Silver Peak, Nevada
Demographics
| Census | Pop. | Note | %± |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 121 | — | |
| U.S. Decennial Census | |||
History
Silver Peak is one of the oldest mining communities in Nevada. It was founded near a well in 1864, two years after the founding of surrounding Esmeralda County, and one year after silver was discovered nearby and mining began. A 10 stamp mill was built in 1865, and a 20 stamp mill by 1867. The Silver Peak Railroad was built by the Pittsburgh Silver Peak Gold Mining Company after it bought a group of mining properties in 1906 and established a 100 stamp mill at Blair, Nevada, in 1907. Blair's mill closed in 1915, and Blair was a ghost town by 1920. Silver Peak maintained a population, however, even though it burned in 1948.
In 1939, boxer Max Baer defeated "Big Ed" Murphy of Silver Peak in a one round fight at Silver Peak.
Climate
Silver Peak has a cold desert climate (Köppen: BWk) with cold winters and hot summers.
| Climate data for Silver Peak, Nevada, 1991–2020 normals, extremes 1967–present | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °F (°C) | 72 (22) |
77 (25) |
87 (31) |
91 (33) |
102 (39) |
110 (43) |
111 (44) |
111 (44) |
104 (40) |
104 (40) |
79 (26) |
69 (21) |
111 (44) |
| Mean daily maximum °F (°C) | 46.4 (8.0) |
52.9 (11.6) |
61.6 (16.4) |
67.7 (19.8) |
77.9 (25.5) |
89.2 (31.8) |
96.7 (35.9) |
94.6 (34.8) |
85.4 (29.7) |
71.6 (22.0) |
56.5 (13.6) |
44.8 (7.1) |
70.4 (21.3) |
| Daily mean °F (°C) | 32.6 (0.3) |
38.6 (3.7) |
47.1 (8.4) |
53.4 (11.9) |
63.5 (17.5) |
73.3 (22.9) |
79.9 (26.6) |
77.6 (25.3) |
68.3 (20.2) |
54.8 (12.7) |
41.5 (5.3) |
31.2 (−0.4) |
55.2 (12.9) |
| Mean daily minimum °F (°C) | 18.8 (−7.3) |
24.3 (−4.3) |
32.7 (0.4) |
39.2 (4.0) |
49.0 (9.4) |
57.3 (14.1) |
63.2 (17.3) |
60.7 (15.9) |
51.3 (10.7) |
38.0 (3.3) |
26.5 (−3.1) |
17.6 (−8.0) |
39.9 (4.4) |
| Record low °F (°C) | −22 (−30) |
−21 (−29) |
4 (−16) |
14 (−10) |
19 (−7) |
24 (−4) |
39 (4) |
30 (−1) |
28 (−2) |
10 (−12) |
−2 (−19) |
−14 (−26) |
−22 (−30) |
| Average precipitation inches (mm) | 0.27 (6.9) |
0.40 (10) |
0.50 (13) |
0.47 (12) |
0.32 (8.1) |
0.24 (6.1) |
0.69 (18) |
0.41 (10) |
0.24 (6.1) |
0.30 (7.6) |
0.27 (6.9) |
0.22 (5.6) |
4.33 (110) |
| Average precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in) | 1.9 | 3.2 | 3.0 | 2.2 | 3.0 | 1.3 | 3.4 | 2.2 | 2.1 | 2.3 | 1.6 | 1.8 | 28.0 |
| Source: NOAA | |||||||||||||
Economy
Silver Peak lies near a dry lake bed that is rich in lithium and other minerals.
Initially salt was mined in the area. In 1906, Spurr reported that salt was mined for local use by digging a hole a foot or two deep until water was reached and then waiting until the water evaporated. It was claimed that the salt produced in this manner was 99% pure.
During World War II, Clayton Marsh was explored for strategic minerals including potash and American Potash Corp. leased the marsh. In the 1950s, Leprechaun Mining (Clyde Kegel) acquired the leases. He determined that in addition to potassium, lithium was also present. Leprechaun Mining reached an agreement with Foote Minerals in 1964 and Foote reconfigured the silver mill and started production of lithium in 1967. In 1988, Cyprus Minerals acquired Foote and became Cyprus Foot Minerals. In 1998, Chemetall acquired the operation – the new company was called Chemetall Foote Corp. In 2004, Rockwood Holdings acquired the operation. In 2010, the mine was expanded to double the capacity of its lithium carbonate production. The project was funded in part by a $28.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to expand and upgrade the production of lithium materials for advanced transportation batteries. In 2014, the Albemarle Corporation purchased Rockwood for $6.2 Billion.
As of October 2021, the Albemarle Corporation Lithium Operation at Silver Peak employs around 100 people extracting heavy brine and is currently the only operating source of lithium in the United States, and supplying 1% of the world's output.
In popular culture
The town was featured on a show called "Welcome To Murdertown" which revolves around the disappearance and murder of Charlie Kinkle by local methamphetamine users, Jason Taaffe and Coleman Ward, who were delusional from years of methamphetamine use .
During California's 1999 electric power crisis in the first major act of the power crisis causing an outage on March 25, 1999, Enron energy traders allegedly rerouted 2,900MW (megawatts) of electricity destined for California to this small Nevada community. This caused a large shortage on the California power grid because the largest power feeder (intertie) from this area to California had a capacity of 15MW (about 0.5% of the required wheeling capacity).
Education
Residents are zoned to the Esmeralda County School District for grades K-8.
High school students in the entire county go to Tonopah High School of Nye County School District.
References
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Silver Peak
- ^ "ArcGIS REST Services Directory". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved September 19, 2022.
- ^ Rand McNally. The Road Atlas '08. Chicago: Rand McNally, 2008, p. 64.
- ^ Zip Code Lookup
- ^ "Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
- ^ Esmeralda County's page on Silver Peak Archived 2011-03-09 at the Library of Congress Web Archives
- ^ Silver Peak page at Ghosttowns.com
- ^ Blair page at Ghosttowns.com
- ^ "Silver Peak". Nevada State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved April 3, 2020. State Historical Marker No. 155.
- ^ Shamberger, Hugh A. (1976). The Story of Silver Peak, Esmeralda County, Nevada. Nevada Historical Press. pp. 111 pages. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
- ^ "NOWData - NOAA Online Weather Data". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved October 7, 2022.
- ^ "Summary of Monthly Normals 1991-2020". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved October 9, 2022.
- ^ Robinson, Paul T. (1972). "Petrology of the Potassic Silver Peak Volcanic Center, Western Nevada". Geological Society of America Bulletin. 83 (6): 1693. Bibcode:1972GSAB...83.1693R. doi:10.1130/0016-7606(1972)83[1693:POTPSP]2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0016-7606.
- ^ Spurr, Josiah Edward (1906). Ore Deposits of the Silver Peak Quadrangle, Nevada (Report). U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 159. hdl:2027/mdp.39015080076709. Retrieved December 31, 2017.
- ^ Kogel, Jessica Elzea (2006). Industrial Minerals & Rocks: Commodities, Markets, and Uses. p. 605. ISBN 9780873352338. Retrieved December 29, 2017.
- ^ "Expansion of Chemetall Foote lithium operation in Nevada". July 12, 2010. Archived from the original on July 8, 2011.
- ^ "Global Supplier of Specialty Chemicals, Social and Environmental Issues, Albemarle". Albemarle Corporation. Archived from the original on December 29, 2017. Retrieved December 28, 2017.
- ^ "Mineral Commodity Summaries" (PDF). United States Geological Survey. February 2019. Retrieved January 13, 2020.
- ^ Dentzer, Bill (October 4, 2021). "Nevada's next boom: Demand poised to spur Silver State's lithium production". Las Vegas Review-Journal. Archived from the original on October 4, 2021.
- ^ "Welcome to Murdertown | Watch Full Episodes & More!". Investigation Discovery. Retrieved October 8, 2020.
- ^ Ernst ten Heuvelhof (2009). Strategic Behaviour in Network Industries: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. ISBN 978-1-84720-610-7.
- ^ "2020 CENSUS - SCHOOL DISTRICT REFERENCE MAP: Esmeralda County, NV" (PDF). U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved July 17, 2022. - Text list
- ^ "Education". Esmeralda County, Nevada. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
Further reading
- Ford, Victoria (ed.), "Silver Peak: At Work, At Play, and At Home," University of Nevada, Reno, 2000. archive.org
- Ford, Victoria, "Silver Peak: Never A Ghost Town Archived June 6, 2016, at the Wayback Machine," University of Nevada, Reno, 2002. archive.org
External links
- Photograph of the Black Mammoth Consolidated Mining Company's commissary, Mary Mine (Nev.), circa 1937 (University of Las Vegas)
- Photograph of Silver Peak, Nevada; Title taken from image; postcard ca. 1925-1935 (University of Nevada, Reno)
Municipalities and communities of Esmeralda County, Nevada, United States | ||
|---|---|---|
| CDPs |  | |
| Ghost towns | ||