Day 80 of 117 on our “Go West, Young Man” Two Lane Adventure – Friday 9/14/18

A day of housework, taking a breather and catching up on neglected actions. Number one, a haircut for Charlie. We are two for two on this one … in Missoula Montana, we found a barber on the internet, pulled in and he got right in. Again, in Ely Nevada, I found a barber on the internet, we pulled up and he walked in and right into the chair. Both times, he was happy with his hair cut. Now, he should be able to make it home to get a haircut from Mud!

After his haircut, we wanted breakfast. We turned the corner from the barber and there was a Denny’s. It was inside the Hotel Nevada & Casino, but we could get breakfast. That fit the bill! The historic 6-story Hotel Nevada & Gambling Hall presides over downtown as it has done since 1928. For three generations it has been the city's principal hostelry, and for 20 years, until 1948, it was Nevada's tallest building. Along with much of the downtown, it had become shabby, but new owners have restored it far beyond its original eminence. Deluxe rooms are named for the celebrities who have stayed there over the years, like Hoot Gibson, Ingrid Bergman and Tennessee Ernie Ford among them and the 6th floor suite, once reserved for visiting Kennecott executives, has been made lavish and luxurious. Did Elvis sleep in that room?

Laundry was the next item on our agenda. I had found the only laundromat in Ely and it had excellent reviews, so it was off the Soak & Suds to get some clean clothes! The reviews were very accurate, great machines, clean place and even free coffee!

After the laundromat, we had to make a trip to Ace hardware. We needed to find something to help the slide from ruining our floor more than it already did … until we can get to a Winnebago dealer. There is a screw coming out from under the slide. It must have been put in, before they inserted the slide into the coach. You can’t reach it … but you can hit it with a flat object and you can tell it is not tight. So, we have a rip in our linoleum by the dining room slide. We got a piece of wood, that we can put under the slide, near the screw head and run the slide out on that. It appears to be just high enough to keep the screw head off the linoleum. But, Charlie has to stand on the wood, so the slide does not pull it out when we open it.

Clean car, was the last thing on our list. For anyone that knows Charlie, knows he hates a dirty car. So, to a self-service car wash we went … ahhhh, she looks so much better clean!

Driving into downtown Ely from US 50, heading east, can make even the non-history buff’s jaw drop. By the time your head stops spinning from all the 1900s architecture, you’ve probably reached the historic Hotel Nevada & Gambling Hall. Once the tallest building in Nevada, the Hotel Nevada opened in 1929 and still exudes the feeling of the rural west.

Local businessman Norm Goeringer commissioned famous cowboy artist Larry Bute to paint a huge mural of a western scene on the side of his building and a new era in White Pine County began. Other businesses jumped on the band wagon, having Bute paint more murals depicting life in the Old West. Then a group of far-thinking, community-minded individuals came together as the Ely Renaissance Society. For blocks, the early 1900s construction is engaging enough, but in 1999, the Ely Renaissance Society commissioned murals be painted on buildings around town. Along with sculptures, they tell the story of the city’s ethnic heritage and culture.

The Art Walk covers 11 blocks and boasts 29 pieces of art that pay homage to the theme, “Where the World Met and Became One.” Artists have been commissioned locally and from all over the world. The latest mural is the name sake of this project and used the theme “Where the World Met and Became One” to showcase the ethnic groups and, in this case, the women who formed the community. Men came here to work in the mines and on the ranches or to operate businesses, but the women built the community. 

The mural was sponsored by the Hotel Nevada. This mural features art work done by four young artists who created the art depicting the ethnic women and the local architecture and scenery. The artists are Jill McPherson, Gorman High School, Las Vegas, Nevada; Cameria Poulsen, White Pine High School, Ely, NV; John Rupert, Carson City High School, Carson City, Nevada; and Jessica Wright, Faith Lutheran High School, Las Vegas, Nevada. This mural was created by young artists to add their perspective on our past and culture.

Another mural is titled "Liberty Pit." It was commissioned by the Renaissance Society in 2000 and created by Wei Luan. It is a captivating depiction of the immigrant workers who worked in the massive copper mine west of Ely beginning in the early 1900s.

Paul Vgartua created the mural "United By Our Children." It is five bright shining faces of local citizens as children illustrate the ethnic diversity of the White Pine County community.

The mural is a split image on the side of a car wash owned by Joe Ciscar who is of was Basque heritage, he submitted the photo of his father that was used for the mural. It is titled the "Basque Mural" and it was created by Don Gray and Hared Gray. It depicts the role many Basque immigrants to our area played.

There are two murals, actually advertising pieces, that caught my attention. They are superimposed over each other on the wall of a building downtown. They are Rowan Paint and White Pine Soda Co.

The mural titled "Cherry Creek Hot Springs" shows the hot springs resort and laundry operation at Cherry Creek. It was painted by Wei Luan, on a wall of a local drugstore owned by Margaret Bath. Her grandparents, Elizabeth and Adolph Sundberg, owned the hot springs. This mural was recently refreshed by One Bear Productions.

"Ward Charcoal Ovens" - Local artist Chris Kreider completed the first part of this mural in 2003. It shows the role Italian immigrants played in building and operating the charcoal ovens at Ward including bank owner John Gianoli’s father whose likeness is portrayed in the mural.

Another mural is located on the side of the AT&T building is a panoramic collage about the history of the telephone.

In July of 2016, a mural about Absalom Lehman and his discovery of Lehman Caves was gifted to Ely by the National Speleological Society, who held its 75th  National Conference here.  The National Park Service celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2016 and the National Speleological Society met in Ely, to celebrate Lehman Caves as part of Great Basin National Park.

The White Pine Public Museum is the showplace for a mineral collection of considerable variety, and for unique items like the home-made cannon which once guarded the Court House in Hamilton.

The founding and history of early Ely covers a span of 40 years, approximately 1867 to 1907. Ely had to wait to blossom as the star of the show in White Pine County. Unlike the many “boom and bust” gold and silver camps of the surrounding hills, it was not so much mining, but location that made it endure. Ely sprang to life in 1870, not as a mining town, but as a stagecoach stop and post office along the Pony Express’ Central Overland Route. The town was designated the White Pine County seat in 1887 and supported surrounding mining camps such as Cherry Creek and Osceola. But Ely’s real development was a result of its own mining; in 1906, copper mining took hold and the population boomed as the state’s gold mines were beginning to fade, driving hungry miners to White Pine County’s new bounty. 

The boom led to the construction of the Nevada Northern Railway (NNRY), which connected Ely’s copper mines to the Southern Pacific Railroad. More than a century later, the railroad is still an essential part of the community—today it serves tourists instead of miners. In addition to scheduled events and tours of the railroad grounds, NNRY offers specialty rides such as January’s Fireworks Express, October’s Haunted Ghost Train, and the incredibly popular holiday-themed Polar Express. Northern Nevada Railway #40 Depot Built in 1906, the Nevada Northern connected the enormous pit mines at Ruth with the smelter on the old McGill Ranch, and then with the main line at Cobre for an overall run of not quite 150 miles. After considerable repair and restoration, the Nevada Northern began carrying passengers again in 1986.