Fairview: A biggie off my bucket list!
Fairview is one ghost town I thought I might never visit. Fallon Naval Airstation Top Gun cut off access from the valley, as it is a live bombing range. Access is over a mountain top with some really steep hills. It requires an ATV, a skilled driver and someone who knows where they are going. Honey Badger is too high and top-heavy for the ascent/descent. I would have loved to try the “waterfall,” she would have been over like a champ.
Thank you to Dudley and Russ for setting up a great day and the Cool Kids for letting @nevadaexpeditions and me hitch a ride. A special thank you to Russ. I got to be a Passenger Princess and sit back and relax. His Turbo Polaris was enclosed, so we rode comfortably despite the wind, cold and dust.
The old townsites are on restricted land, but we visited the mills at New or Upper Fairview and a site of an old prospector’s cabin.
Prospectors discovered silver near Fairview Peak in 1905-6, and a town of several thousand grew. Fairview had hotels, an assay office, a newspaper, and a whopping 27 saloons! Fairview relocated twice: first to be closer to the mines and later as it outgrew its original location in a narrow canyon. The post office closed in 1919.
The Nevada Hills mine processed approximately 200 tons of ore daily and produced $2 million in gold and silver.
Ed and Sylvia Stratton lived in Fairview into the 1950s. Only the rock foundation of their cabin remains, along with an old refrigerator.
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