Gold Hill
Comstock Mining Settlement Just South Of Virginia City, With The Gold Hill Hotel And The Virginia And Truckee Railroad Depot · Gold Hill, Nevada
Gold Hill is a small, half-empty mining settlement on State Route 342 about a mile south of Virginia City, in the steep ravine where prospectors found gold in 1859 at the start of the Comstock Lode rush. In the boom years of the 1860s and 1870s it was a busy town of mines, mills, hotels and railroad sidings, often said to have held several thousand people; today it is a scatter of historic buildings, mine dumps, headframes, cottages and empty lots with a small resident population. Visitors come for three things: the Gold Hill Hotel, often described as the oldest hotel in Nevada, the historic Virginia and Truckee Railroad depot where heritage trains from Virginia City stop and turn back, and the raw mining landscape of the Comstock without the crowds of C Street. It is a short stop rather than a town with services. Most people ride the V&T train down, walk the Divide, or drive through on the way to Silver City and US 50, and eat in Virginia City. The grades on NV 342 are steep, winters bring snow and ice, and much of the old town is private property.
State Route 342, Gold Hill, Nevada, 89440, United States
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The typical pattern: Gold Hill itself has no hours, the road and the views are open at all times. The Gold Hill Hotel's bar and dining room have kept limited days and evening hours, often closed early in the week and in parts of winter, and rooms are by reservation. The V&T heritage trains usually run several times a day from late spring to autumn, often on weekends only at the start and end of the season. The traps that ruin a day are finding the hotel closed after driving down for dinner, arriving in winter when no trains run, missing the last train back to Virginia City, and snow or ice on the steep grades. Confirm current times before relying on them.