Original
(Amargosa City)
On August 4, 1904, Frank "Shorty" Harris and Ernest Cross discovered gold at the northern edge of the Amargosa Desert. Soon a small camp, briefly called Orion or Aurum, formed at the mine. Shortly thereafter, a separate tent camp called Amargosa or Amargosa City came into being just below, followed by a third small camp called Bullfrog (not to be confused with the larger town of the same name) one half mile below. Amargosa quickly established itself as the largest of the three, with five stores, seven saloons, a restaurant, post office, and hotel - all in tents. Early in 1905 a phone line was run to Goldfield and a stage line to Las Vegas. Unfortunately, the Amargosa Townsite Company struggled to find a reliable source of water, and in March opted to purchase the nearby Bonanza townsite, and before the end of the month the entire tent camp of 100 moved to the new location, then renamed Bullfrog.
Once Bullfrog hopped off, Harris and Cross sold their holdings (known as the Original Bullfrog mine) to the Original Bullfrog Mines Syndicate, which operated until the Panic of 1907. Around the same time, the Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad was built just south of the mine, and the station located there was named "Original" until the railroad was abandoned in 1914. The Reorganized Original Bullfrog Mines Syndicate attempted to reopen the mine in 1917, but failed, and it continued to sit idle until 1924 when it was worked by leasers.
In 1926, the New Original Bullfrog Mines Company was formed and purchased the mine, then leasing it to other ill-fated companies until 1929, before leaving the district. J. Burmeister and W.S. Ballinger of Auburn, California worked the mine - which they called the Burmball - in the early 1930s, retimbering and expanding it before leaving themselves before the end of the decade. Only small amounts of work have occurred since, with no recorded production.
