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Aurora, Nevada is a ghost town located in western central Nevada, USA, approximately three miles from the California border. The town was founded in 1860, and at one point had a population of around 10,000. Aurora's mines produced $27 million worth of gold by 1869. The town was governed by both California and Nevada until it was determined that the town lay entirely in Nevada. Aurora is located in Mineral County about 22 miles southwest of the town of Hawthorne.
Today the town site itself is a far cry from what it once was, having gone through heavy damage from vandals over the years, and many of the former brick buildings having been torn down for the sale of the bricks to builders (see http://www.forgottennevada.org/sites/aurora.htm for a nice view of Aurora seguing from its heyday, to what it looked like in 2004). Even the town cemetery has not been spared; the most notable destruction being the headstone of William E. Carder, a noted criminal and gunfighter who on the night of December 10, 1864 was "assassinated" by a man whom he had threatened in the preceding days. The headstone erected by his wife Annie was toppled by thieves who attempted to steal it, and broken into several pieces, where they now lie sunken into the ground. Fortunately other headstones have not suffered the same fate, and remain relatively intact.
The road leading into Aurora was once quite difficult to navigate except via four-wheel drive, as often the winter snows and spring run-off rutted out the road in the canyon leading to the town. However, in recent years the operations of a nearby mine have improved the road so that even non-4WD vehicles can reach the town site.
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