Early mining days The town was founded in 1897. school, a jail and morgue, but no churches. Ballarat was a place for miners and prospectors to resupply and relax. The town began to decline when the Ratcliff Mine, in Pleasant Canyon east of town, suspended operations. Other mines nearby also began to play out, and in 1917 the post office closed In the 1960s,
Charles Manson and the "Manson Family" of killers moved into a ranch south of Ballarat, and left graffiti in the town. It is theorized that the green pickup truck left in Ballarat belonged to him, according to a framed picture and hand-written notes inside the trading post. The 1969 movie
Easy Rider has a scene filmed in Ballarat. After arriving in the town,
Peter Fonda's character, Wyatt, removes his Rolex watch and throws it away before he and
Dennis Hopper's character, Billy, head east on their motorcycles towards
New Orleans. On Easter weekend, 1971, about two thousand people attended a "hippie" celebration at Ballarat; about two hundred of the attendees contracted hepatitis from contaminated drinking water.
21st century In 2018 Ballarat had three full-time residents: Rocky Novak and his two dogs, Potlicker and Brownie. On afternoons and weekends Rocky would run the general store, which primarily catered to tourists. Novak was featured in the 2018 film vignette "The Mayor of Ballarat" by Mickey Todiwala and Monika Delgado. The five-minute character piece featured a montage of various Ballarat locations with a voiceover narrated by Rocky describing his life in the town, while interjecting his various musings on human nature. Ballarat is used as a meeting point for
four wheeling expeditions into the
Panamint Range and
Death Valley, and in winter up to 300 people camp in the grounds of the town. The town was recently used as a set to tell the story of the
Ballarat Bandit. Ballarat was featured in an episode of
Top Gear USA and the movie
Obselidia. The town ZIP Code is 93592, and is inside
area codes 442 and 760. ==Ballarat in fiction==