Discovering Nevada – Caliente

Heading back home from camping in Cathedral Gorge, we intended to stop in Caliente for just a minute, planning to take a couple of photographs of the town’s historic railroad station. Then we met Rick Phillips, the volunteer docent at the town’s Heritage Boxcar Museum, and we ended up spending two hours.The historic train station is now the centerpiece of Nevada’s smallest incorporated city, and it’s an impressive building as you whiz past it on US-93. Caliente’s history is closely aligned with the history of the railroad. With a population of under 1000 people, Caliente seems an unlikely place for such a grand, Mission Revival style building. View of Caliente’s Historic Train Depot From US-93 While the railroad is intertwined with Caliente’s history, its founding has a different twist. It was Ike and Dow Barton, two escaped slaves, who founded a ranch in the area that was later obtained by the Culverwell brothers, who established it as a key supplier of hay for nearby mining towns.…