Fairfield was a promotional townsite that fed off the success of nearby Fairview. It's location was about 3,000 feet south of Highway 50. The post office is listed as being rescinded, which means they never got around to actually operating.
Things started out sounding pretty exciting, as they usually do.
A townsite has been platted by Watson & Van Dyck of this city known as Fairfield and an automobile line has been put on between Hazen and the new camp. Transportation accommodations have been heavily taxed between Fallon and the new district, and despite the fact that extra stages have been put on and every available conveyance at Fallon has been pressed into service, people are obliged to wait thieir turn before securing transportation When the original discovery was made by Bertschy and others it was supposed that the district was exclusively a silver bearing country. Since then a short distance from the new town of Fairfield some rich gold bearing ledges have been uncovered that give shipping values from the grass roots. On one property some remarkably high assays were secured and from picked specimens several tests gave a gold value of $50,000. Watson & Van Dyck. on the property embraced in the townsite have an 18-inch pay shoot in a fine looking ledge which runs better than $100 to the ton. Eighty lots have been sold in Fairfield. Several business houses opened this week including restaurants, lodging houses, stores and saloons. Two wells are being dug with the expectation that water will be encountered without going to much depth, as there is quite a growth of willows on the ground.
-Goldfield News and Weekly Tribune, February 23, 1906
T. B. C. Taylor arrived here last night from Goldfield, and will leave this morning for Fairfield, Churchill county, where he intends to locate.
-Nevada State Journal, February 21, 1906
Fairview has an enterprising rival in the new camp of Fairfield, situated some five miles to the northeast of the original discoveries. Watson & Van Dyck, attorneys of Goldfield, are behind the new townsite, which situated directly at the Berlin grop of claims. These claims embody one of the most promising properties in the district and an 18 inch of free milling ore has already been encountered that runs $108 in gold, silver, and copper. The townsite which they have is already surveyed and platted and losts will be on the market by March 1st. One thing that especially commends the Fairfield townsite is the water indications which it is thought can be had in sufficient quatities by digging only a few feet. Lots in Fairfield will be sold at what appears to be very reasonable prices. Corner lots will be held at $100 while inside lots will go for $50 each.
-Churchill County Standard, February 24, 1906
Fairfield is a busting little camp and everyone is getting rich prospects. In fact there are some very rich ledges in the district and I believe there will be some big mines in the camp of Fairfield.
-Judge Curier, Nevada State Journal, March 3, 1906
They began to realize that Fairview was going to outpace them all.
Mr. Kinney, who is interested in the Sand Springs mines, says that Fairview, Fairfield, Hot Springs, and Sand Springs are all lively camps, but that he believes New Fairview will be a larger camp than any of them.
-Reno Evening Gazette, March 8, 1906
Early Fairfield locater George L Bethune's brother is found dead in aptly-named Death Valley
THE HORRORS OF DEATH VALLEY
The Mumified Remains of Judge Bethune Found
Lost Since Last August.
From the Goldfield News:
The headless body of Judge Bethune was found yesterday in the vicinity of Arsenic springs. Identification was established by means of papers found in the pockets of the tattered clothing. The remains had been badly mangled by coyotes, and the head, which was found a short distance away, had been severed from the trunk by the sharp fangs of the anhnals. Judge Bethune was a brother of George L Bethune of Ely. George was one of the first locators in Fairfield, Churchill county, and has opened assay offices in this camp. He is well and favorably known all over the west, being a pioneer in Colorado, Arizona and Nevada. He is one of the mining men who can be depended upon. George owns several promising properties in and around Ely.
-White Pine NEws, May 4, 1906
Come on guys! Geeze Louise!
Use Telephone Poles for Fuel. The telephone company which recently constructed a line sixty miles across the desert to Fairfield from Fallon has had its feelings outraged by the depredations of a number of miners and freighters who have adopted the practice of cutting down its poles when they happen to need firewood or when a freight wagon mires in the mud. One freighter cut down two poles and left them lying in the roadway after prying his wagons from a deep rut, and in several other instances miners have built fires with poles that were either cut down or pulled up. The service has been badly interrupted by these outrages upon the company's property and it has become necessary for patrols to be placed into service.
-Eureka Sentinel, June 23, 1906