Elko

Elko County

Most of the Nevada mining camps that are written about on this website were small and short-lived. It can be tough to find much information on them. You can find books from a few authors like Hall, Paher and Patera. You can also find a few websites like NVExpeditions, Ray Dunakin, Forgotten Nevada and NVTami. But beyond that, it gets tough to find further information. That's why I am also writing about them on this website. With that said, towns like Austin, Battle Mountain, Beatty, Belmont, Caliente, Dayton, Elko, Eureka, Goldfield, Pioche, Manhattan, Tonopah and Virginia City (Comstock/ Gold Hill & Silver City) are NOT those camps. These places were massive mining towns with expansive and long-spanning mining histories. Each of these towns had populations in the thousands. A simple internet search will reveal a long list of websites that have written about these places. These towns are also still populated to this day. From a couple dozen in Belmont, to 2,500 in Tonopah, and 15,000 in Dayton. Therefore, I am not going to re-write the same history that can already be found in great detail on the internet. I am going to post extensive historical photographs for each of these towns though. Each one of these towns also has its own Nevada historical marker from the Nevada- State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). Each one of these towns will have their historical quote posted to its page.

Also see the following pages: Huntington Valley (Elko to Hamilton Stage Routes).

Nevada Historical Marker #106- Elko: "Elko"
"On December 29, 1868, Representatives of the Central Pacific Railroad started laying out lots for the future town of Elko. By 1870, the thriving town had 5,000 people. There was an immense volume of freight and passenger traffic over the stageline roads north and south from the railhead at Elko to the mining areas. The University of Nevada was originally built in Elko in 1874, and remained here until 1885, at which time it was moved to Reno to its present location. By the early 1870's, Elko became the marketing and economic center for Northeastern Nevada's vast range livestock empire. In the 1870's and 1880's, great ranching principalities were built on Elko County's vast rangelands. These ranches were ruled over, absolutely, by such powerful and colorful cattle kings as L.R. "Broadhorns" Bradley, Nevada's second governor and its first "cowboy' governor: The French Garat family, Spanish Altubes, and John Sparks, governor of Nevada in the early years of this century. Elko remains the economic hub of Nevada's greatest range area. It has also become a recreation tourism center in Northeastern Nevada."