Esmeralda County, Nevada

Esmeralda County’s seat is Goldfield, and the town is the reason it moved there. Harry Stimler and Billy Marsh, two Nevada-born prospectors, found gold ore in December 1902, after about twenty years of mining slump in the state. The boom ran from 1904 to 1918 and peaked at about 20,000 people, which made Goldfield the largest community in Nevada at the time. Hawthorne, 125 miles away, still held the county seat, so Goldfield pushed for the change and won it on May 2, 1907. The district produced $86,765,044 in precious metals between 1903 and 1940. It declined after that, but the courthouse stayed. Mining never fully left the county. Near Silver Peak, brine pumped from wells sits in evaporation ponds for months until the lithium is concentrated enough to process. Albemarle, which runs the operation, calls it the only producing lithium mine in the U.S. On the California line, the Inyo National Forest lists Boundary Peak as the highest point in Nevada at 13,140 feet. The last mile of road to its Queen Canyon trailhead needs four-wheel drive. Most of the pins below are ghost towns and rockhounding ground off pavement, so carry water and fuel for the whole loop.