Ione

Ione had the county seat first, and lost it the way frontier towns usually did — to a richer strike. Silver was found in 1863, and in 1864 Ione City became the first seat of brand-new Nye County, with six hundred people at work. The next year Belmont's wealth pulled most of them away, and in 1867 the seat went too. What is unusual is that Ione never quite died; through depression after depression it stayed lit by a few stubborn miners. The valley around it had held people for five thousand years before any of them arrived.

What the plaque says

Ione Valley had a dense and permanent aboriginal population, dating back about 5,000 years. Unusual property arrangements and agricultural methods were practiced later by the Shoshone and northern Paiute indians. Silver was discovered in 1863, and in 1864 Ione City was named first county seat of newly created Nye County. Over 600 people worked in this prosperous town until Belmont wealth attracted most of the miners in 1865, and the county seat in 1867. Alternately prosperous and poor, yet never completely deserted, Ione suffered mining depressions, milling difficulties, and the loss of miners to richer strikes throughout its history.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park — 2.2 mi
  A gold camp frozen in "arrested decay" since 1911, beside a quarry of fifty-foot ichthyosaurs left in the rock where they died — the Silver Trails' long exhale into deep time.

More markers nearby

• Ophir — 21 mi
• Tate’s Stage Station — 21 mi
• Big Smoky Valley — 25 mi
• Wagon Jack Shelter — 29 mi