Hwy 395 runs along the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, past Lone Pine, Mono Lake, Bishop, and up to Reno.
The General Store, Stovepipe Wells
262’ below Sea Level
Remember Ronald Reagan? He was the spokesman for Boraxo. The Harmony Borax Works operated from 1883-1888, thanks to the help of Chinese laborers who lived just beyond the wagon train.
Rhyolite is a ghost town twenty-five miles away from Stovepipe Wells. This house was built entirely out of bottles and finished in 1912. Still standing today, the house cost $90,000 then. At its peak in 1904 Rhyolite had fifty saloons, ten churches and eight doctors. Three trains visited Rhyolite daily, a town that was founded by gold miners, then found its funding disappear after the San Francisco earthquake in 1906. A true ghost town, this is one of two buildings that survive intact. (The other is the train station).
Inexplicably, the ghost town of Rhyolite houses a number of art pieces from established artists. Albert Szulkalski covered models in plaster. After the plaster hardened the models left behind the ghostly life-sized forms of the apostles modeled after Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper.
Three rail lines served Rhyolite in 1904.
The “Blood Moon”
Furnace Creek Saloon.
Showing us the tattoos honoring her three children. Twenty Shoshone Indians live in a small community outside of Furnace Creek. Curious, we stopped into the restaurant, whee Fiona served us “Shave Ice”.
The road from Stovepipe Wells to Panamint Springs is a gradual 4000’+ climb.