Lida

Lida had what the camps around it lacked: water. It rose in 1867 on a Shoshone and Paiute campsite at good springs, named for the wife of an Austin prospector. Silver drew the first settlers, but the ore thinned out by 1880; a gold revival riding Goldfield's coattails lifted it to about three hundred people after 1905, then faded again. Its valley springs were prized enough that dry camps like Hornsilver hauled water from here. In 1913 one of the first marked transcontinental auto routes ran through on its way to California.

What the plaque says

Known as a contact point for Shoshones and Northern Paiute Indians, Lida Valley was the site of early prospecting in the 1860's. Later prospectors organized a mining district in 1867 and laid out the town in 1872. Soon stores, shops, stables and a Post Office were established. Some ore was milled locally. Yet high grade ore (500 dollars - 1,000 dollars per ton) was treated at Austin or Belmont. After 1880 mining declined. Lida revived and thrived for three years during the Goldfield boom, but declined again in 1907. Mining efforts resumed a few years later and a small community existed here until World War I.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Goldfield — 23 mi
  Once the largest city in Nevada, now a few hundred souls — the purest boom-and-bust in the West, with a castle courthouse still in use, a grand hotel dark since the war, and a desert full of upended cars.

More markers nearby

• Palmetto — 11 mi
• Gold Point — 12 mi
• Goldfield — 23 mi
• Southern Nevada Telephone – Telegraph Company Building — 23 mi