Ely Celebrates 150th Anniversary Of Transcontinental Railroad
by Matt WeiserOn May 10, 1869, an event occurred on a remote swath of Utah desert that would transform Ely, Nev., just 150 miles away. A golden spike was driven into the duff at Promontory Point, Utah, marking completion of the first railroad tracks spanning America from coast to coast. The 150th anniversary of that event will be celebrated on May 10, 2019, commemorating an amazing feat of labor and will that revolutionized the nation. The transformation extended to Ely, which developed its own branch line railroad in 1906 to link people and goods with the new national rail network. This new branch line, known as the Nevada Northern Railway, is still operating today and it’s the closest complete and functioning railroad you can find that still resembles that moment on Promontory Point.
So it seems appropriate that the Nevada Northern plans to host its own celebration of the Golden Spike event on May 10. The railway’s East Ely Depot will offer music, a special excursion train, and a recreation of the momentous Golden Spike moment when steam locomotives from East and West met nose-to-nose in the desert. “Because we had the Transcontinental Railroad, that allowed all of these feeder lines to be built, and that actually helped establish Nevada as the Silver State,” said Mark Bassett, president of the Nevada Northern Railway. “We’re hoping to offer people a little taste of what it was like back then.”
People actually began riding the Transcontinental Railroad across Nevada before it was completed. Bassett said the railroad builders were “spending money like there was no tomorrow” in order to complete the line. So they were eager for any revenue they could get while construction was underway. A massive silver discovery 30 miles west of Ely, at Hamilton City, proved an irresistible lure for many new train passengers. That silver discovery occurred late in 1867. Within months, ambitious prospectors from California and Reno happily paid the fare to ride the new Central Pacific Railroad across the desert as far as Elko, Nev., the new train’s terminus at the time. Then they walked, bought a horse, or paid to ride the stagecoach south to Treasure Hill in a fever to get their piece of the silver boom.
“Imagine the perfect storm,” said Sean Pitts, director of the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Ely. “You have rapid communication made available by the telegraph (in 1861). You have rapid transit made available by the Transcontinental Railroad in May of 1869. Then you have single richest silver ore ever discovered in North America. Whoever gets there first gets the most.” By March 2, 1869 — just two months before completion of the Transcontinental Railroad — White Pine County was established by the Nevada Legislature. Some 40,000 people were already living in the vicinity of Treasure Hill, the county’s largest population center.
It was copper, however, that would lead to development of White Pine County’s own railroad. The Nevada Northern was completed in 1906 to transport copper ore from Robinson Mine in the town of Ruth, just outside Ely. It links up with the Transcontinental Railroad at Cobre (the Spanish word for copper), a railroad junction now mostly a ghost town.
But all 146 miles of track leading to Cobre are still in place. And they’re still part of the Nevada Northern Railway, the entirety of which is on the National Register of Historic Places and operated as a nonprofit. Copper from White Pine County became vital to the Industrial Revolution then unfolding across the globe, and trains were essential to feeding all that voracious industry. “Without the Transcontinental Railroad, there would be no development in what they call the Great American Desert,” Bassett said. “There would have been no way to feed the people, no way of bringing all the supplies in to support major cities. It takes us from being an agrarian society into an industrial society, and actually lays the groundwork for making us a world power. It changes everything.”
Ely even has its own famous railroad spike. This one is a copper spike, forged to mark completion of the Nevada Northern Railway, which was driven into the tracks on Sept. 29, 1906 in Ely. That original copper spike will be displayed at the historic East Ely Depot during the May 10 celebration.
For more information:
Nevada Northern Railway, Ely, Nev.
Golden Spike National Historic Site, Utah