Lida, Nevada

Ghost town in Nevada, United States

37°27′30″N 117°29′53″W / 37.45833°N 117.49806°W / 37.45833; -117.49806CountryUnited StatesStateNevadaCountyEsmeraldaTime zoneUTC-8 (Pacific (PST)) • Summer (DST)UTC-7 (PDT)

Nevada Historical Marker

Reference no.157

Lida, Nevada is a small ghost town in Esmeralda County, Nevada, near the border with California. The GNIS classifies it as a populated place.^[1] It is located on State Route 266, north of Magruder Mountain.

The first white settlers at Lida arrived in 1867.^[2]^[3] The town was named for the wife of prospector David Buel of nearby Austin.^[2] It is located on the site of a former Shoshone and Northern Paiute camp.^[4]

The first wave of settlement was fueled by the discovery of silver reserves. But most mining activity ended by 1880 with the exhaustion of local ore. Another boom came in 1905, driven by gold found in nearby Goldfield, bringing Lida's population to a peak of around 300.^[5] But the boom only lasted two years.^[2]

A third, smaller jump in activity came shortly before World War I.^[2] In 1913, the Roosevelt Midland Trail, one of the first marked transcontinental auto trails in America, routed through Lida on the way to California.^[6] Both the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921 and the Pershing Map of 1922 envisioned making the Lida route part of the growing national highway system. But when the United States Numbered Highway System was first set in 1926, Lida was nowhere to be found. Planners instead chose the Arrowhead Trail through Las Vegas to connect traffic to Southern California, redesignating it U.S. Route 91.^[4]

A post office was in operation at Lida between 1873 and 1932.^[7] The site now rests on private property.

Gallery

Lida Summit, looking west to the Sierra Nevada
Historical plaque

References

^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Lida
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Newton, Marilyn. "Tiny Lida, Nev., rich in gold history". Reno Gazette Journal. Retrieved May 6, 2023.
^ Federal Writers' Project (1941). Origin of Place Names: Nevada (PDF). W.P.A. p. 32.
^ ^a ^b Swift, Earl (June 9, 2011). The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways. HMH. pp. 98–99. ISBN 978-0-547-54913-2. Retrieved May 6, 2023.
^ Wright, David A. "Lida - Nevada Ghost Town". Ghost Towns. Retrieved May 6, 2023.
^ "Nevada Ghost Town - Midland Trail". Forgotten Nevada. Retrieved May 6, 2023.
^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Lida Post Office (historical)