Zurich, California

 train station, ghost village

Originally named Alvord, the name was changed to Zurich in 1913. Zurich was the first town south of Laws, CA on the ex-Carson & Colorado narrow gauge railroad (later the Southern Pacific Railroad narrow gauge Owens Valley Branch), which originally ran from Mound House, NV to Keeler, CA. After standard gauging of the northern section to Mina, NV and abandonment of the line over Montgomery Pass only the line from Laws, CA to Keeler remained (finally abandoned in 1960). There was a small settlement once located here was gone by 1947.

The town died when the rails were pulled up from Tonopah, NN to Keeler, CA. Named by the residents because the sharp jagged peaks of the White Mountains, located just east of the town and the Sierras to the west looked like the Alps in winter when covered by snow. The last resident was a family who's daughter Josephine (the last person born in Zurich) married a railroad conductor and moved to Mojave, CA. Now 74 in 2000, She still resides in Mojave today.

It had a 20x46 depot built in 1888. The station agency closed in 1932, and the depot razed in 1947. Some foundations and other signs of the buildings once there are all that's left now. The picture shows the rails running through Zurich being removed for scrapping and reused during WWII.