Explorations with the Ski3pins: Eastern California & Nevada – June 2025

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Belmont

Belmont was quiet when we arrived late afternoon.

This was quite nice because the town is often overrun with OHVs of all shapes and sizes. Our first stop was the cemetery.

We paid our respects at the graves of Jack Longstreet and his wife Fannie.

Jack Longstreet was one of Nevada’s most notorious characters. You’ll find much questionable information online about Longstreet. If you have interest, as I did, forget about the Internet and read this book – Jack Longstreet: Last of the Desert Frontiersman. It is the definitive biography on Longstreet. The Lady and I have visited several Nevada locations associated with Longstreet and have many more on the list for future trips. One of the most interesting was Longstreet’s ranch up Longstreet Canyon. We visited it in May 2015.

This is the short bio I did for that blog post - Longstreet is a complex character and I think that holds the interest for me. He was educated, as shown by the letters he wrote Washington DC to protest the actions of a Superintendent of an Indian reservation - the superintendent was removed. He must of had a sense of right and wrong. One thing's for sure, he knew how to survive. People ended up dead before he did, by his guns. And, he just didn't get away with it, there was law around. A young attorney rose to fame with his brilliant defense of Longstreet after Longstreet's shootout with the Cliffords near Silverbow. Longstreet was acquitted. The attorney later was elected a US Senator. And Longstreet knew horses, people knew they could get good ones from Jack. And, you could say, horses started his career and marked him forever. As a young boy he was caught with horse thieves in Texas. The others were hung. He was judged too young for hanging so his ear was cut off, forever branding a thief. It's said he always wore his hair long to cover the missing ear.

On that same trip in 2015 we stopped at the pass over the southern Monitor Range where one of Longstreet’s killings took place. I wrote this in the aforementioned blog post - It's a good road across the southern Monitors. There's a lot of history up here including the location of Longstreet's fight with the murderous outlaw Bob Black who also was Jack's brother-in-law. Black received three bullet wounds and died. The killing was ruled self defense and Longstreet was not charged.

Bob Black was a Paiute as was his sister Fannie, Longstreet’s last wife, buried beside him in the Belmont Cemetery. Bob Black was also a contemporary of the famous Death Valley Scotty. In his earlier years in Death Valley, Scott liked to have Bob Black along and in the background because no one ever wanted to mess with Bob Black.

There are also Cliffords buried in the cemetery.

Probably members of the Clifford family of Stone Cabin Ranch. The Cliffords are mentioned above along with their legendary gunfight with Longstreet.

We enjoyed the many other classic headstones.

After the cemetery we moved on to downtown Belmont.

The prize building in Belmont is the old Nye County Courthouse, an imposing structure built before the county seat was moved to Pahrump.

The ruins of several buildings are along Main Street.

The story of the Philadelphia House and Rose Walker is quite interesting.

Here’s a few more photos from our wandering in Belmont.

To the south is the local alcohol establishment.

There was a Trump sign in the window. I tried for a photo but could not get the sign and Dirty Dick in the same frame because what a perfect match – Trump and a dirty dick.

Our last stop in Belmont was at the remains of the Combination Mill.

We know this area well and suggested a spot to overnight further north in Monitor Valley. We’ve used this spot before and always look forward to returning. The evening light put on a show as we settled in.