At first glance, Stokes Castle evokes the ruins of a Roman villa. Located on the outskirts of Austin, Nevada, a town with a population of just under 200, the structure appears wildly out of place, like a mirage at the base of the Toiyabe Mountain Range. But thanks to its construction from native granite by a wealthy prospector at the height of the state’s mining boom, the “castle” is actually as endemic to its environment as it could possibly be.
Austin boasts several structures whose design boggles the brain’s sense of time and geography. When silver was discovered there under a single stone in 1862 (allegedly unearthed by the galloping hooves of a Pony Express horse), the population exploded. Development descended on the newly minted city, and examples of Gothic and Greek revival can still be seen in the town’s well-preserved historic district, a time-capsule of Austin’s cosmopolitan ambitions.
The artist Paul Johnson spent the morning of his third day on Nevada’s Highway 50, as the winner of Atlas Obscura’s and TravelNevada’s The Fellowship of the Loneliest Road, exploring Austin. “I love these old mining…
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