Please remember to exercise caution when exploring Nevada's Ghost Towns & Mining Camps. Open shafts, drifts going into mountainsides, and old buildings, are all DANGEROUS. Be aware of your surroundings, and let someone know where you are, especially if your plans change.

Clifton

DIRECTIONS: Located 0.75 miles west of Austin.

"Clifton came into being after William Talcott made his ore discoveries in Pony Canyon on March 2, 1862. The Clifton townsite was platted by two men named Marshall and Cole, just below the original district claims. A fair-sized town quickly formed as the rush to the new mining district developed. By spring 1863, a tent city of 500 had sprung up at the mouth of the canyon. Flora Bender, while traveling through Clifton, reported, "The houses are principally of canvas, with roofs made of cedar brushes but very few wooden buildings." The businesses in town included a Wells-Fargo office, assay office, recorder's office, justice of the peace, hotels, restaurants, and lumber and hay yards. As Clifton was becoming a prosperous new town, however, the Austin townsite was platted farther up Pony Canyon.

Austin and Clifton enjoyed a spirited competition. Clifton had a level townsite, but Austin offered free lots to businesses in exchange for help in building a graded road from Reese River Valley to Austin. While Clifton was slightly larger, when the road (which bypassed Clifton) to Austin was completed, the battle was lost. The combination of Clifton's high-priced lots and Austin's free lots spelled doom for the town. When Austin won the battle for the county seat in the fall of 1863 Clifton's fate was sealed. People began to move to Austin and finally, on February 20, 1864, the Clifton post office closed. Soon Clifton was abandoned, with empty wooden buildings scattered over the site, little islands in what had once been a sea of tents. A small 4-stamp mill, the Clifton, was active in 1865, but interest in Clifton was gone, and when the mill closed in 1867 Clifton was left to the ghosts. Nevertheless, a post office, with Frederick May as postmaster, ran from June 20, 1867, to September 28, 1868. But not even the postal system showed much interest in Clifton.

Clifton was revived in 1880 when the town, now known as Austin Junction, became the terminus for the Nevada Central and Austin City railroads and a thirty-car siding for the Nevada Central was constructed. The railroad connection was the sole purpose of the town, however, and no people moved back as residents. In 1894, J. G. Phelps Stokes, president of the Austin Silver Mining Company, constructed the 40-stamp Clifton Mill at the mouth of the 6,000-foot Austin Tunnel. The mill, equipped with machinery from the Manhattan Mill in Austin, operated for more than a decade. However, Clifton never had any permanent residents during this period. Austinites use the area for recreation; a baseball diamond was built, and townspeople enjoyed weekend picnics at the old Clifton townsite. Today remains are scant. The mill ruins are about the only markers of the site."

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