Bango Nevada

Bango Nevada

Bango Nevada Overview

Learn more about Ghost Town in Nevada and Ghost Towns in the Southwest.

Year Established/Founded

About 1905 as Taylor

Bango Nevada History

Originally known as Taylor, then Bango, and later known as Diatom

Sheriff Sharkey of Ilazen arrested four youthful toughs at Bango Tuesday night, where, they had forced an opening into the section house. District Attorney Hart of Fallon held a preliminary hearing of the case at Hazen Wednesday and the prisoners were bound over to the supreme court. They are lodged in the county jail at Fallon. 

T. C. SECTION HAND MEETS TERRIBLE DEATH

Ground Beneath Wheels of Train While Asleep on the Track hast Sunday Night.

James F. Kelly, a section hand employed at Bango, five miles south of Hazen was found dead three miles south of that place last Monday morning. The body was lying between the rails of the track and had evidently been run over either by No. 24 Sunday night or by a freight train that had preceded it out of Hazen.

The head was crushed and the body badly bruised and both hips dislocated, but the limbs were intact. A small memorandum book containing the man’s name with a Chicago address was the only thing found on the body.

Kelly, with a Mexican companion, also employed on the section had been in Hazen Sunday afternoon and had left there about 8 o’clock to return to Bango on a railroad speeder. At the coroner’s inquest the Mexican testified that Kelly had got off the speeder when about half way home and announced his intention of returning to Hazen. This was the last seen of him alive.

As both men had been drinking heavily during the afternoon, the presumption is that after leaving his companion, who went on to Bango, Kelly went to sleep on the track and was struck by a train, but whether by a freight or the passenger, both south bound, could not be j determined. The train crews knew nothing of the accident and could throw no light on the occurrence.

A coroner’s Jury was empaneled by Judge L. B. Mason and found a verdict in accordance with the above facts, as there was nothing to indicate foul play or that anyone was to blame for the accident.

From an oral interview with Ralph Ratti:

When they came to Bango, there was no electricity. I can remember we never had electricity at Bango. The only time I saw electricity was when we came to town or went to Hazen or some place. We had coal oil lights. I can’t even read by a coal oil lamp now. The wife’s got them in case the power goes off, and we light them. I can’t even see by them. I go get the Coleman lanterns and light them. But that’s all we had for lighting was kerosene lanterns. We had wood and coal heat in the house. At Bango the railroad company used to bring a tank car in for our drinking water every month. We’d dump half of it into the cistern and use that up and dump the other half then the railroad would take the car away and bring it back. Once a year they used to bring us a refrigerator car full of ice. There was an icehouse. Dad and the crew’d take the whole day off. They’d move all the sawdust. They’d put all the ice back in there and cover it all back up. In the summertimes they’d put the watermelons down in there. Oh, they were cold. They used to have what they called the coal house, and they’d bring a gondola load of coal once a year, and they’d dump that and they’d put that in there so they’d have coal for the heat in the winter.

Timeline

• 1905 – The small station was established along the Southern Pacific’s Nevada & California Railroad
• November 1911 – The Bango post office opened
• 1910 – Known as Bango and later Diatom (I have found references in the 1920s of it still being called Bango and no references in newspapers called Diaton – at this time)
• May 1916 – The Bango post office closed

Mines

Unknown at this time.

Post Office

November 1911 – May 1916

View the list and history of Nevada Post Offices.

Newspaper

Unknown at this time.

The Population of Bango Nevada

Unknown at this time.

Elevation

4,120′

GPS Coordinates

39° 30′ 08″N, 119° 02′ 34″W

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References Used

• Newspapers.com
• Churchill County Museum – Ralph Ratti Oral History

Bango Nevada