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Narrator affiliation: Meteorologist-in-Charge, Weather Bureau Research Station, Nevada Test Site

Narrator affiliation: Program Director, Nevada Desert Experience

Newsletter issued by the Las Vegas Rotary Club

A view of some of the abandonded buildings on a hillside in Delamar, Nevada. One of the structures has a covered porch Delamar, Nevada, nicknamed The Widowmaker, is a ghost town in central eastern Nevada, USA along the east side of the Delamar Valley. During its heyday, primarily between 1895 and 1900, it produced $13.5 million in gold. In 1889, prospectors John Ferguson and Joseph Sharp discovered gold around Monkeywrench Wash. A mining camp was then born west of the Monkeywrench Mine. It was called Ferguson. In April 1894, Captain Joseph Raphael De Lamar bought most of the important mines in the area and renamed the Ferguson camp as Delamar. In the same year, a newspaper called the Delamar Lode began publication and a post office was opened. Soon, the new settlement boasted more than 1,500 residents, a hospital, an opera house, churches, a school, several businesses and saloons. Most buildings were made of native rock. By 1896, the Delamar mill was handling up to 260 tons of ore daily. Water for the camp was pumped from a well in Meadow Valley Wash, some twelve miles away. Supplies and materials traveled even further, by mule team over mountainous terrain from the railroad head at Milford, Utah, which was 150 miles from Delamar. Silicosis The gold in the Delamar mines was embedded in quartzite which when crushed created a fine dust. Miners breathing the dust often developed silicosis and the town became known as a "widow-maker." Many ruins now stand semi-intact in the Delamar ghost town region. Foundations can easily be seen from adjacent hills. There are two graveyards, which have been vandalized. The area is honeycombed with mines and mineshafts, but in recent years the main shaft has been blasted closed. Wild horses roam the area. The nearby dry lake is known to pilots as Texas Lake because its outline resembles the state of Texas.