San Juan, Nevada facts for kids

San Juan was once a ghost town in Nevada. It was also known as Upper Camp. A ghost town is a place that used to be a busy settlement but is now mostly empty. San Juan was a mining camp, which means it was a temporary town built for people who worked in mines. It was part of the Eldorado Mining District. You could find it in the upper part of El Dorado Canyon, not far from where Nelson is today, in Clark County, Nevada.

History

In 1862, people discovered silver in a place called San Juan Creek. Because of this exciting find, a mining camp was quickly set up. This camp was named San Juan.

Miners dug up silver ore, which is rock containing silver. They used large boats called steamboats to transport this ore. These boats traveled along the Colorado River.

However, the silver veins (the parts of the rock with silver) were quite small. It soon became clear that digging for silver there would not make enough money. It was too expensive to get the silver out. Because of this, San Juan was abandoned just a few weeks after it started. Today, only one large stone building remains from the old settlement.