Postcards featuring unusual buildings Part 2

Visit Moody's Postcards, your source for vintage, collectible postcards!
Subscribe to Moody's Postcard Blog by Email
Today I am continuing a feature on unusual buildings and we hit the motherload in Tonopah Nevada. When the gold mines in California quit producing, a miner named James Butler left California and began ranching in Nye County Nevada. His burros wandered off one night and while looking for them he discovered the silver ore. Three months later he finally filed eight claims and six of them turned into some of the biggest produces in the state. He eventually made about $336,000 when he sold the mines but the discovery would eventually produce over $150 million. This great silver rush brought miners from California and Alaska as well as the rest of states and the sudden influx into a barren area with no existing infrastructure created a drastic need for shelter. The first postcard shows some of the makeshift residences that were basically made from whatever was available and built in the mountainside.

The second postcard shows "The Barrel House", with the owners faithful dog at the doorway, which was primarily constructed from empty barrels. Both of these postcards are available in my Nevada listings along with more than 10,000 additional postcards available on my website at Moody's Postcards.