My great uncle Harry Ramsey was a pioneer and a miner by trade. He moved to Tonopah in 1900 to seek a future in silver. Or rather, he fled there from Texas after avenging the death of his father who had effectively been mugged, Old West style, after selling off all his cattle. But Harry was successful in Tonopah. He struck silver early on and in 1904, his sister Emma, my grandmother, joined him. She got a job as Post Mistress of the Goldfield office 30 miles south of Tonopah where she worked for a time before she and Harry were able to move further west to San Francisco.
There she met my grandfather, George Bunting, a sea captain for Standard Oil. I came along two generations later and now I’m headed back to where it all began. I can’t wait to honor the courage of my ancestors by bringing back to life their town’s beloved Mizpah Hotel.
Revitalizing the Mizpah Hotel 