Stokes Castle near Austin was completed in June 1897. It was built of local granite in only a year because it wasn’t a full-sized medieval castle, but a smaller, three-story turret, square on each side. The family apparently referred to it as “the Tower.”
The kitchen and dining room were on the ground floor, living room on the second, and two bedrooms on the third. All were supposedly ‘richly furnished’ and it had interior plumbing. The walls of the castle extended above its roof, with square crenulations that might allow defenders to fight off a siege.
Anson Phelps Stokes, a New York banker and lead financier of the Nevada Central Railway, reportedly built the castle as a summer residence for his sons. They occupied it for two months right after its completion, but never returned.
It is still standing, even though it has been vacant for more than a hundred years.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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