Gold mine listed for $1.95M

A piece of Nevada’s Wild West history is for sale. The 259-acre Black Butte Mine sits near Goldfield, about 184 miles from Las Vegas. It’s a flashback from the state’s 1870s gold fever days, and it has a price tag of $1.95 million.

It comes with its own hill, full mineral rights, water rights, well-graded county roads and paperwork that includes surveys and environmental studies.

The property sits in Nye and Esmeralda counties. There are 69 acres within Esmeralda County and approximately 190 in Nye County. The mine is approximately three hours driving time from Las Vegas and a 15-minute drive on county roads from Goldfield. Historically, the site has been part of the Garfield Mining District.

The property has been owned by Black Butte Mine LLC partnership since 2009. West Coast private equity investor Layne Sapp said it is not a working mine, but it was mined in the early 1900s and still contains gold and other precious metal reserves, based on reputable third-party geology and assay reports.

It is a patented gold mine that can be worked, he added.

Sapp, who lives in Seattle, said the company chose to hold the mine as an asset to hedge against inflation instead of reopening it.

He said the unique feature of the property is the Black Butte hill. “Everywhere you walk, you see all kinds of precious metals. It is very pretty, a very valuable site.”

There are more than 2 million tons of gold tailing piles above surface on the property, according to the listing. Sapp said that early in the 1900s, the miners took the bigger gold ore pieces and left the smaller ones. They placed them in piles on the property. At that time, he said, there was no technology that could recover that kind of gold. Now, he said, there is.

Brian Krueger, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Premier Realty has the listing, blackbuttegold.com.