Nipton, California is a ghost town in the Mojave Desert about 65 miles from Las Vegas, and although for a time there was the possibility it might become a player in the state’s growing recreational pot industry, it could stay a ghost town.
American Green, which is concerned with making green by growing green, in 2017 bought the 80 acres on which the dead mining town sits for $5 million. Recently it sold the land for $7.7 million after unsuccessfully trying to raise the capital to transform it into a place that travelers on their way to Sin City might tarry for a while.
The plans included transforming the Old West buildings. One idea was a “buds and breakfast” inn. Another was to bottle pot-infused drinks employing water from the aquifer that sits under the town.
The fact that the old buildings remain viable for this owes to a geologist from the 1950s, Gerald Freeman, who bought the land and for 30 years restored some of the buildings as a hobby.
The company American Green sold to, Delta International Oil & Gas, is committed to continuing with trying to develop the property’s marijuana potential as a resort. So, in the next five to ten years we will see if Delta is able to “light up” interest in the resort.
