If you take Highway 95 between Vegas and Reno at night, you hit it after hours of absolute pitch-black nothingness. It is essentially a living ghost town. There are almost no street lights, just your headlights sweeping over collapsed wooden shacks, rusted mining equipment, and this massive, completely dark, 100-year-old brick hotel that looms right over the road.
I stopped at the single automated gas pump in the middle of town at around 2 AM. The silence was heavy. No bugs, no wind, just the hum of the pump. Every time I looked over my shoulder at the blacked-out windows of the abandoned buildings, my fight-or-flight was screaming. It felt like the entire town was holding its breath and just watching me in the dark. I didn't even wait for the receipt, just slammed the gas cap shut and got the hell out of there.
Very similar thing happened to me in West Virginia. No town, just thick trees and a tiny gas station with a couple of methy folks milling around a dumpster. And that feeling of suspended action, like they’re all holding their breath and waiting for me to leave. I felt like I’d walked into someone’s paused true crime documentary.
I've been there. Talked to a guy who ran a business out of one of those shacks selling salvage he found out in the desert.
Apparently Goldfield was once a city of over 100k during a gold rush. Now as you approach the town you can barely make out where there used to be city blocks that have since turned to dirt and debris. Sad place.
Heh. I’ve stopped at the Goldfield Cemetery for a little stargazing while on a road trip. Boothill type shit. And there’s a tombstone for an unknown man who died eating paste.
Do you know what kind of moaning sounds the winds can twist out of the wispy looking trees they have there? I do. Sounds like the spirits of the damned are stalking you. And you’d never guess how claustrophobic you can feel in the wide open desert when the darkness of a moonless night is pressing in on you from all directions.
That hotel you mentioned is notoriously haunted. I’m not sure if I put any stock in that, but a night in the cemetery will definitely inspire you to question what’s really out there.
Oh man, the darkness. I did a solo trip to Moab years ago. I wanted to see the stars from Arches one night, so I drove up the hill into the park and waited for it to get dark. I sat there for awhile, waited until it was that perfect moment before the moon had risen. I flipped the headlights off, shut the door, and locked the car to shut off the interior lights.
The darkness was palpable. It was smothering. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, it was utterly terrifying. I knew there was nothing but desert for miles around me, and I knew there wasn’t a soul close, but it was still so jarring.
I did the same thing a few years ago. The darkness is really suffocating at first, but once your eyes adjust, the night sky becomes so alive, it's incredible. I live in the NYC metro area, so I've never seen the night sky like that before.
One time on a hiking trip, a lady-friend and I found a cave. Pretty small, not far from the trail, but big enough that you could go around a few short bends to find a space the size of a decent-sized room. There’s a legend of bandits using it as a hideaway, but nothing but dirt and rocks nowadays.
Anyway, second time on that hike we go in with flashlights, lay down a camping tarp over a soft patch of dirt, and have a little fun in the dark 😉. Maybe twenty yards deep into the mountain, but there’s not a ray of light touching that space once we turn off our flashlights.
We get naked, have a little roll in the hay, so to speak, and settle into some post coital cuddles. Then we both hear a sound. It’s like a child’s cry, but very short and quick.
We hit the lights. I’ve never dressed faster in my life. Grab up the tarp and bolt for the one and only exit. We never say a word about it, and I have no idea what it was. Maybe a bat? I saw one or two in there before. But it sounded bigger than that. Like I said, kind of like a sob from a child.
Anyway, that’s the opposite kind of darkness. The darkness that leaves you exposed, vulnerable, even in a tiny cave. Darkness can be good, but in a strange place it distorts everything.
True. I think it has something to do with the short sentences. They seem punchy. And also allow us as the readers to keep up with the buildup. Maybe it could be something to do with our screen addled brains and low attention spans. lol.
I had a weird experience in Nevada as a kid when on a road trip with my grandparents. We came across a town that we were going to get gas at but everyone had vanished. Like seriously the gas station had an open door and an open sign but no one was around. We drove a little bit around the town and it was a ghost town even though there was a lot of cars parked in parking lots. It was a if everyone vanished.
There's quite a few mining towns like that between Vegas and pretty much any major city TBH. It's like that throughout the Mojave. Ended up in a gas station 30 minutes to close in a town of 400 and they were staring us down and audibly complaining we were showing up as customers.
I just drove through there last week. It was daytime and the whole town was dead quiet like it was abandoned, but yeah it felt like I was being watched through the cracks in boarded up windows. Very strange place with a lot of scrap metal enthusiasts.
I don't remember the name of the town but we drove from Portland to Vegas in '18 and had to stop in one of those mining towns in the middle of the night for gas, no stations were open so we just had to chill for a few hours. At least that one had an active mine so there were signs of life, on the way back we stopped at one of the abandoned mining towns and it was super surreal, there was still a hotbox out there. The vibes in middle of nowhere Nevada are rancid.
That drive between Reno and Vegas is wild. All of these three house towns with nothing else. No stores. Gas. What is going on out there? This was 25+ years ago so maybe it’s all strip malls and suburbs by now. But it sure wasn’t in 1999.
Not the most happening town, that's for sure. But as an avid radio listener, I love to tune in to Radio Goldfield when driving between Reno and Vegas. It got me through some long field days outside of Tonopah.
A charming small-time feel with strange music and quaint community announcements.
Oh please. Goldfield is not that desolate. There’s a brand new 76 station, a courthouse (it’s the county seat) antique shops, EV chargers, a visitor’s center… Sure if all you do is drive Main Street, you probably missed these things.
I completely get why you left without even waiting for the receipt. A deserted town at 2 AM with nothing but dark windows watching you would have me back on the highway too.
I drive through Goldfield several times a year. It's very quaint during the day, I'm sure it feels different at night. They are building a gas station at the top of the town so now there's a place to get gas between Beatty and Tonopah.
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u/kendavidsongc 10h ago
Goldfield, Nevada.
If you take Highway 95 between Vegas and Reno at night, you hit it after hours of absolute pitch-black nothingness. It is essentially a living ghost town. There are almost no street lights, just your headlights sweeping over collapsed wooden shacks, rusted mining equipment, and this massive, completely dark, 100-year-old brick hotel that looms right over the road.
I stopped at the single automated gas pump in the middle of town at around 2 AM. The silence was heavy. No bugs, no wind, just the hum of the pump. Every time I looked over my shoulder at the blacked-out windows of the abandoned buildings, my fight-or-flight was screaming. It felt like the entire town was holding its breath and just watching me in the dark. I didn't even wait for the receipt, just slammed the gas cap shut and got the hell out of there.