Beginning in 1881, Sodaville was the point at which all freight for Tonopah, fifty miles to the southeast, was unloaded. The locality, once the most important settlement between Reno and Tonopah and a station on the Carson and Colorado Railroad, is four miles south of Mina. The post office was active from October 9, 1882, until March 31, 1917, when its operations were moved to Mina. Sodaville could have very easily taken the place of Mina if they had not gotten greedy. In 1905 when the Southern Pacific Railroad came through, they wanted a place with water for their depot. Sodaville was built at a big spring located up in the Pilots. The Southern Pacific offered to buy it for $35,000, but before the deal went through another party optioned the Springs and raised the price to $70,000. the Southern Pacific then decided to move three miles north and drill their own wells, where the town of Mina is now located. Besides the Hot Springs and bath houses, the town held on for a few years and then went into a decline to nothing.

A famous gunfight between a gunslinger (Mike "Two-Gun" Kennedy) and a local miner (James Lund) took place in Sodaville. The two men squared off on Sodaville's Main Street and Lund succeeded in putting six slugs in Kennedy without getting hit himself.