 1944 at just under $10 million.

The camp was divided. The marker describes three residential sections, each home to one ethnic group (Irish, Cornish, and central European), though all the children went to the same brick school. A wood contractor brought in Chinese workers to cut pinyon for charcoal, and they were driven out of camp with whips and gunfire. The sources disagree on the date and on what the workers were paid. The nomination dates this to May 1875 and says the town’s factions united against them because they cut wood for less than the prevailing wage. Forest History Today calls it Nevada’s “Chinese War,” dates it to 1876, and says the contractor paid the going wage, which the Workingmen’s Protective Union still objected to.

The charcoal kilns

A Eureka contractor built 15 kilns near Hot Creek Valley for the Tybo Consolidated Company, and two survive in Tybo Canyon. They are built of native stone and mud, with iron straps reinforcing the openings. Each has a ground-level door, a top opening, and a rear window that was reached by a wooden ramp. Workers packed each kiln with 5 to 6 cords of green pinyon, sealed it, and controlled the burn through vents at the base. The two sources disagree on the kilns’ size and age. The nomination gives 30 feet high and 25 feet in diameter and refers to them producing charcoal in 1874. Forest History Today says they were built in 1872 and stand about 22 feet high, with an outside base diameter of about 29 feet. In 1974 the kilns were judged to be in good condition, and the Bureau of Land Management had fenced them against cattle. They were listed on the National Register that November.

Visiting today

Forest History Today describes the approach as a graded gravel road that leaves US 6 at the Tybo historical marker, about 10 miles east of Warm Springs. A 2019 KOLO-TV report found several remains in town: a schoolhouse, the old general store, a mine headframe and hoist house just outside town, and a few walls and a brick smokestack where the Tybo Consolidated mill stood. Two people lived there at the time; respect occupied buildings. Forest History Today places the kilns about a mile up the canyon beyond the schoolhouse and says the last half mile needs four-wheel drive or a walk. KOLO reported in 2019 that the road to the kilns was no longer drivable. Road conditions change; check with the Bureau of Land Management before going. Leave the kilns and any artifacts where they are.