'''GOLDFIELD'''

is an unincorporated community and the county seat of Esmeralda County, Nevada, United States, with a resident population of 440 at the 2000 census. It is located about Interwiki: convert » 240|mi|km southeast of Carson City, along U.S. Route 95.
Goldfield was a boomtown in the first decade of the 20th century due to the discovery of gold — between 1903 and 1940, Goldfield's mines produced more than $86 million. Much of the town was destroyed by a fire in 1924, although several buildings survived and remain today, notably the Goldfield Hotel, the Consolidated Mines Building (the communications center of the town until 1963), and the schoolhouse. Gold exploration still continues in and around the town today.

HISTORY

Gold was discovered at Goldfield in 1902, its year of inception. By 1904 the Goldfield district produced about 800 tons of ore, valued at $2,300,000, 30% of the state's production that year. This remarkable production caused Goldfield to grow rapidly, and it soon became the largest town in the state with over 20,000 people.
One prominent, or notorious, early Goldfield resident was George Graham Rice, a former check forger, newspaperman, and racetrack tipster, turned mining stock promoter. The collapse of his Sullivan Trust Company and its associated mining stocks caused the failure of the Goldfield State Bank in 1907. Rice quickly left Goldfield, but continued to promote mining shares for another quarter-century.
Another prominent resident from 1908 was George Wingfield, one of Nevada's entrepreneurs, who built the Goldfield Hotel. In collaboration with his partner George S. Nixon (who was to become a US Senator in 1904), Wingfield started in Belmont, Nevada in 1901 and then saw the potential of Goldfield after mining at Tonopah, only a few miles north, took off. George S. Nixon and Wingfield made huge fortunes in Goldfield by forming the Goldfield Consolidated Mining Company. By 1906 they were worth $30 million.
Wingfield moved to Reno, NV soon after realizing his great wealth could be spread across Northern Nevada and Northern California.
Between 1903 and 1918, mining in two towns grew from $2.8 million to $48.6 million.Wyatt and Virgil Earp came to Goldfield in 1904. Virgil was hired as a Goldfield deputy sheriff in January 1905. In April, he contracted pneumonia and, after six months of illness, he died on October 18, 1905. Wyatt Earp left Goldfield shortly afterward.
Goldfield reached a peak population of about 30,000 people in 1906 and hosted a lightweight boxing championship match between Joe Gans and Oscar "Battling" Nelson.
In addition to the mines, Goldfield was home to large reduction works. The gold output in 1907 was over $8.4 million, the year in which the town became the county seat; in 1908, output was about $4,880,000.
By the 1910 census, its population had declined to 4,838. By 1912, ore production had dropped to $5 million and the largest mining company left town in 1919. In 1923, a fire destroyed most of the town's flammable buildings. Some brick and stone buildings from before the fire remain, including the hotel and the high school.

DEMOGRAPHICS

Category: File - :Main Street, Goldfield, Nevada, 1904.JPG|thumb|Main Street, Goldfield, 1904
Category: Image - :Gans-Nelson fight, commemorative marker.jpg|thumb|A commemorative marker for the boxing championship match between Gans and Nelson.
The decline continued throughout the 20th Century and, by 1950, Goldfield had a population of only 275.
The 2000 census shows that there were 440 people, 221 households, and 118 families residing in the Goldfield Census County Division. The racial makeup of the CCD was 93.2% White, 0.2% Black or African American, 2.0% Native American, 0.2% Pacific Islander, 1.4% from other races, and 3.0% from two or more races. 5.2% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.


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