Beatty is a census-designated place (CDP) and town located on the Amargosa River in Nye County in the U.S. state of Nevada. It lies along U.S. Route 95 between Tonopah, about 90 miles (140 km) to the north, and Las Vegas, about 120 miles (190 km) to the southeast.[2][3] State Route 374 connects Beatty to Death Valley National Park, about 8 miles (13 km) to the west.[3] The population was 1,154 at the 2000 census.

Before the arrival of Euro-Americans in the 19th century, the region was home to groups of Western Shoshone. Established in 1905, the town was named after Montillus (Montillion), Murray "Old Man" Beatty, who settled on a ranch in the Oasis Valley in 1896 and became the town's first postmaster.[4] With the arrival of the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad in 1905, Beatty became a railway center for the Bullfrog Mining District, including mining towns such as nearby Rhyolite.[5] Starting in the 1940s, Nellis Air Force Base and other federal installations contributed to the town's economy as did tourism related to Death Valley National Park and the rise of Las Vegas as an entertainment center.

Beatty is home to the Beatty Museum and Historical Society, a casino, and hundreds of motel rooms and recreational vehicle spaces. The ghost town of Rhyolite and the Goldwell Open Air Museum, a sculpture park, are about 4 miles (6 km) to the west, and Yucca Mountain and the Nevada Test Site are about 18 miles (29 km) to the east.

Before the arrival of Euro-American explorers, prospectors, and settlers, Western Shoshone in the Beatty area hunted game and gathered wild plants in the region. It is estimated that the 19th-century population density of the Indians near Beatty was 44 square miles (110 km2) per person. By the middle of the century, European diseases had greatly reduced the Indian population, and incursions by newcomers had disrupted the native traditions. In about 1875, the Shoshone had six camps, with a total population of 29, along the Amargosa River near Beatty. Some of the survivors and their descendants continued to live in or near Beatty, while others moved to reservations at Walker Lake, Reese River, Duckwater, or elsewhere.[6]

Beatty is named after "Old Man" Montillus (Montillion) Murray Beatty, a Civil War veteran and miner who bought a ranch along the Amargosa River just north of the future town[7] and became the town's first postmaster in 1905.[4] The town was laid out in 1904 or 1905 after Ernest Alexander "Bob" Montgomery, owner of the Montgomery Shoshone Mine near Rhyolite, decided to build the Montgomery Hotel in Beatty.[8] Montgomery was drawn to the area, known as the Bullfrog Mining District, because of a gold rush that began in 1904 in the Bullfrog Hills west of Beatty.[9] As word of the discovery spread, thousands of hopeful prospectors and speculators rushed to the area and established camps and mining towns including Rhyolite, Bullfrog, Gold Center, Transvaal, Springdale, and others.[10] When the gold rush ended and the mines closed a few years later, only Beatty, with ample water and a location in a transportation corridor, survived as a populated place.[10]

During the town's first year, wagons pulled by teams of horses or mules hauled freight between the Bullfrog district and the nearest railroad, in Las Vegas, and by the middle of 1905, about 1,500 horses were engaged in this business.[11] In October 1906, the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad (LV&T) began regular service to Beatty; in April 1907, the Bullfrog Goldfield Railroad (BG) reached the town, and the Tonopah and Tidewater (T&T) line added a third railroad in October 1907.[12] The LV&T ceased operations in 1918, the BG in 1928, and the T&T in 1940.[12] Until the railroads abandoned their lines, Beatty served as the railhead for many mines in the area, including a fluorspar mine on Bare Mountain, east of town.[13] The town became the economic center for a large sparsely-populated region. Activities sustaining Beatty during the 1920s and 1930s included retail sales, gas and oil distribution, construction of Scotty's Castle, and the production and sale of illegal alcohol during Prohibition.[14]

Beatty's first newspaper was the Beatty Bullfrog Miner, which began publishing in 1905 and went out of business in 1909. The Rhyolite Herald was the region's most important paper, starting in 1905 and reaching a circulation of 10,000 by 1909. It ceased publication in 1912, and the Beatty area had no newspaper from then until 1947. The Beatty Bulletin, a supplement to the Goldfield News, was published from then through 1956.[15]

Beatty's population grew slowly in the first half of the 20th century, rising from 169 in 1929 to 485 in 1950.[16] The first reliable electric company in town, Amargosa Power Company, began supplying electricity in about 1940. Phone service arrived during World War II, and the town installed a community-wide sewer system in the 1970s.[17] Nevada's legalization of gambling in 1931, the establishment of Death Valley National Monument in 1933, and the rise of Las Vegas as an entertainment center, brought visitors to Beatty, which became increasingly tourist-oriented. As underground mining declined in the region, federal defense spending, starting with the Nellis Air Force Range in 1940 and the Nevada Test Site in 1950, also contributed to the local economy.[18]

In 1962, the first commercially-operated low-level radioactive waste disposal site in the United States began operations about 17 miles (27 km) south of Beatty. Waste of this sort was buried at the site from then until 1992. In 1970, the site began accepting hazardous chemical waste for burial, and this use of the site continues as of 2009. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) operates the Amargosa Desert Research Site near the waste burial site to study arid-land hydrology.[19] The waste-disposal site, operated by a company called U.S. Ecology, "provides a steady source of employment for a dozen or so families in the area".[20]

In 1988, Bond Gold built an open-pit mine and mill on the south side of Ladd Mountain, about 4 miles (6.4 km) west of town along State Route 374. LAC Minerals acquired the mine from Bond in 1989 and established an underground mine there in 1991 after a new body of ore called the North Extension was discovered. Barrick Gold acquired LAC Minerals in 1994 and continued to extract and process ore at what became known as the Barrick Bullfrog Mine until the end of 1998.[21] At the peak of the construction phase, the mine employed 540 workers. To accommodate them, Beatty added mobile home parks and a temporary camp housing 300 people. As a consequence, the town's population rose from about 1,000 in 1980 to between 1,500 and 2,000 by the end of 1990.[22]

Beatty lies along U.S. Route 95 between Tonopah, about 90 miles (140 km) to the north, and Las Vegas, about 120 miles (190 km) to the southeast. State Route 374 connects Beatty to Death Valley National Park, about 8 miles (13 km) to the west. Yucca Mountain and the Nevada Test Site are about 18 miles (29 km) to the east.[3] The town is located at 36°54′34″N 116°45′16″W / 36.90944°N 116.75444°W / 36.90944; -116.75444 (36.909337, -116.754531)[23] at 3,320 feet (1,010 m) above sea level. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 175.6 square miles (454.9 km²), all of it land. The Amargosa River, a mostly intermittent stream that ends in Death Valley, flows on the surface through Beatty.

Nevada's main climatic features are bright sunshine, low annual precipitation, heavy snowfall in the higher mountains, clean, dry air, and large daily temperature ranges. Strong surface heating occurs by day and rapid cooling by night, and usually even the hottest days have cool nights. The average percentage of possible sunshine in southern Nevada is more than 80 percent. Sunshine and low humidity in this region account for an average evaporation, as measured in evaporation pans, of more than 100 inches (2,500 mm) of water a year.[24]

Beatty receives only about 6 inches (152 mm) of precipitation a year. July is the warmest month, when the average high temperature is 97 °F (36 °C) and the average low is 61 °F (16 °C). January and December are the coolest months with an average high of 54 °F (12 °C) and an average low of 28 °F (−2 °C) in January and 27 °F (−3 °C) in December. The highest recorded temperature was 112° F in 1989, and the lowest was 2° F in 1990.[25]

As of the census[26] of 2000, there were 1,154 people, 535 households, and 270 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 6.6 people per square mile (2.5/km²). There were 740 housing units at an average density of 4.2/sq mi (1.6/km²). The racial makeup of the CDP was 90.90% White, 0.09% African American, 1.47% Native American, 1.21% Asian, 3.12% from other races, and 3.21% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 8.93% of the population.

There were 535 households out of which 26.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 39.8% were married couples living together, 6.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 49.5% were non-families. 43.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 15.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.16 and the average family size was 3.04.

In the CDP the population was spread out with 26.1% under the age of 18, 5.6% from 18 to 24, 24.7% from 25 to 44, 29.5% from 45 to 64, and 14.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 119.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 121.6 males.

The median income for a household in the CDP was $41,250, and the median income for a family was $52,639. Males had a median income of $44,438 versus $25,962 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $16,971. About 10.4% of families and 13.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.1% of those under age 18 and 19.6% of those age 65 or over.

The town is home to the Beatty Museum and Historical Society, a casino, and many overnight accommodations. In 2009, the Chamber of Commerce web site described the town as the Gateway to Death Valley, a small rural community that has "everything the desert visitor needs", including more than 340 rooms and 108 recreational vehicle (RV) sites.[27] The ghost town of Rhyolite and the Goldwell Open Air Museum, a sculpture park, are about 4 miles (6 km) to the west. Bailey's Hot Springs and bathhouses are about 5 miles (8.0 km) north of town in the Oasis Valley. In addition to highways, Beatty has a general aviation airfield, Beatty Airport, about 3 miles (4.8 km) south of town. Beatty Medical Center, which opened in 1977, provides family medicine and other services.[28] The Beatty Library, a member of the Cooperative Libraries Automated Network, has a searchable online catalog.[29]