Mizpah Hotel is OPEN!!

[Jim Galli]

http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/01/AtTheBar_MizpahS.jpg
welcoming committee, mizpah hotel, tonopah nv.

Had the 8X10 with me the other night in the Mizpah Hotel. The Clines have done a worthy restoration.

Don't try this with your 8X10. These hombre's are used to me. Anyone else........well hopefully your camera is wood because it'll become 3 minutes of BTU's in the pot belly:D:D

[dasBlute]

well you've got some moxie alright; fine work

[Michael Clark]

I'll be darn,gonna have to drive over there and have some grub. Do they turn the big light on the roof at nite? That be a nice photo. Is the food any good,hate to drive out there for a bad meal, and is the hotel open to. How much for a bath, steak dinner and room you know a Friday nite special.

Mike

[John Kasaian]

Here you go! :)
http://mizpahhotel.net/hotel.html

[Curt]

The rates are down right all right! No more cinder-block-inn next time.

The steak dinner sounds really good, I'm getting hungry.

[Jim Graves]

Here's a link to a short recent article in AAA's Via magazine: LINK (http://www.viamagazine.com/attractions/nevadas-mizpah-hotel-lives-again)

[jnantz]

so that is where the cast of desert blue stayed when they filmed the movie ? ;)

nice portrait jim !

you have carved out a beautiful niche for yourself in your town :)

[Jim Galli]

Everything is first class. I've had several really wonderful meals there already. If you stay, you want the 5th floor room 506 I think it is. The one with the 'lady in red'. She's a ghost, but way out here, company is company. I hear she's most responsive to LARGE format photogs.

[John NYC]

Nice shot, but it would be best if any prospective hotel guests not see it. There is nothing that makes me want to go to a bar less than an overabundance of angry looking dudes as clientele.

[Ed Kelsey]

If my gaydar is working right those boys are all gay !

[Jim Galli]

Not to worry, not to worry, they love folk from New York, and especially gay folk.

[John NYC]

Not to worry, not to worry, they love folk from New York, and especially gay folk.

So they are gay? Or is that some sort of crack at New Yorkers?

[Drew Wiley]

I'm surprised that Avedon wasn't lynched somewhere in the West. When looked at
crosseyed, a Noi Yoiker should promptly respond that they a lost Austrian tourist or
something like that. Never mention Noi Yoik. It helps to have some cultural sensitivity
education first. Watch the movie "City Slickers".

[John NYC]

I'm surprised that Avedon wasn't lynched somewhere in the West. When looked at
crosseyed, a Noi Yoiker should promptly respond that they a lost Austrian tourist or
something like that. Never mention Noi Yoik. It helps to have some cultural sensitivity
education first. Watch the movie "City Slickers".

Drew, you are assuming a whole lot there that you know nothing about. And I don't know anyone that says "Noi Yoik" here.

[Stephen Lumry]

I am overjoyed to see the Mizpah open again. I have been very fond of the building since I first saw it and can hardly wait to be a guest. What a treat!

[ghostcount]

Everything is first class. I've had several really wonderful meals there already. If you stay, you want the 5th floor room 506 I think it is. The one with the 'lady in red'. She's a ghost, but way out here, company is company. I hear she's most responsive to LARGE format photogs.

So have you met her?

[Jim Galli]

So they are gay? Or is that some sort of crack at New Yorkers?

I was being a bit of a smart ass for humor sake. People in Tonopah are no different than anywhere else......mostly.


So have you met her?

No, but I'm trying to set something up with the 8X10.

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah sure. Everybody in Tonopah runs around with brass lenses bigger in diameter than
the stacks of the rusting steamshovels around there. Wonder what the aliens out in
Area 51 a little further down the road think of all this? I wouldn't call anything in Nevada ordinary. But if you don't have a darkroom to begin with, there seems to be
plenty of creeks with enough alkali and strange chemicals in them that you don't even
need to mix developer. Just soak your negs in the creek at night. But for me, Nevada
from the air is something I absolutely salivate at the thought of photographing. Perhaps
a bit difficult with a Verito.

[Michael Clark]

Jim, thought the ghosts were at the Clown motel?

[Jim Galli]

Area 51 is where all the old lenses come from. The LGM (little green men) bring 'em to me. Verito's work just fine out here!

Here's another interior shot from the Mizpah;


http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/01/MizpahWindowHyperionS.jpg
mizpah windows

BTW that and the good ol' boys was done with a 14" Gundlach Hyperion. 8X10 2D


Jim, thought the ghosts were at the Clown motel?

Different ghosts. Those ghosts are in the cemetary next door to the Clown Motel. The Lady in Red only hangs out in the Mizpah, far as we know.

[Drew Wiley]

Well I can hardly wait until I get enough remodeling and drymounting done to start
my annual fall pigrimages across NV and into UT again. I do get horribly sneezy from
blooming rabbitbrush along the sides of the highway, but there are just so many things
different along those routes. Where else can you pull back into the sage for the night
and wake up to see wild black stallions fighting by moonlight over a mare a few yards from your truck? When I was a kid I worked for a Nevada family who came from running a million acre ranch all by themselves. First working horse I had was a mustang
broken only two day before - and yeah, I did land on my butt a few times!

[Duane Polcou]

So does the Mizpah Hotel have a bar, which they would call...The Bar Mizpah?

[Jim Graves]

So does the Mizpah Hotel have a bar, which they would call...The Bar Mizpah?

Ahhh ... and the Lady in Red could be the ...... the old Bat Mizpah?

[Jim Galli]

Was looking through some of the historic negs I bought from the estate of one Mac McGowan who had a studio here in Tonopah in the late '30's through early '50's.


http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/McGowan/Portraits/GeorgeCurtisMizpahHotel_01s.jpg
George Curtis, Mizpah Hotel Bellman, circa 1946

My! My! Ain't we got class, ain't we got style.

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah... well, some of those Great Basin hostile-lookin (in pictures) walk-in joints are some of the friendliest places I've ever been in in my life.

[Dave Wooten]

church must have let out. Bar is full.

[Jim Galli]

church must have let out. Bar is full.

Hmmm........ doesn't speak well of my efforts. I'm the preacher.

[Drew Wiley]

My mother's uncle was a circuit preacher in Silver City during its six-murders-a-day boom years. He was also stationed at those two little Victorian churches which
everyone seems to photograph, one at the foot of the Rubies in Lamoille, the other in Big Pine. I have cyanotypes and albumens of the latter town under construction.

[vdonovan]

A great shot!

[Jim Graves]

WOW... Does that echo an earlier era ... I cannot even imagine what the life, hopes, and aspirations of an African American male were in Tonopah, Nevada in 1946.

[Jim Galli]

WOW... Does that echo an earlier era ... I cannot even imagine what the life, hopes, and aspirations of an African American male were in Tonopah, Nevada in 1946.

Maybe a sigh of relief. I'm guessing he got a fairer shake in outback Nevada than a lot of other places. Looking at the lines in his eyes, he's not young. I would guess him at 65 - 68 or so. Which would mean his folks could have endured slavery.

[goamules]

Pretty good life, compared to now in Detroit, Philli, DC...

[Drew Wiley]

I grew up with some Nevada mustangers (relocated to a big ranch in the Sierras) who were about twenty degrees beyond anything redneck. Hardworkin, hard smokin, and hard opinions about anyone different than them. One of the bunkhouse cowpokes who sat around the table sippin ice tea and listening to 78's of Loretta Lynn was black. They never even noticed. He was a cowboy, period. He was in. He could rope, break mustangs, smoke gnarly Old Golds, and curl a dirty cowboy hat just like the rest. The demographics can get pretty darn interesting at times, and often defy stereotypes. In that part of the world there were cowboys, Indians, and everybody else (meaning everyone else outside the club). Wish I had had a camera when I was that young. These NG photojournalist types sanitize culture just too much. One of the tools it gave me is the ability to strike up a conversation with a Paiute or rancher at some little breakfast bar out in sagebrush county and learn the local lore, secret locations (to potentially photograph) etc. "Culture" grows on more than just asphalt, folks.

[Jim Galli]

I grew up with some Nevada mustangers (relocated to a big ranch in the Sierras) who were about twenty degrees beyond anything redneck. Hardworkin, hard smokin, and hard opinions about anyone different than them. One of the bunkhouse cowpokes who sat around the table sippin ice tea and listening to 78's of Loretta Lynn was black. They never even noticed. He was a cowboy, period. He was in. He could rope, break mustangs, smoke gnarly Old Golds, and curl a dirty cowboy hat just like the rest. The demographics can get pretty darn interesting at times, and often defy stereotypes. In that part of the world there were cowboys, Indians, and everybody else (meaning everyone else outside the club). Wish I had had a camera when I was that young. These NG photojournalist types sanitize culture just too much. One of the tools it gave me is the ability to strike up a conversation with a Paiute or rancher at some little breakfast bar out in sagebrush county and learn the local lore, secret locations (to potentially photograph) etc. "Culture" grows on more than just asphalt, folks.

Well said. Likewise, I've learned living out here that these folk are lightning quick in human judgement. They can cull a phony out faster than fast. If you're real, you're usually welcome. I never pretend to be anything I'm not, I just show up with the cameras and tell the folks my intentions. No, I'm definitely not in the 'club', but in 44 seconds with that twinkle in their eyes and a couple of questions, they can find out #1, I'm not from the guv'ment, and #2 I'm not an asshole. After that you're usually fine. Funny how that works.

[Drew Wiley]

Everyone is a small town is either your best friend or your worst enemy. So one thing you can never predict as an outsider is where the lines to a feud lie. Make friends with one party, and automatically your an enemy of another. Have a salesman here (quite a skilled photographer himself) who was once held hostage four
days because, as a rural UPS driver way back when, he had committed the near-mortal crime of delivering a package to a particular ranch, then his next stop was
at an adjacent ranch feuding with the former. He never filed charges. Just came with the territory. I accidentally made the mistake of mentioning someone as an old friend to get credibility with a local, and nearly at the cost of my life found out the person I was talking to had a lifetime hate relation with them. Humans are very territorial, just like cats. I remember half the little town out for an old west shootout over a disputed grammar schoolboard election. Live ammo. The constable slowly talked them all down before any shots were fired. They all went home. End of story, though till the end of time they still hated each other.

[Dave Wooten]

Hmmm........ doesn't speak well of my efforts. I'm the preacher.

Lol! Well James,
The Lord works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform!

[Jim Galli]

Everyone is a small town is either your best friend or your worst enemy. So one thing you can never predict as an outsider is where the lines to a feud lie. Make friends with one party, and automatically your an enemy of another. Have a salesman here (quite a skilled photographer himself) who was once held hostage four
days because, as a rural UPS driver way back when, he had committed the near-mortal crime of delivering a package to a particular ranch, then his next stop was
at an adjacent ranch feuding with the former. He never filed charges. Just came with the territory. I accidentally made the mistake of mentioning someone as an old friend to get credibility with a local, and nearly at the cost of my life found out the person I was talking to had a lifetime hate relation with them. Humans are very territorial, just like cats. I remember half the little town out for an old west shootout over a disputed grammar schoolboard election. Live ammo. The constable slowly talked them all down before any shots were fired. They all went home. End of story, though till the end of time they still hated each other.

Drew, me thinks you watch too much TV. We don't have any of the drama you describe here where I live. In fact I have to drive with one hand, wave with the other. Pretty nice place to live, and any time I go to the big city (Reno) I'm always glad to get back home.

[Leigh]

Don't try this with your 8X10. These hombre's are used to me. Anyone else........
well hopefully your camera is wood because it'll become 3 minutes of BTU's in the pot belly:D:D
So why would anyone patronize a hotel where the locals are likely to throw the camera in the stove?

- Leigh

[John Kasaian]

. I remember half the little town out for an old west shootout over a disputed grammar schoolboard election. Live ammo. The constable slowly talked them all down before any shots were fired. They all went home. End of story, though till the end of time they still hated each other. Sounds like Taft in the 1960's. Or Reedley in the 1940's.

[Drew Wiley]

No TV, Jim. I grew up without either phones or TV's. My last serious run-in with sagebrush locals was with some polygamy cult cops in Utah. If I reminisced about even half the things I've actually seen growing up, well... And there are still pockets of that kind of thing, though in the old cowboy & Indian culture sense it's slowly fading away, probably forever, though a anti-govt mentality and suspicion of outsiders is still is strong in places. Entire books and novels have been written about that old neighborhood, and the stories actually had to be watered down to publish them, cause no outsider would even believe the full truth. Mostly friendly retired folks and upstarts to country living nowadays. The spooky folks are now the meth-heads and people involved in the rural drug industry itself, along with the inevitable corrupt law enforcement types. So one still needs to be careful out in the woods, esp lower down where there are a lot of backroads. Just common sense, that's all. See dudes with glazed over eyes or drinking, brandishing guns, time to move on. The more wilderness areas of the mtns, and parks per se, or
patrolled campgrounds, a different story. But Nevada? Never had a problem there except by getting ticketed by a crooked highway patrolman once, for running
a stop light almost a hundred miles from the nearest actual one. Out of state plates.

[Drew Wiley]

John. The other long running feuds were between inhabitants of those tiny hydroelectric towns. Now with only two exceptions, they're all automated. But along the
San Joaquin, you'd have competing So Cal Edison and PG&E facilities in very close proximity. These people tended to be very isolated to begin with; a few were downright doty, and tempers built up to dangerous levels at times. Arsons, car brake cables being cut (on those very steep winding roads). There was one family in
particular that had to be avoided. I was driving up the canyon a few years ago and there was a brand new Jeep Wrangler tipped over in a ditch. Thought I'd stop
and help them pull it out. Then I looked into those kids eyes. A couple were dead-ringers for the trouble types I grew up with, so figured they were their kids,
and they looked utterly wigged out on meth. No way I was going to stop.

[Rayt]

I drove past Tonopah years ago and remember that hotel, and I also remember a Clown hotel or something like that. I was on my way elsewhere so couldn't stop but that main street has some really interesting architecture.

I wonder if it is ok to break out my 4x5 and take a few shots of the building exteriors? Is this acceptable in Tonopah (or most places in the US)?

[Jac@stafford.net]

I drove past Tonopah years ago and remember that hotel, and I also remember a Clown hotel or something like that.

Clown Motel, "pets and truckers welcome".
.

[Jim Galli]

Clown Motel, ...
.

Built specifically with members in high places of the US government in mind. In case they come to Tonopah.

[Vaughn]

Drew, me thinks you watch too much TV. We don't have any of the drama you describe here where I live. In fact I have to drive with one hand, wave with the other. Pretty nice place to live, and any time I go to the big city (Reno) I'm always glad to get back home.

That's the way I drove around Covelo...even driving a US Forest Service truck (and the waves back were not the one-finger variety). I had a couple of kids from Holland in the truck one time (they were volunteering) and one even asked if waving was required by law! But what a dead-end town that is! Largest Indian reservation in CA, the mill closed down and even the Cal Trans maintenance yard closed down. In the summer one can actually drive thru -- the dirt road over the mountains is open. Beautiful country, though, in its own way.

[ROL]

Well, I think everybody knows by now that Tonapah is the left bank of Nevada (except during the last week of August ;)). I have friends in Winnemucca, so I do know the difference :D.

When we moved to our present (undisclosed) location, from a succession of residences including the "San Joaquin Valley", San Francisco and Portland, I was actually a bit freaked out by the friendliness of the locals. Shy by nature (:D), I found it a little disturbing that even the uniformed gardeners would stop their irrigation repairs long enough to say hi. Very Pleasantville, parts of which, by some coincidence, were actually filmed here.

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah... There's certainly been some old-school commotion out toward Elko, with gun intimidation, a few bombs planted, death threats, neo Sagebrush Rebellion anarchy, now starting to cool down a bit, but probably still simmering in the coals somewhere. Wasn't that long ago there was that biker row at a bar in Winnemucca, which spilled over into warfare around here between the Hells Angels and Mongols, with the latter receiving the heavy hand of the law. Both are banned from recreational biker events like the big Harley rally at Bridgeport each summer. I don't worry about such stuff when traveling. But then I don't walk into bars either.
Heck, even the owner of the Indian bar where I grew up wouldn't walk into his own business when it was open. Three bikers got gutted by Indians in one day, and
someone else got literally decapitated.

[Leigh]

So if the hotel has a bar, is it called the

Bar Mizpah ???

- Leigh

[Racer X 69]

http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/01/AtTheBar_MizpahS.jpg
welcoming committee, mizpah hotel, tonopah nv.

Had the 8X10 with me the other night in the Mizpah Hotel. The Clines have done a worthy restoration.

Don't try this with your 8X10. These hombre's are used to me. Anyone else........well hopefully your camera is wood because it'll become 3 minutes of BTU's in the pot belly:D:D

Nice shot Jim!

It is always good to see places returned to their former glory, rather than pushed aside in favor of the generic structures of today.


Was looking through some of the historic negs I bought from the estate of one Mac McGowan who had a studio here in Tonopah in the late '30's through early '50's.


http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/McGowan/Portraits/GeorgeCurtisMizpahHotel_01s.jpg
George Curtis, Mizpah Hotel Bellman, circa 1946

My! My! Ain't we got class, ain't we got style.

An image from a time lost to "progress". Not too many places these days where someone comes out and helps you with your bags and takes them to the room. No, now we have Motel 6 and Tom Bodett.

So sterile and impersonal.

[Michael Clark]

Jim, I heard the Clown Motel closed up a while back, is it still there ?

Mike

[Rayt]

I managed to stay two nights at the Mizpah recently. Lovely hotel with good food. LF photography in nearby Goldfield was pretty rich in subject matter.