Last reviewed 16 October 2026 · A two-minute read · 1900–1990
Tonopah, Nevada, entered the record in 1900 as a mining boomtown, its early years marked by disease, violence and sudden fortune. Stone buildings, a hotel, and finally a federal post office followed, carrying the town from its rough beginnings into a quieter, settled permanence.
The short answer
The Tonopah Main Post Office on South Mineral Street opened on December 7, 1941, the same morning Japanese planes struck Pearl Harbor. Built after three years of federal planning, it was the first post office the government built in Tonopah, and it remains the town's working post office today.
The Mizpah Hotel — In Tonopah , Nevada. Once a fancy place for high rollers, it now sits empty. Until 1929 it was the tallest building in the state of Nevada. Legend has it that Wyatt Earp tended bar here. — 2009 · Bruce Fingerhood from Springfield, Oregon, US · CC BY 2.0
1937 to 1941
The post office opened the morning of Pearl Harbor
The Tonopah Main Post Office is a squat, formal brick building that still serves as Tonopah's main post office today. It was the first post office the federal government ever built in this mining town, raised at a site picked out in 1940 after three years of planning in Washington. Builders laid its cornerstone in May 1941, and the town threw a parade to mark it. The design followed a stripped-down, formal style common to federal buildings of that era, with plain columns and clean lines. The building opened its doors on December 7, 1941, the same morning Japanese planes struck Pearl Harbor. Its basement also held other government offices for the town.
1949 and after
Clerks still work the counters installed in 1941
The architect behind the post office, Louis A. Simon, worked for the federal government's Office of the Supervising Architect, turning out standard designs for small-town America. Tonopah's building was one of several copies built across the West, but it remains the only one of its kind in Nevada. Inside, the layout barely changed over the decades. Clerks still work the same counters installed when the building opened.
1990
The building joined the National Register in 1990
In 1990, the Tonopah Main Post Office joined the National Register of Historic Places. The listing recognized it as the last federal post office built in Nevada before World War II changed how the government built things. After 1941, wartime spending shifted toward military projects, and small-town post offices like this one stopped going up in the same style. Tonopah's building stands as a marker of that closing chapter in federal architecture.
Today
Fire in the Belmont Mine killed seventeen miners nearby
The post office still operates on South Mineral Street, handling mail for the town the way it has since Pearl Harbor morning. The building's plain brick face and formal lines look much as they did in 1941.
A short walk from the post office, the ground holds darker memories. Fifty-six people died in Tonopah between January and April 1902, when pneumonia tied to poor sanitation swept through camp. Many were buried in the Old Tonopah Cemetery, not far from where the post office now stands.
Nine years before the post office opened, Tonopah suffered its worst mining disaster. On February 23, 1911, fire broke out more than a thousand feet underground in the Belmont Mine. Seventeen miners died. One of them, William Murphy, made three trips back into the smoke to pull out trapped men before he fell to his death on his last attempt.
The post office still stands on South Mineral Street, its brick front and formal columns unchanged since the parade that marked its cornerstone in 1941.
Read the ground you are standing on
Every person, building and event in this story opens into its own dig in the app — and Strata will dig the ground under your feet instead, wherever that is, in about a minute, with every source shown.
Labor unionists rioted against Chinese workers in Tonopah in 1903, killing a man, wounding others, and destroying Chinatown, a violence that led China to boycott American goods.
A fire broke out 1,166 feet underground in the Belmont Mine on February 23, 1911, killing seventeen miners, among them William 'Big Bill' Murphy, who made three rescue trips before dying on his fourth.
State senator John Gregovich was murdered in Tonopah in 1912 by Andriza Mircovich, who in 1914 became the only person executed by Nevada's automated shooting machine.
The Tonopah Main Post Office, built in 1941 as the only federally constructed post office in the city, opened for business on December 7, 1941 — the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor.
What happened at the Tonopah Main Post Office on December 7, 1941?
The Tonopah Main Post Office opened its doors that morning, the same day Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor.
Who designed the Tonopah Main Post Office?
Louis A. Simon, an architect with the federal Office of the Supervising Architect, designed the building as one of several standard designs built across the West; Tonopah's is the only one of its kind in Nevada.
When was the Tonopah Main Post Office added to the National Register of Historic Places?
It was added on February 28, 1990, recognised as the last federal post office built in Nevada before World War II changed federal building spending.
What was here before the post office was built?
The site was chosen in 1940 after three years of planning, and the cornerstone was laid in May 1941 with a town parade marking the occasion.
What happened at the Belmont Mine near South Mineral Street?
On February 23, 1911, fire broke out more than a thousand feet underground in the Belmont Mine and killed seventeen miners; William Murphy made three rescue trips before dying on his fourth.
What disaster struck Tonopah before the post office was built?
Between January and April 1902, a pneumonia outbreak tied to poor sanitation killed 56 people in the young mining camp, with many buried in the Old Tonopah Cemetery nearby.
