Rhyolite: Nevada's Gold-Rush Ghost Town on the Edge of Death Valley

Rhyolite sprang to life as a gold-mining boomtown in the early 1900s, and at its height it had the trappings of a real city — masonry buildings, a bank, and busy streets carved into the Bullfrog Hills. Today the BLM protects what the desert left behind: the towering, hollow facade of the Cook Bank Building, which the agency calls one of the most photographed buildings in the West, alongside scattered foundations and walls that trace the town's brief, ambitious footprint.

The most beloved oddity is the bottle house, built entirely from glass bottles and described by the BLM as Nevada's best preserved. Wandering the site, you move between grand commercial ruins and humble, hand-built homes, a contrast that tells the whole arc of a mining camp that rose and fell in barely more than a decade.

Because Rhyolite is day-use only and sits just outside Death Valley's eastern boundary, it slots neatly into a desert RV itinerary: tour the ruins in the cooler morning hours, then continue into the national park. The BLM's archaeologist-led walking tours are worth timing your visit around if your schedule allows.