Abandoned Towns
Weathered log cabins and tin-roofed sheds at Charleston, with sagebrush hills and mountains behind

Gold mining town

Charleston

An 1876 gold camp in the high country between Elko and Jarbidge, first called Mardis after a founder who was murdered. Old cabins stand beside the county road on a cattle ranch.

41°40′15″N 115°30′38″W · ≈6,070 ft

Photo: Famartin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Ruins on a ranch · 2025 visit

Charleston sits on a ranch. An undated listing puts the site on a private ranch beside the road; the 2013 and 2014 photos on this page were taken from county roads 746 and 748; and a visitor who passed through in September 2025 photographed the Bryan school. We found no report on signs, fences or the owners' wishes. Look from the road, and ask at the ranch before walking onto the land.

Overview

A gold camp that turned into cattle country

Looking east along North Fork-Charleston Road through the townsite, June 2013
Looking east along North Fork-Charleston Road through the townsite, June 2013 · Photo: Famartin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Charleston lies on the upper Bruneau River in the far north of Elko County, about 15 miles south of Jarbidge and just outside the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. Gold was found on Seventy-Six Creek in 1876, at the southwestern foot of Copper Mountain, and the camp that followed was called Mardis after George Washington Mardis, the prospector who found it. It grew fast, with a hotel, saloons, stores, a school and an icehouse, and a reputation for lawlessness that Nevada Ghost Towns & Beyond and an undated listing both mention.

Mardis was murdered, and the camp emptied; by 1883 most people had gone and by 1884 most mining had stopped. Two revivals followed. A post office named Bayard ran from 1886 to 1889, and a second named Charleston, for the prospector Tom Charles, opened in January 1895 and lasted until July 1951. The mines never did much. The census found 41 people in 1890, 40 in 1900 and 60 in 1940. A five-stamp mill went up in the 1905 revival, and the mines reopened for a few years in the 1930s.

What kept Charleston alive was grass, not gold. The valley became ranch country, and the Prunty family's ranch headquarters sits on the townsite: 300 mother cows and a horse herd in a 2001 profile, cattle in the 2014 photos, and an undated listing says Prunty descendants still occupy the region. Their house is one of the few old buildings left. The rest is a scatter of log cabins, sheds and a frame house along the county road, with the Bryan school standing nearby.

Timeline

Mardis, Bayard, Charleston

A frame house with two chimneys at the townsite, September 2014
A frame house with two chimneys at the townsite, September 2014 · Photo: Famartin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
  1. Placer gold is found on Seventy-Six Creek at the southwestern foot of Copper Mountain. The camp that grows up is called Mardis, after George Washington Mardis, the prospector who found the gold.
  2. Mardis is murdered. No source we read dates it. Nevada Ghost Towns & Beyond says the camp declined after his death, and by 1883 most people had moved on.
  3. Most mining has stopped, by Wikipedia's account.
  4. A post office called Bayard serves a short revival.
  5. The census counts 41 people.
  6. The Charleston post office opens. The name honors Tom Charles, a local prospector.
  7. The census counts 40. The Bryan school opens in the early 1900s.
  8. The mines revive and a five-stamp mill is built.
  9. The mines reopen once more.
  10. Population 60.
  11. The post office closes.
  12. Marge and Shorty Prunty settle on his home place at the townsite. The family was still ranching here in 2001, the newest account we have of the ranch.
  13. A visitor finds the Bryan school standing and calls it one of the only reminders of the town (published January 2026).

Record and retelling

What happened to George Mardis

Every account of Charleston turns on the death of its founder. Wikipedia and Nevada Ghost Towns & Beyond agree on the outline: George Washington Mardis found the placer gold in 1876, the camp took his name, and it fell apart after he was killed.

The fuller story comes from Shawn Hall's county guide, Old Heart of Nevada (1998), as excerpted in an undated listing. In that telling, Mardis had lost an eye in a mining explosion, was trusted enough that miners let him haul their ore to the mills at Elko and Deeth, and was robbed, shot and killed on one of those trips by a Chinese miner, who was then executed by his own countrymen. Both men, Hall says, are buried in the cemetery at Gold Creek. We haven't seen the book itself or a contemporary newspaper, so we give the story with its source rather than as settled fact.

The 1935 USGS sheet below still marks the Charleston post office, the Bryan school, Seventy-Six Creek and five named ranches, two of them Prunty.

What's left

Cabins on a cattle ranch

A collapsed log cabin, with cattle grazing beyond it, June 2014
A collapsed log cabin, with cattle grazing beyond it, June 2014 · Photo: Famartin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
A long, sagging log building behind a rail fence, September 2014
A long, sagging log building behind a rail fence, September 2014 · Photo: Famartin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Sources disagree on how much is left, and the honest answer is that it depends what you count. Wikipedia says two buildings from the settlement survive, on private property. An undated listing names foundations, log and other structures. The photos on this page, taken from the county roads in 2013 and 2014, show several log cabins, tin-roofed sheds, a frame house with two chimneys and a long log building, along with the occupied ranch houses and barns around them. A visitor in September 2025 photographed the Bryan school and called it one of the only reminders of the town.

The townsite is a ranch. The Prunty home, which a 2001 Western Horseman profile described as one of the few buildings remaining from old Charleston, is part of it, and the family's graves are on the hill above the house. Cattle were grazing among the ruins when the 2014 photos were taken.

  • Log cabins
  • Frame house with two chimneys
  • Long log building and sheds
  • Bryan school
  • Foundations
  • Occupied ranch houses and barns
USGS topographic map of Charleston beside a creek, with Waddy Creek joining from the east and the Bruneau River at lower left
USGS The National Map, topo. Charleston sits beside a creek that runs south to the Bruneau River, at lower left. Waddy Creek comes in from the east; national forest roads 062 and 067 climb away to the northwest.
Aerial view of the Charleston area: a dirt road at left, a tree-lined creek down the middle and a single roof at top
Aerial imagery, same area. The road runs north along the left; the willow-lined creek winds down the middle. The buildings stand near the road just off this crop.

Historic maps

Charleston on USGS maps, 1935–1986

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Charleston, 1935
Charleston sheet, 1935, 1:48,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Elko is the closest city. The router sends you up I-80 to Deeth and then north on the Deeth-Charleston Road, County Route 747, for 42 miles of county road. Wikipedia's Jarbidge article describes the other way in: 55 miles north on SR 225 and 27 miles east on County Route 746. Both end on unpaved county roads that get no winter maintenance. We haven't driven either.

USGS topographic map between Elko, Deeth and Charleston with the routed drive drawn on it

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From central Elko82.6 miabout 2 h 38 min
  1. From central Elko, take East Idaho Street and East Jennings Way to the I-80 ramp and head east.2.1 mi
  2. Follow I-80 east to exit 333 at Deeth.29.8 mi
  3. Turn right onto Starr Valley Road, SR 230, then left, and keep left at the fork onto the Charleston-Deeth Road.2.0 mi
  4. Continue north on the Deeth-Charleston Road, County Route 747, to its end at County Route 746 near Charleston Reservoir.41.8 mi
  5. Bear right onto the Charleston-Jarbidge Road, County Route 748, to the townsite.6.9 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • County routes 746, 747 and 748 get no winter maintenance. Wikipedia's Jarbidge article says the Elko-side roads are unimproved in places, present serious hazards, and are often closed from October or November to June or July because of snow.
  • The ranch at the townsite is snowed in for about three months each winter, by a 2001 account, and sits 25 miles from the nearest pavement.
  • The townsite is a cattle ranch (2001 profile, 2014 photos). Expect cattle on the road, and leave gates as you find them.
  • We found no services listed between Deeth and Charleston. Fill up in Elko and carry water, a spare and a paper map.
  • For current road conditions, the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest's Wells office is at 775-752-3357, Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Photos

Charleston in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Charleston?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

Gold mining

More gold mining ghost towns

The nearest in Nevada.

Jarbidge's dirt main street with the Red Dog Saloon and wooden buildings below the canyon wallGuide

Jarbidge

41.87, -115.43

Elko County, Nevada

A 1909 gold camp at the bottom of a mountain canyon, nearly 20 miles from the nearest pavement. Travel Nevada puts the year-round population at 19…

Living townGold mining
A long weathered wooden mill building climbing a slope beside a gravel road, with a taller wooden section and tailings behindGuide

Berlin

38.88, -117.61

Nye County, Nevada

A company mining town on the west side of the Shoshone Range, founded in 1897 and empty by about 1911. The state has kept its mill, machine shop and…

State park · open year-roundGold mining

All 96 gold mining ghost towns →

Nearby

Other sites near Charleston

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Nevada index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. ghosttowns.com, "Charleston": fact sheet fields (county, roads, climate, best time, remains, post office dates, census counts); its excerpt from Shawn Hall's Old Heart of Nevada (1998) for the Mardis story.
  2. Wikipedia, "Charleston, Nevada", retrieved October 2026: Seventy-Six Creek and Copper Mountain, the Mardis and Tom Charles names, 1884, the 1905 mill, 1932–37, the 1940 population, two surviving buildings on private property, coordinates and elevation (GNIS). It cites the 1941 WPA Origin of Place Names: Nevada and Stanley Paher's Nevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps (1970).
  3. Nevada Ghost Towns & Beyond, "Jarbidge Jaunt", January 10, 2026: a September 2025 visit; the Mardis murder, the Bayard post office, the Bryan school as one of the only reminders of the town.
  4. Cowboy Showcase, "Marge Prunty, matriarch of the Prunty Ranch", from Lee Raine's November 2001 Western Horseman profile: the ranch 85 miles northeast of Elko and 25 miles from pavement, the house as one of the few remaining Charleston buildings, 1948 and 1952, the family graves, winter isolation, cattle and horses.
  5. Wikipedia, "List of county routes in Elko County, Nevada": routes 746, 747 and 748, their endpoints at Charleston and their no-winter-maintenance notes.
  6. Wikipedia, "Jarbidge, Nevada": the SR 225 and County Route 746 approach from Elko, road hazards and the October/November to June/July closures.
  7. Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, Wells office, updated August 8, 2025: address, phone and hours.
  8. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits