Big Bear, CA
I quiet mountain community full of back country adventure.
John S Cook
John S. Cook (1870–1945) was a Nevada banker whose vision and investments helped define the brief but spectacular boom of Rhyolite, one of the American West’s most iconic gold-rush ghost towns.
Born March 28, 1870, in Columbus, Franklin County, Ohio, to John R. Cook and Louisa Stimmel, he grew up in the Midwest before heading west in search of opportunity. By 1898 he had reached Arizona, where he married Jesusita Moreno (also known as Jessie or Susie) in Globe. Census records show him working as a bank cashier in Austin, Nevada, by 1900. His big break came when he was hired as cashier for George Nixon’s bank in the booming mining town of Tonopah.
In January 1905, Cook and his brother launched the John S. Cook & Company Bank in the even hotter Goldfield mining district. It began in a modest wooden shack next to the Palace Saloon before moving into the more substantial Nixon Block Building. Deposits quickly reached $5–6 million as the bank financed mining claims tied to investors like Nixon and George Wingfield. Cook was remembered as a man of quiet disposition—courteous, precise, and thorough in business methods.
That same year, as word of rich gold strikes spread to the Bullfrog district just east of Death Valley, Cook opened a branch in the brand-new camp of Rhyolite. The first location was a rented storefront on Main Street. Rhyolite exploded from a few tents in 1904 to a town of roughly 10,000 people by 1908, complete with electricity, railroads, hotels, and an opera house. Sensing permanence, Cook purchased a prime lot at the southwest corner of Golden and Broadway streets. Construction on the Cook Bank Building began in spring 1907 and finished in January 1908 at a cost of nearly $90,000 (the equivalent of roughly $3 million today).
The three-story steel-and-concrete structure was the tallest and most luxurious building in Rhyolite—and one of the grandest in southern Nevada. It featured Italian-marble stairs and flooring, rich mahogany woodwork, imported stained-glass windows, two massive vaults, indoor plumbing, electric lights, telephones, and steam heat. The bank occupied the first floor, the U.S. Post Office moved into the basement in 1908, and brokers’ offices filled the upper stories. To residents and visitors alike, the Cook Bank symbolized Rhyolite’s transformation from tent city to thriving metropolis.
The optimism proved short-lived. The national financial panic of October 1907 triggered runs on banks across the country. In Goldfield, depositors emptied other institutions, but Cook’s bank survived—largely because saloon owner Rickards publicly deposited gold and silver bars back into Cook’s vaults, visibly reassuring the public. It was the only Goldfield bank to remain open. Yet Rhyolite’s mines could not weather the downturn. Production faltered, jobs vanished, and the population collapsed. By 1910 the Rhyolite branch had closed; Cook sold off the building’s elegant fixtures, and the grand structure stood empty.
In 1909 George Wingfield bought out Cook’s interest in the Goldfield bank to consolidate control. Cook relocated north to Reno, where he continued working for the Cook banking chain. The empire endured until the Great Depression; Wingfield’s banks, including those bearing Cook’s name, failed in 1932. John S. Cook spent his later years in Arizona and California, working variously as a vice president and bookkeeper. He died in Los Angeles County in July 1945 and was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.
Today, the roofless, sun-bleached concrete shell of the Cook Bank Building remains Rhyolite’s most photographed ruin and one of Nevada’s most recognizable ghost-town landmarks. It has appeared in films ranging from silent-era Westerns to The Island (2005). Its hollow windows frame the desert mountains, a stark monument to the boom-and-bust cycle that defined the early-20th-century mining West—and to the banker who, for a few heady years, bet everything on Rhyolite’s future.
The building’s ruins at sunset or under stormy skies still draw thousands of visitors each year, serving as a silent testament to John S. Cook’s brief but indelible role in Nevada history.
References
Pete Aguereberry – A Panamint Valley Miner
Jean Pierre “Pete” Aguereberry (1874–1945), universally known as Pete Aguereberry, was a Basque-born prospector and miner whose four-decade solitary vigil at the Eureka Mine in the Panamint Mountains of California’s Death Valley region exemplified the quiet persistence of the post-boom desert prospector. Though the 1905 Harrisburg gold strike never yielded the riches of earlier rushes, Aguereberry’s unyielding labor, self-built cabin, and hand-constructed scenic overlook—now officially Aguereberry Point—made him a legendary figure in Death Valley mining lore and left a lasting geographic legacy within what is today Death Valley National Park.
Early Life and Immigration
Born on October 18, 1874, into a hardworking Basque family in the village of Mauleon in the French Pyrenees, young Jean Pierre grew up hearing tales of the California Gold Rush. As a boy he devoured stories of western American gold discoveries and begged his father to let him emigrate. At age sixteen, in 1890, his father finally consented, and Pete sailed alone for the United States.
Language and culture barriers made the early years difficult. He took whatever work he could find: professional handball player, sheepherder, cattle driver, milk-truck driver, ice-delivery man, ranch hand, and stage driver. By about 1902 he had reached the booming mining town of Goldfield, Nevada, where the desert’s call fully took hold.
Arrival in Death Valley and the 1905 Strike
In June 1905 Pete ventured into Death Valley during the brutal summer heat and nearly died of dehydration and exposure. He was rescued and nursed back to health by Oscar Denton, caretaker at Greenland Ranch (later Furnace Creek Ranch). Within a month he had recovered enough to join forces with the already-legendary desert prospector Frank “Shorty” Harris. The pair set out across the Panamint Range toward Ballarat for the Fourth of July celebration.
On July 1, 1905, while crossing what is now known as Harrisburg Flats, Pete spotted a promising ledge of quartz. The two men worked the outcrop and quickly found free gold. Pete staked claims on the north side of the hill; Shorty took the south. Word spread rapidly. By August, more than twenty parties were prospecting the area, ore samples assayed as high as $500 per ton, and a makeshift camp of roughly three hundred people sprang up. Originally the partners jokingly called the settlement “Harrisberry,” but Shorty later popularized “Harrisburg,” and the name stuck.
Pete’s northern claims became the Eureka Mine. The strike briefly revived interest in the Panamint region, which had already seen earlier silver booms at Panamint City in the 1870s.
The Eureka Mine and Litigation
The Eureka Mine soon became entangled in a complex legal dispute that lasted from 1907 until 1909. When the dust settled, Pete emerged as sole owner. He immediately began serious development work, driving tunnels and stopes almost entirely by himself. Except for occasional help from a nephew in his later years, Aguereberry worked the property single-handedly for the next three decades.
Though high-grade ore was present, the remote location, limited water, and modest scale of operations prevented him from ever becoming wealthy. He often grubstaked other prospectors or took odd jobs to sustain himself, yet he never abandoned the claim. The Eureka remained his life’s work and home.
Life at Aguereberry Camp
In 1907 Pete built a modest two-room cabin at the mine site—now preserved as Aguereberry Camp along the road to Aguereberry Point. The simple wood-frame structure, later equipped with a gas stove and refrigerator, served as his residence until his death. Two additional cabins were added later (a 1941 guest house and another of uncertain purpose around 1946), but Pete lived frugally amid the stark Panamint landscape.
In his later years he delighted in guiding visitors up the road he had laboriously constructed to a spectacular overlook 6,433 feet above the valley floor. He proudly called it “The Great View.” From there visitors could see Mount Charleston 80 miles east in Nevada, Furnace Creek’s green oasis, and the white salt flats of Badwater Basin. That viewpoint is now officially named Aguereberry Point in his honor.
Final Years, Death, and Burial
By the early 1930s Pete’s health was failing, yet he continued to live at the mine. He died on November 23, 1945, at age 71, at Tecopa Hot Springs. Though he had expressed a wish to be buried at his beloved “Great View,” federal officials—citing the area’s status as part of Death Valley National Monument (established 1933)—denied the request. Father Frank Crowley officiated his burial at Mount Whitney Cemetery in Lone Pine, California. A plaque there honors him as “a modest, hardworking, and honorable man.”
Legacy
Pete Aguereberry never struck it rich, but his remarkable persistence in one of the harshest environments on Earth made him a symbol of the twentieth-century desert prospector. The Eureka Mine tunnels (now safely gated for bat habitat) and the surviving cabins at Aguereberry Camp remain accessible along the dirt road off Highway 190. The panoramic vista he built and loved continues to draw thousands of visitors each year. In the tradition of fellow Panamint Valley figures such as Shorty Harris and “Seldom Seen Slim,” Pete Aguereberry proved that a man could carve out a meaningful life amid isolation, heat, and hardship—leaving behind not only a mine but a viewpoint that still bears his name and offers future generations the same “Great View” he cherished.
References
Cook Bank Building
The Cook Bank Building is the most iconic image and popular images of the Rhyolite ghost town, in Nye County, Nevada. When John S. Cook built his bank to three stories, it inspired John Overbury to add a third floor to his Overbury building located just down Golden Street. The structure is centrally located in the remains of the town, and photographically, very interesting. Partially for this reason, the structure is a common choice for filming locations, and even appeared in an Alanis Morissette music video.
The Cook Bank is to most iconic building in Rhyolite and one of the most photographed ruins in Nevada.
John Cook and his brother started the John S. Cook & Company Bank in Goldfield, Nevada in January 1905. Later that same year the opened a new branch in Rhyolite. The banks first location was in a rented building on Main Street. After buying a lot on Golden Street, construction of the Cook Bank Building in the spring of 1907.
One of four banks in Rhyolite, the Cook Bank Building was by far the finest. Build of poured concrete, the building was three stories tall and had a basement that housed the Post Office. The interior was finished with marble staircases and mahogany accents. It also boasted modern conveniences such as electric lights and indoor plumbing
Despite its opulence, the Cook Bank was open less that two years. In the summer and fall of 1907, a financial crisis, often referred to as the Knickerboxer Crisis, caused banks across the country to go bankrupt. By 1910, the Cook Bank was closed and John Cook had sold off all of the building’s fixtures.
Since the closured of the Cook Bank, the building has appeared in many movies including: The Air Mail, The Arrogant, Cherry 2000, The island, Delusion, Ramona!, The Reward, Wanderer of the Wasteland, Six-string Samurai, Rough Rider’s Round Up, Bone Dry, Ultraviolet and more..
BLM Plaque – Rhyolite, Nevada
Cook Bank Building Map
References
Porter Brothers Store
The Porter Brothers store is a ruined storefront on the main street in the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nye County, Nevada. The Porter Brothers were like many other merchants, following and chasing the latest news of gold strikes and boom towns. The Porter Brothers built their building in 1906 at a cost of $10,000 and it close four years later, in 1910.
Like many merchants of the time, the Porter Brothers, Hiram and Lyman, moved from mining camp to mining camp, following reports of booms and strikes.
In 1902, the opened a painting business in San Francisco. Following the rich gold strikes in southern California, they opened mercantiles in Johannesburg, Ballarat (near Death Valley), Beatty, and, or course, Rhyolite.
Originally, the brothers bought lot on Main Street in 1905 and operated out of a canvas tent, but they soon ran out of room. They then bought a second lot on Golden Street, next of many of Rhyolites important commercial buildings.
Construction of their new building began in 1906. It used local stone and took four months at a cost of $10,000.
Before moving their operations from Main to Golden, they threw a huge three-day sale and held a public date, complete with an orchestra, in the new finished Golden Street building.
The Porter Brothers Store was very popular. In 1906, it was the go-to destination for Christmas shopping. This was due to its amazing displays that rivalled those of the major cities. In fact, the store was the largest employer in Rhyolite aside from the mines.
Unfortunately, even the popular store was not immune to the downturn that would decimate Rhyolite’s businesses; it closed in 1910. Hiram, however, would stay in Rhyolite another nine years, serving as the town’s postmaster until the post office closed on September 15, 1919.
BLM Plaque – Rhyolite, Nevada
Porter Brothers Store Map
Overbury Building
The Overbury building is a general office building built by John Overbury, in Rhyolite, Nye County Nevada in 1906. The building was one of two three story buildings, and the largest stone building located within Rhyolite. The location of the building in about one block from the better known and more photographic Cook Bank Building.
John Overbury, a native of Orange, New Jersey, came to Nevada in 1902 and made his fortune in the early days of the Tonopah Mining boom. Like many of this peers, he came to Rhyolite hopping to be a part of the new. big boom. Local newspapers chronicled Overbury’s arrival in “a small Oldsmobile.” The next spring, he ordered a second Oldsmobile, and per the Rhyolite Herald, drove author Jack London down from Goldfield and our to Death Valley.
Construction of the Overbury building began in 1906; it was complete in June 1907. The structure was 45 feet wide by 80 feet long and cost somewhere between $45,000 – $60,000 to build.
The building was meant to be two stories tall; however, after John Cook began constructing a three-story building, Overbury quickly changed his mind and his building became three stories tall.
The Overbury Building was one the the first general purpose buildings in Rhyolite and the largest stone building. As one of the more prominent commercial hubs in town, it was fully equipped with fireproof shutters, an automatic sire suppression system, and private bathrooms.
At its height, the building housed a stock brokerage firm, the First National Bank of Rhyolite, a dentist, and attorney’s offices.
Like many of the other grand buildings in town, the Overbury Building was abandoned in 1910, and much of it was dismantled by 1924.
BLM Plaque, Rhyolite, Nevada