Elko

Lots on the Central Pacific, 1868–1871

In December 1868 a saloon opened in a tent on the ground where the brick Pioneer Hotel building now stands in downtown Elko.^7,8,9 On December 29, 1868, representatives of the Central Pacific Railroad began laying out lots for the town, a railroad town and loading station for the area’s ranches and mines.^1,4 By February 1869 the camp held more than sixty canvas tents, and on March 5, 1869, the legislature created Elko County and named Elko its seat.^3,6,10 Six months after the railroad arrived, the town had two banks, forty-five saloons, three hardware stores, eight physicians, and eight attorneys.¹⁰ “There were all sorts of games and vices in progress and only two men were killed the day I arrived,” a newcomer reported in 1869.¹¹ The state historical marker says the town had 5,000 people by 1870, while the Online Nevada Encyclopedia gives the 1870 census count as 1,160.^4,10 Chinese immigrants who had worked on the Central Pacific returned to Elko after finishing the track in 1869, grew and sold vegetables, and helped build the town’s water system.¹⁰ Fire took most of the new buildings in 1871, and a brick-making machine was brought in so businesses could rebuild on a more permanent basis.¹⁰

Cattle Kings and the Garcia Saddle

A drought in California in the early 1870s drove many ranchers east over the Sierras into Elko County, and Elko, on the railroad, became their supply center and shipping point.^6,12 In 1870 the brothers Bernardo and Pedro Altube, from Onati in Gipuzkoa, drove 3000 head of cattle from southern California to their Spanish Ranch in Independence Valley.¹ By 1907 they ran 20,000 sheep, 20,000 cattle, and 2000 horses on 400,000 acres.¹ The state marker names among the cattle kings who ruled the ranches L.R. “Broadhorns” Bradley, Nevada’s second governor, and John Sparks, governor in the early years of the twentieth century.⁴ Saddle maker Guadalupe S. Garcia came to Elko in the mid 1890s, in 1896 by the city’s marker, and won a gold medal at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904.^6,13 He ran his own tannery in Elko, experimenting with tannin made from sagebrush; he died in 1933, and his shop closed in 1938.¹³ His apprentice Joe Capriola opened his own shop in 1929, and it has worked at Fifth and Commercial since then.⁶

University, Courthouse, and a Second Railroad

The University of Nevada held its first class, seven students, in Elko in 1874 and stayed until 1885, when it moved to Reno.^4,10 The encyclopedia ties the move to Elko’s population falling below 1,000, while the city’s marker says western Nevadans complained that “Elko was too remote and past its prime.”^10,12 In 1875 the Elko Water and Flour Milling Company opened, brought water by canal from the Humboldt River about nine miles away, and in the 1890s generated the town’s first electricity.¹⁰ The Greek Revival courthouse was finished in 1869; when officials refused to pay Moore an additional $240 bill for locks, he copied the keys and handed them around Elko, and the county paid $600 for new locks.³ That building came down in 1910, and its replacement, designed by William H. Weeks and built by the Sellman Brothers of Reno, has housed the county government since 1911.^2,3 Population stayed low until the Western Pacific Railroad was built through town, in 1907 by the encyclopedia and 1908 by the city’s marker, down the middle of Silver Street, and the new mining camps of Aura, Edgemont, Gold Creek, Jarbidge, and Midas also helped the town recover.^5,10 The City of Elko was incorporated in 1917, and its first mayor, J.A. McBride, took office with the council on May 1, 1917.⁶ On April 6, 1926, Varney Air Lines pilot Leon Cuddeback landed a Curtiss Swallow biplane with one bag of mail at Elko, which the state marker says completed the first scheduled Air Mail run in the United States.¹⁴ The town did well until the Great Depression reached it in 1932, though the 1940 census still counted 4,094 people.¹⁰

Showrooms, Basque Boarders, and Gold

On December 17, 1910, Basque immigrant Peter Juaregui opened The Star for $11,000, giving Basque residents room and board for $1.00 a day and drinks for a dime.¹⁵ Newton Crumley, Sr., bought the Commercial Hotel, begun in 1869 as G. Crocker’s Humboldt Lodging House, in 1925, and in 1937 he and his son added a 200-seat lounge that brought in entertainers such as jazz musician Ted Lewis.¹⁰ From 1979 to 1984, “Project Lifesaver” moved 5.4 miles of track from between Commercial and Railroad Streets to just north of the Humboldt River, removing at least 16 crossings.⁵ The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering began in Elko in 1985, and in 1992, with a donation from George Gund, its sponsor, the Western Folklife Center, bought the Pioneer Hotel building for its headquarters.^7,8,11 The Online Nevada Encyclopedia reports that mining is now the town’s major industry, with gold companies employing thousands, and it gives a 2006 population estimate of over 16,900.¹⁰