"Tonopah, Nevada, lies within the Great Basin region, an immense arid to semiarid area of 400,000 square miles extending between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. The environments -- roughly parallel mountain ranges and long desert basins -- makes harsh demands on its inhabitants. This history of Tonopah, which begins with a look at the land and its early inhabitants -- the pre-Archaic and Archaic Indian populations and the Western Shoshone, then vividly describes the arrival of white explorers, the discovery of silver, and the boomtown days of the mining camp....The spirit of the old west, embodied in its inhabitants' sense of adventure and their love of personal freedom, still exists in Tonopah"--Bk. jacket.