Building foundation, St. Thomas

Note the height of the tamarisk! This is the stuff that looked like a lawn from the trailhead.

St. Thomas is an unusual Nevada ghost town. It was a small Mormon farming community in southern Nevada that lay in the path of Lake Mead, the reservoir formed by Boulder (later Hoover) Dam. The government bought out all the property owners in the mid-1930s and the rising waters covered the site by the late '30s. The last resident, the postmaster (IIRC) rowed away on June 11, 1938 after flinging the postage canceling stamp out into the lake. Those last St. Thomas cancellations are now collectors' items. With Lake Mead's current low level due to the drought on the Colorado River system, the site of St. Thomas is exposed--old weathered concrete foundations amongst a rank growth of tamarisk. The Park Service has an interpretive trail out there. All artifacts, of course, are protected.