The Tom Kelly Bottle House is one of the few remaining examples of bottle house architecture in the United States. In Nevada, where wood was scarce and expensive, miners often built their houses with whatever was cheap and readily available, and in many cases glass bottles were used like bricks and mortared with adobe. Bottle houses suited hot climates because they stayed cool in summer, held heat in winter, and allowed natural light. This house was built in 1906 by Tom Kelly, an Australian-born stonemason turned gold miner, using more than 50,000 bottles. Kelly paid local children 10 cents for a wheelbarrow full of bottles, and the building cost about $2,500, with most of the money going for wood trim and fixtures. Rather than live in the house, Kelly auctioned it by selling 400 tickets at $5 each and lost about $500 on the deal. The Bennett family won the raffle and lived in the house from 1906 to 1914. In 1907, the Bennetts hired Dave Kinney, a ship-wright by trade, to build the porch roof and add the false chimney and gingerbread trim. The house's unusual location and appearance later made it a sought-after filming location. In 1924, Paramount Pictures used it in the film Wanderers in the Wasteland, based on a Zane Grey novel, and later that same year it was also used in the film The Air Mail. During that time, one of the film crews tore down the rear wall so filming could take place inside the building, then the production company rebuilt the wall and did basic stabilization and restoration work on the exterior after filming ended.