It was back in 1866 that a prospector by the name of George Nicholl discovered some silver in the hills of what would later become known as Manhattan Nevada. Little work was done and within a few year the area became abandon. Then in the late 1870's other prospectors in the area found small deposits of silver and lead but there just didn't seem to be enough to really make a go of it and once again the area was abandoned.
Then in the spring of 1905 another prospector by the name of John Humphrey happened to be looking around this same area and found gold. Of course once the word got out that there was a gold strike, other prospectors and miners started to drift into the cam. By the fall of that year there was over 3000 claims staked and a small discovery was made. However once word got out about some assays being as high as $10,000 per ton gold, it didn't take long and this area had miners and prospectors crawling the hills like ants. The small town of Manhattan boomed and by the end of that year there was reported to 800 people living there and by the following spring there was 4000 people in this camp.
An old article from the Los Angeles Herald describes the excitement at the camp:
The article was quoted as saying,, The town of Manhattan, which boasted of six tents and fifty souls less than ninety days ago, has now a popoulatlon of 4000, which is being augmented at the rate of 100 a day. The prospector has blazed the way and now the capitalist, the speculator, the merchant and the tradesman follow in his wake, bent on reaping the reward that usually comes to him who is in at the birth of a great gold-mining camp.
Of course by this time the camp was becoming more than just a tent town. Wooden structures were going up at a frantic pace and town lots were selling for anywhere from $1300 up to $1900 a lot. By the spring of 1906 there were several businesses which consisted of a few saloons, grocery stores and even a couple of banks. The town even had a stagecoach line and water and electricity.
However the boom ended almost as fast as it started. The so called panic of 1906 saw investors cashing out and taking money out of the district and within a couple of months most of the people had left. Then in 1909 a few more showings of gold were found and the town started back up again. Up until this time most gold mined was alluvial and then in 1910 a rich lode deposit was found at the White Caps mine and 10 stamp mill along with a 75 ton cyanide plant was built to process the ore. People started to once again move into town and the population increased to almost 1000 people.
Mining stayed steady for the next few decades until the lode desposits started to peter out and by the early 1930's a lot of the mining shut down. Then in the mid 1930s, the Reliance Mine opened a new deposit and became the second largest producer in the district. Then in 1938 a large dredging operation in Manhattan Gulch was started. Water for the operation was brought in from with a pipleine that was 12 miles long. The dredging company was the Natomas Mining Company and this dredge operated until 1947. Then in the 1980's the Echo Bay mining company took over the Reliance Mine and this became part of Round Mountain Gold Corp.
Manhattan is a very remote town however from what I read, there are still maybe 100 residents who call Manhattan home.
