• Significance: The Tonopah Belmont Development Company (TBDC) was one of the most important companies created during Nevada’s early twentieth-century mining boom. As ore deposits in its central Nevada mines were depleted, the company sought new claims to resurrect its fortunes. In 1926 TBDC built the Belmont Mill near Hamilton to process lead and silver ore from its recently acquired claims in the White Pine mining district of eastern Nevada. The small pilot mill employed the most recent advances in table concentration and flotation mineral processing techniques, and the company erected numerous other industrial and domestic buildings and structures, including an aerial tramway and boardinghouses, to support the mining and milling work. Although largely abandoned by TBDC after a few years, subsequent property owners continued to use and modify the site for smaller milling operations. Today, although most of the equipment has been removed, the Belmont Mill site is one of the only intact assemblages of early twentieth-century mining buildings and structures in eastern Nevada. Importantly, both industrial and domestic buildings and structures remain to provide a glimpse of daily life there. The site is a tangible reminder of the decline and failure of a once-powerful company and, thereby, of the boom and bust cycle so common in the mining industry. The subsequent modification and reuse of the site for small-scale operations typifies the ceaseless hum of optimism that sustains the mining industry.
• Survey number: HAER NV-46
• Building/structure dates: 1926 Initial Construction

Related names:

United States Department of Agriculture, owner

Tonopah Belmont Development Company, owner