Route 50 was deemed the loneliest road in the US. It is an epithet that works both ways, as a derogatory and flattering qualifier. Driving a few miles West of Ely, one finds the small company town of Ruth, serving the Robinson copper mine. The mine slopes are so perfectly formed and artfully done, that I wondered if the workers, these artisans who worked with bulldozers, were the ones hired by the artist Michael Heizer to build his earthwork 'City'. Forgetting all the human and earth exploitation, it is easy to admire these earthworks formally. In the last decades the mine was bought and sold by various global companies, but throughout most of the C20 it was owned by the Guggenheim family.
Robinson Copper Mine, Ruth, Nevada.