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At the turn of the last century, Goldfield was a mining boomtown — prospectors were pulling millions of dollars worth of ore out of the ground each year, and with a population that ballooned to more than 30,000 by 1904, it was the largest town in the state of Nevada. It was a classic Old West success story: gun-slinging heroes like Wyatt Earp trod its wooden sidewalks, and in a society where the real measure of a town’s worth was its bar-and-whorehouse scene, Goldfield had the rest beat: Tex Rickard’s Northern Saloon had a bar so long it required 80 bartenders to run it. Of course, I wouldn’t be writing about Goldfield if everything had kept going like gangbusters. By 1920s, the gold mines had started to peter out, and in 1923 a moonshine still exploded and started a fire that took most of the town’s wooden buildings with it. Today about 400 people remain in Goldfield, a semi-ghost town set among the barren wastes of Nevada’s high desert, surrounded by ghost stories and empty buildings — many of which are impressive stone and brick structures that survived the 1923 fire.
One of those buildings is Goldfield High School, built during the boom years in 1907. It graduated its last class in 1952, and has stood proud but shuttered ever since, impressive on the outside, decaying within. Over the past few years, a small team of dedicated volunteers has begun trying to save the high school, but restoring it to its former glory is a gargantuan task. Vandals and the elements have had their way with the building for many years, and it will take many more to lift it from the beautiful state of decay it’s in today.
The first thing you notice is a fascinating jumble of layers and textures — peeled paint, fallen-away plaster, warped and weathered boards and the wooden guts of walls that were never meant to be exposed, all creating this insane, ancient-looking pattern of wear.
The second-floor hallway, and one of many open or broken windows. Anything with wings or a ladder can get inside.
Chalk for a long-gone chalkboard.
Other classrooms still have parts of their chalkboards in tact — a jumble of original classroom writing from the 50s (yes, really) and graffiti.
The teacher’s writing on this board is still readable. Looks like a pop quiz: 5. What is the most important country in the Western hemisphere? Anyone care to take a guess?
The floor is beginning to buckle in this classroom.
Volunteers have started working to replace the floor in another classroom. As you can see, they have their work cut out for them.
The only time I was ever allowed in the girls’ bathroom — and wouldn’t you know it, it’s empty.
A science classroom. How many dissected frogs haunt this room, we may never know.
The school’s main staircase is probably its most impressive feature. Creaking and lacking a few crucial banisters, its a little scary — but beautiful nonetheless.
The staircase from the ground floor, a dizzying maze of angles and textures.
The yellow glow in the picture above is one of the worklights the volunteers have strung around the school. I don’t believe in ghosts, and yet I sincerely hope the volunteers don’t hang around this place at night.
Forty-year-old graffiti.
“Class of 1942,” penciled in a doorjamb.
A teacher’s desk.
A teacher’s chair.
Bars of light in an empty room. The silence in this high school — generally the last place you expect to be able to hear yourself think — was almost unsettling.
Anyone interested in helping out the Goldfield High School volunteers — with work, donations, or anything else — can email them here or leave a message at 775-485-3788.
If you’d like a print of one of these photos — or any of my Strange Geographies photos — they’re available here.
You can check out more photo essays on my website.
Comments (21)
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I work in a school, at night, and you can hear yourself think. That is, when Metallica is not blasting through the halls.
posted by gus on 11-2-2009 at 8:56 am
Awesome pictures!
It’s weird looking at the walls where the plaster has fallen off, but the wood behind it is still there. My house will look like that some day.
posted by Christina on 11-2-2009 at 9:26 am
Looks far too similiar to my son’s high school. His school is in only slightly (okay more than slightly) better repair, but is still in use.
posted by Hyacinth on 11-2-2009 at 9:54 am
How is this a MentalFloss topic? Cool pics, yes. Put travel anywhere through out the great plains states and you will find abandoned school buildings that look just like this. The floor plan looks like the building that was used for my junior high school until it was torn down in the late 1980s after a failed “save the school” campaign.
I expected more from you Mental Floss.
posted by PragmaticCynic on 11-2-2009 at 11:08 am
This reminds me of the old high school across from my grandparents house. The last class was also in the 50s and the rooms look the same; writing and graffiti still on chalkboards, random furniture, and the staircases are identical.
posted by FrankieA on 11-2-2009 at 12:05 pm
@ PragmaticCynic-
Obviously you haven’t been following the mental_floss blog very long. Ransom has been doing these Strange Geographies posts for quite a while. They’re cool pictures of all sorts of random, usually (always?) abandoned places from all over. Part of the point is that you can find cool abandoned places anywhere, part is that they provide a frozen-in-time snapshot of that place or institution, and part of it is that they’re just cool pictures.
I expected more from Mental_Floss readers.
posted by Steve on 11-2-2009 at 12:11 pm
Thanks for a great post, Ransom! Not everyone can travel to these places, and I appreciate the chance to see them and read their histories.
posted by Eva on 11-2-2009 at 12:16 pm
@ Steve:
Well said, fellow Flosser!
posted by Corinne on 11-2-2009 at 12:20 pm
@ PragmaticCynic
Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays!
posted by Jonny on 11-2-2009 at 1:46 pm
@Steve,
You tell him….
LOVE your photo essays Ransom.
And PragmaticCynic:
What is not flossy about geeking out and loving the beauty in a creepy old building?
posted by Chrystani on 11-2-2009 at 1:57 pm
Ranson – I always look forward to your articles. A real treat!
posted by Hummer on 11-2-2009 at 2:33 pm
I absolutely love, love, LOVE this post. The lines in the second picture are a veritable lesson in geometry themselves! *sigh* I honestly miss chalkboards in my classrooms. Bleh to the smell of dry erase markers… Yup, I’m totally geekin’ out on this one, Ransom. Thank you!
posted by Helenann on 11-2-2009 at 2:59 pm
*wait, it’s technically the third photo I’m nuts over…See? I can’t even read right now. :)
posted by Helenann on 11-2-2009 at 3:00 pm
@ PragmaticCynic-
I disagree, these long empty buildings and haunting areas often lead me to search more about the local and the reason for the abandonment. The stories are so bizarre and frequently as interesting as the end result
Ransom is a staple here, and personally one of my favorite bloggers. I would love to visit and photograph places like that more often.
Another great post, can’t wait for the next strange geography.
posted by hockey zombie on 11-2-2009 at 3:05 pm
I agree with most people here–these articles by Ransom are wonderfully flossy in every which way. A word to PragmaticCynic, try not to let the mondays get you down. And if they do, why take others with you, huh?
Ransom, great post. You’re so darn lucky to get to wander through these amazing places!
My recaptcha could perhaps be one of the frogs that haunts the science room… Viscous Erik
posted by Ophelia on 11-2-2009 at 5:15 pm
Ransom,
Maybe you’ve commented on this in past Strange Geographies, but what kind of camera/lens do you use? Do you create HDR images with some of the pictures after-the-fact? The color contrast you get in some of these pictures is amazing.
posted by Steve on 11-2-2009 at 6:32 pm
I only just stumbled upon this place from an abandoned places link and was immediately sucked in. These pictures are beautiful. I feel lucky that you shared them with us. Thank you!
posted by Rachael on 11-2-2009 at 6:51 pm
Count me as another pro-Ransomite.. I love his entries!!
posted by Devin Greaney on 11-2-2009 at 8:29 pm
Excellent as always!
Too bad you didn’t get to St. Louis before they restored/rehabbed the Homer G. Phillips Hospital a few years back…reports of medical documents (newborn baby pics!) and equipment just abandoned all over. The place is retirement community now.
http://www.builtstlouis.net/homerphillips.html
Keep up the good work!
posted by Marty on 11-2-2009 at 8:59 pm
Excellent photos, as usual. I’d love to explore old buildings like this, but I’m afraid that I’d fall through the floor! Luckily we have Ransom to provide vicarious explorations for us. Great work, as always.
It’s most sad when small-town schools close. They are the center of the community, and when they close the towns slides a little faster into oblivion.
posted by Nick Archer on 11-3-2009 at 12:57 pm
Thank you for posting this and sending it to me. I am glad you stopped by to get a tour. I love the way the pictures turned out. Stop by again sometime, work is always being done.
posted by Amanda on 11-10-2009 at 1:14 am