I “discovered” Nipton, California, when I drove down there years ago to avoid the long lines to buy California lottery tickets in Primm. There was a little general store, a hotel with a few rooms, tepees that you could rent to sleep, and some antique cars. Cute place. When I drove down there last year, the general store was closed and I didn’t see anyone at the hotel, etc. Looked like the place was abandoned. I know Spiegelworld bought the town, but is anything happening? If Nipton is supposed to be R&R for their performers, I'd expect there to be some activity in the town.
We too would expect some activity in Nipton, though recent descriptions, yours among them, don’t sound too promising.
Sandwiched between Mojave National Preserve to the west and the Ivanapah Solar Power Facility to the east, Nipton would seem to owe its continued existence to those two factors.
A town whose population tops out at 20 souls, Nipton sits 12 miles south of Primm, reachable by Nevada 164. Before there were paved roads, Nipton was connected to civilization by the railroad. It was founded in 1905 alongside the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad (now the Union Pacific), the same year that Las Vegas came into existence. Initially known as Nippeño Camp, it became Nipton in 1910.
There wasn’t much to do in the greater Nipton area, except mine and load cattle onto boxcars, though it was the focus of the local social life, such as it was. Today, in addition to the defunct general store, it possesses what one description says are “a trading post, the Whistle Stop Café, an RV park, five eco-cabins and 10 sites with 10 teepees on them,” plus a historic schoolhouse.
Ownership of Nipton passed into private hands in 1940, thanks to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s intervention. A revolving door of owners brought it, in 2017, to American Green. The latter, a cannabis firm, aspired to turn Nipton into a marijuana mecca, a Vatican of vapors. “Green Town USA,” however, never got past the drawing board and Nipton was on the market again in six months.
The new buyer, Delta International Oil & Gas, snapped it up for $7.7 million (a $2.7 million markup) and some stock. Although Delta International pledged to continue the cannabis crusade, it doesn't seem to have done any such thing. Nipton lay fallow until late 2020, when it went back onto the sale block for a deeply discounted $2.7 million.
This is where Spiegelworld enters the picture, although it didn’t have a lot of competition: Nipton had sat on the “For Sale” shelf for 27 months when Spiegelworld came to its rescue in early 2023.
Marked down again to the $2.5 million that Spiegelworld paid for it, Nipton was to become the global headquarters of the show production company, "where Spiegelworld artists and performers will retreat to dream, create, and undertake unfettered artistic experimentation.” (With or without the help of loco weed, one cannot say.)
Tomorrow: Spiegelworld founder Ross Mollison experiences culture shock — and finds the getaway of his dreams in Nipton.
