Hotel, ghost on the block this weekend

GOLDFIELD, Nev. - For a half million bucks or so, you can snap up the historic Goldfield Hotel at auction this weekend. Its equally historic - if legendary - ghost is thrown in for nothing.

The hotel is one of the properties being auctioned Friday to Sunday in the Goldfield Millennium Land Rush Festival. Minimum bid for the hotel is set at $426,760.26.

The Goldfield Hotel is one of 180 properties being auctioned by Esmeralda County for delinquent taxes.

The hotel, built in 1908, has been closed for about 20 years. Structural and foundation improvements have been completed inside, and overall renovation is 85 percent complete.

The hotel is the most expensive item on the auction block. Minimum bids for other properties range from $207.92 to about $2,000.

Goldfield, 182 miles northwest of Las Vegas on U.S. 95 and about 250 miles southeast of Reno, is one of Nevada's most historic towns in the state's least populated country.

''When I first took office, I learned that the county had never made a concerted effort to sell these properties,'' said Harold Kuehn, who has been Esmeralda County's district attorney since September. ''I saw this as foolish since the property taxes help to fund county government.''

Kuehn, also president of the Goldfield Chamber of Commerce, decided to make the auction a party. Along with the auction, the land rush festival will include a barbecue, parade, guided tours of the hotel, street dance and fireworks.

Goldfield was one of the world's great mining boomtowns in the early 20th century. Gold was discovered in 1902. Mines produced $15 million in gold in 1906 and 1907. In 1907 Goldfield had a population of 20,000, with five banks, two daily newspapers, two mining stock exchanges, three railroads and four schools.

Mostly, it had saloons - about 25 per block.

The biggest men in town were legendary northern Nevada figures George Wingfield and George Nixon, who organized the Goldfield Consolidated Mining Co., in 1906.

Goldfield was the scene of prolonged labor, including periodic strikes by miners, that reached a peak when federal troops were called in to prevent violence in 1907.

Gold production climbed to a one-year high of $10.7 million in 1910. Goldfield Consolidated closed in 1918. Flooding damaged the town extensively in 1913 and fire destroyed 53 square blocks in 1923.

Despite the disasters, Goldsfield survives as one of the state's best preserved mining towns.