The story
Unionville rose on Humboldt silver excitement in 1861 and became the seat of Humboldt County with about 1,500 people strung along Buena Vista Canyon — despite the district's ore never remotely matching the boosters' claims. Sam Clemens arrived that winter, dug exactly one shaft with two partners, gave up mining within weeks, and later skewered the whole Humboldt frenzy in Roughing It.
The Central Pacific Railroad passed forty miles north in 1868, Winnemucca took the county seat in 1873, and Unionville settled into the long quiet that followed every bypassed county town.
It never fully emptied. The canyon has water, cottonwoods, and shade — rare luxuries in Nevada — and about twenty people still live along the old main street, alongside a bed-and-breakfast in the orchard and the marked ruins of Twain's cabin.
What remains today
Stone and adobe ruins along the canyon road, the remains of Mark Twain's cabin, the schoolhouse, the cemetery, and a working B&B among the cottonwoods.
Society Pro
What the federal record holds within five miles of Unionville
Within five miles the record maps 220 mine shafts, adits and prospect pits, 49 named mineral sites, 1 lost places and 0 cemeteries. Pro puts them on the map with the 1879–1919 survey underneath and a swipe to today.
From the archives
Unionville turns up on 16,552 digitized newspaper pages from Nevada — read them free in the Library of Congress's Chronicling America collection.
Source: Library of Congress digital collections.
Questions from the field
- Do people still live in Unionville, Nevada?
- Yes — roughly twenty residents live along Buena Vista Canyon, and a bed-and-breakfast operates in the old orchard, making Unionville one of Nevada's most habitable ghost towns.
- Did Mark Twain really live in Unionville?
- Samuel Clemens spent part of the winter of 1861–62 here in a brush-and-mud cabin, tried mining for about two weeks, and quit. The episode is told, with exaggeration he admitted to, in Roughing It.
- Is the road to Unionville paved?
- NV-400 from I-80 is paved; the final canyon stretch is graded gravel that any car handles in dry weather.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Unionville — 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 Unionville's permanent record.
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Primary sources for this record
- — USGS GNIS feature 856414
- — Humboldt County records — county seat transfer, 1873
- — Mark Twain, Roughing It (1872)