Not to far from Rhyolite which was a gold mining town another town was built which was a producer of snow white marble. When it was discovered near death valley that marble could be mined out of the quarry a community was developed and called Carrara. The Carrara Marble Company formed in 1912 and it was later found out that the quality of it was rather poor. However from what I read the same marble was used by many famous sculptors like Michelangelo. When the marble was poor quality the town became poor as well.

The company eventually laid out the town featuring a hotel, store, school, town fountain and other structures. There also was a milling operation which had pipes for water that they would receive from Gold Center and the "Carrara Pacific" which was a 3 miles Lidger Cable Tram which would run into the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad line.

The tram pulled full cars up the hill as empty cars went back down basically it was your simple pulley system. In 1914 the town shipped its first slabs of marble from the nearby quarry.  In 1917 the Las Vegas  & Tonapah Railroad shut down which really hurt so many towns north of Las Vegas. 

The Pacific Coast Borax a Twenty Mule Team was built to accommodate shipping from the Carrara Pacific. I can imagine that instead of there being an engine mules would tug the cars of marble to nearby towns.  At this point the town had over 150 residents, its own newspaper and even a post office. By 1919 however the marble being sent out was declared unstable and the quarry was closed which employed most of the residents. By 1924 the town was abandoned and it turned into a ghost town.

Sadly not much remains of the town. At first when I found this place I thought it was bombed because technically the ghost town is near the bombing range or what some call area 51 which is quite a large area of government land.  But later on I found out that the remains were that of the Elizalde Cement Plant that were built in the 1930s after the town was abandoned.

There are other remaining structures further up on the hill side some say the fountain, walls  from the hotel, foundations, pipes, a community fireplace and old road remain. I did try to take the road further up deeper into the ghost town and it was getting fairly rough for my small rental car so we had to turn back. The other obstacle was that the area is consumed by desert not even a single light in the area so when you shut off your headlights its pitch black. 

The area was also inhabited by the Clovis People who were ancestors of the Shoshone, Pajute, and Kawaiisu Indians who lived around here 11,000 years ago. When the town was abandoned others tried to promote it such as Bernard M. Stone who started another newspaper called the Carrara Miner which was used to promote his Gold Ace Mining Company. It did not last long and did not cause the town to have a population increase unfortunately. 

It makes you wonder if the town was ever meant to be. The hotel had electric lights, telephones and even running water just as it boasted over 40 buildings. When the Vermont Marble Company opened it produced better marble then Carrara so that also hurt the town economically.  I believe that the towns name was called Carrara like Carrara Italy which was a marble orientated industrial town so lots of interesting little facts.

As far as the towns Haunting's go its hard to say I felt more like I was about to be abducted by aliens rather then see a ghost walking around. Like I said the area is very dark and you probably will not see alot of ghost photos. I would love to return further in the future someday but I am afraid in future years very little will be left. 

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Rick-LordOfThyNight

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