The story
Belmont boomed on silver discovered in 1865 and was important enough to take the Nye County seat two years later. At its height about 2,000 people lived here, served by banks, saloons, two newspapers, and the handsome brick-and-stone courthouse the county finished in 1876.
The mines had already begun to fade by the 1880s. When Tonopah's silver boom exploded after 1900, Belmont's remaining purpose went with it — the county seat moved to Tonopah in 1905, and the post office closed in 1911.
The courthouse is the reason to come: a genuinely grand public building standing nearly alone in Monitor Valley sagebrush, stabilized and cared for by a local friends group. A handful of part-time residents and one famously creaky saloon keep the town from total silence.
What remains today
The 1876 Belmont courthouse (tours in summer), the Cosmopolitan Saloon's rebuilt bar, brick ruins of the business row, mill ruins east of town, and the Belmont cemetery.
Questions from the field
- Can you go inside the Belmont courthouse?
- Yes, seasonally — the Friends of the Belmont Courthouse run summer tours of the restored 1876 building. Outside tour hours you can walk the grounds.
- Does anyone live in Belmont, Nevada?
- A few part-time and seasonal residents do, and the saloon opens irregularly, but Belmont has had no real permanent population since the early 1900s.
- What's the road to Belmont like?
- Mostly paved from Tonopah via NV-376, with a final stretch of graded gravel. A passenger car handles it fine in dry conditions.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Belmont — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
Add photographs
Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Belmont's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Sources consulted
- — USGS GNIS feature 858860
- — Nye County records — county seat transfer, 1905
- — Friends of the Belmont Courthouse
- — Nevada State Historic Preservation Office