Austin, Nevada
Silver Boom Town Of 1862 On US 50 In The Toiyabe Range, With Three 19th Century Churches And Stokes Castle · Austin, Nevada
Austin is a small, half-empty silver-mining town on US 50 in central Nevada, strung up a steep canyon on the western slope of the Toiyabe Range at roughly 6,600 feet, near the middle of the stretch billed as the Loneliest Road in America. Silver was found in Pony Canyon in 1862, and within a few years the camp had grown into one of the busiest towns in the state and the seat of Lander County, a role it kept until the county seat moved to Battle Mountain in the late 1970s. Today only a couple of hundred people live here, and many stone and brick buildings on Main Street stand empty or half used. What survives is unusually rich for a place this size: three 19th-century churches on the hillside, the old courthouse, the Gridley Store tied to the famous sack-of-flour charity auction of the Civil War, and Stokes Castle, a three-storey stone tower on the ridge west of town. Treat it as a slow hour or an overnight stop rather than a destination; fuel, food and beds are limited, and the town is the nearest base for Spencer Hot Springs, the Hickison Petroglyphs and the Toiyabe mountains.
Main Street (US 50), Austin, Nevada, 89310, United States
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The typical pattern: Main Street, the outside of the churches and the ridge at Stokes Castle can be seen at any hour, free, with no gate, but Stokes Castle is fenced and never open inside. The town's cafe, bar, motel and fuel pumps keep short, owner-set hours, often closing early in the evening and cutting back or shutting for days in winter. Church interiors open only for services or events. The traps that ruin a day are arriving after dark to find nowhere to eat or fill up, assuming a room will be free, crossing a snowy pass after dark in winter, and following phone navigation into a canyon with no signal. Confirm current times before relying on them.