If you think the clown motel is frightening, you never stayed in Coaldale Junction.
It’s abandoned now, but back in the day it was the closest motel to Fish Lake Valley and Silver Peak. The first has a bit of ag in it, and Foote Mineral Corp had a huge lithium mining operation. Both needed water wells.
The water is so hard at Coaldale that it contains huge salt crystals. They used to truck in tanks of fresh water for the restaurant to use. Showering was basically a “change of salt”. Soap wouldn’t lather. The restaurant had an ever-changing cook, as nobody stayed long, or was very good.
But the worst part was the motel rooms. Very drafty, and you quickly learned to turn on the light at night if you needed to get up and pee... because the light would make the scorpions scatter.
Back in the day, there were two phones in Coaldale, both pay phones. The phone numbers were “Coaldale #1” and “Coaldale #2”. You could dial out after dropping a dime, but to call in, you had to call your operator, ask to be connected to the operator In Tonapah, and then explain to her (it was always “her”) how to ring one or the other, a literal plugboard operation, then wait for someone in the bar to get up and answer the pay phone, and hope they weren’t too drunk to help n
There is an armpit of the universe, and it was Coaldale. Tonapah was luxury by comparison, but it was 45 miles further away from the 12 hour shifts at work.
www.datapointed.net
