St. Thomas (Clark County, Nevada)

Rising to a breezy warm morning after having camped in a remote canyon inside Lake Mead National Recreation Area, my buddy Bill and I begin breaking down our tents and packing our gear. The drive to the site was interesting as it was through what was probably a one-time tributary of the Colorado River, but has in recent decades dried to become a narrow slot canyon. It provided a great place to camp though and it happens to be very nearby our first planned stop of the day, the remains of St. Thomas.

The town of St. Thomas, NV was founded in 1865 by Mormon settlers, who abandoned the site after only a few years. Other settlers reclaimed the town and it seems to have thrived until the plan to create Lake Mead through the flooding of the plane where St. Thomas sat forced evacuation in the 1930's. Later in the 2000's when the water level of Lake Mead dropped, the town once again saw direct sunlight.

I remember a friend telling me of St. Thomas a couple of years ago, but I hadn't though about it again until a ranger at one of my other hikes during this long weekend had mentioned it. The location seemed like an incredibly interesting place to visit.

A gravel road leads a few miles out onto what would have been a peninsula until the last few years when Lake Mead has receded and a fertile plane. The trail leads down through a vast sea of foliage. Presumable, the waters have left an amazing amount of nutrients in the soil and left this area rich with life. Also interesting, are the millions of broken sea-shells that are buried in the sandy soil along the cut trail.

As we make our way down the obvious trail, we begin to see foundations and concrete slabs on the ground, along what were probably the streets and avenues of St. Thomas. Some of the buildings were obviously made by skilled craftsmen. We are both impressed by the number and more importantly the perseverance of the structures. Obviously the wood has long rotted away, but the foundations have withstood submersion in the flooded waters of the Colorado River for over 60-years.

Nearby, the block from a small V8 engine is laying on the ground. Whether it was from the town or used as a boat anchor, we can't be sure, but it is an interesting find nonetheless. It is one of many rusted steel and iron artifacts that litter the ground. Some previous visitors have laid many of their finds out on the exposed foundations.

We continue to walk the 'streets' of this ghost town, appreciating the size and breadth of the town. A notable structure is the abandoned school house, which from the size and durability of the structure, was likely a centerpiece of the community, and rightly so. The curved steps seem surprisingly modern, though they were from a completely different era.

Returning to the jeep, we take measure of how these people must have felt when they were forced to abandon their homes, which they scratched from the dirt. Were they compensated well? Were they simply 'show the door'? Hopefully, the evacuation was a good thing for them and they were able to find full productive lives elsewhere. The hike was only about 2.4 miles, but it was well worth it. Of note, the app I use to capture topography of my hikes posts to Facebook and while the final map correctly shows dry land, the preview map suggests as I was walking on water.