The History and Tales of Ely Cemetery
by Errol Porter
Many travelers come into Ely on Highway 50, The Loneliest Road in America. This infamous two-lane highway serves as Ely’s main street. Driving in from the west means you’ll first be passing through our historic downtown, which includes the city courthouse built in 1870, the Hotel Nevada and Gambling Hall established in 1929, and plenty of other notable buildings that have withstood the test of time and now house the likes of coffeeshops and boutiques. Coming in from the other direction means you’ll be going through McGill, a town with sites and history all its own. Once you arrive in Ely, this east side of town is home to the best preserved, most complete railyard complex in the country: the Nevada Northern Railway National Historic Landmark. You can follow the main street straight from there to the downtown, with the before mentioned shops and restaurants. And so, one stretch of road guides traffic directly through an all-encompassing City of Ely… but that has not always been the case.
Don’t be mistaken, the route from point A to point B has pretty much remained the same. The City of Ely, on the other hand, has not always been considered singular. In fact, in its earliest beginnings, what existed was the kindling town of Ely, and nearby was the lone, equally bustling, neighboring community to the east. This town came to be called (very creatively) East Ely.
Eventually the towns did join, but where was this point? Where did East Ely finally share borders with the town of Ely? There are certainly those who would consider the current four-way junction of Highway 50 and Great Basin Boulevard to be where “X marks the spot.” All the same, transcripts tell a different story. There is a site, where turkey vultures spread their wings every year, that’s still intact and in use. It lies on the grounds of what was once considered to be the very outskirts of Ely. Passing by today, it’s almost impossible to believe that it was once considered on the edge, as it now seems perfectly nestled in the heart. The place in question? The City of Ely Cemetery.
“The cemetery is where it is because that was the outskirts of town. They put it there,” said Sean Pitts, Director of the East Ely Depot Museum. Pitts has over 35 years’ experience in history as a profession. He has taught history for Great Basin College, is considered a leading authority on eastern Nevada history, and is the only official historian in an 185-mile radius. “Ely and East Ely just kind of grew together and the cemetery is a kind of middle point.”
White Pine County is filled with historic cemeteries, specifically those contained within our many ghost towns (Hamilton, Osceola, and Cherry Creek, to name a few) but documentation and convenience lend themselves to the Cemetery of Ely. Case in point, Ely’s final resting place for many is also a heavy geocaching location.
We can’t exactly pinpoint when the cemetery was officially instituted, but records date as far back as 1908. This doesn’t come as a surprise, as there were no mortuaries in Ely before the early 1900s. At that time, it was left to the churches to take care of the recently deceased. We also know that headstones and funeral services used to cost upwards of $165.00 in cash, roughly more than $2000.00 in today’s terms. This left many families of the era forced to bury their loved ones without markers because they couldn’t afford the privilege.
But while we shed light on small details of the past, we continue to be left questioning larger specifics. There remain so many unanswered questions about Ely’s dead that we will most likely never know. Dozens of those buried in Ely’s early days have little information to them besides their name. Several were immigrants, working in the mines, who left their families back in their home countries. Often, these men’s only documentation and testament that they existed at all is their final paycheck.
What was the life expectancy rate of the time? Based solely on the mortuary material that’s available and the stones we’re left to maze, it’s difficult to say. What does become clear as one walks the graveyard, however, is that very few early citizens grew to old age. The number of headstones that display those who lived into their 80s and 90s is quickly surpassed by the count of stones belonging to newborn babies.
The following four stories tell what graves can be found in the cemetery and remind us how dangerous the times were:
On December 12, 1890, Henry “Hank” Parish was hung from the neck until dead behind the Ely City Courthouse in one of the town’s last public hangings. The Ely Times newspaper of the day stated that Parish had grown a reputation as a “lover of murder and has always been as fearless as he has been brutal.” He was known for many “terrors” in southern Nevada, including the stabbing and killing of a P.J. Thompson at Royal City for cheating at a poker game. It was this crime that lead to, as the Ely Times put it, his call “to stretch hemp.” Today’s courthouse employees swear the building is haunted, and because of Parish’s execution taking place so close to the building, all refer to the ghost as Hank. A gravestone at the Ely Cemetery can be found bearing his name.
Another able-to-find grave, with a broken cross headstone, is that of Dmitar Dragosovac. Dragosovac was fatally shot in front of his nineteen-year-old daughter in 1926 at Collins Ranch in Bothwick by William P. Phillips. Phillips claimed self-defense in shooting Dragosovac, saying that he grew violent after being accused of stealing fence staples. The daughter’s testimony said otherwise. The crime was eventually slated as manslaughter. According to the Ely Times of the day, “The verdict was a compromise.”
If you’ve received a professional tour of the Nevada Northern Railway, you might have heard the story of Carmine Acquafondata. Acquafondata was an immigrant who hailed from San Pietro Avellana, Italy. He had found his way to Ely in 1921, bringing along his wife and six children, and secured a job at the railroad. Three years later, at the age of 45, Acquafondata suffered the bloodiest of casualties. It was on August 15 he broke an unspoken rule: do not jump between train cars. As he was passing through, one of the cars clamped to the other, instantly crushing the man in the middle, but not instantly killing him. The rail workers knew what would happen once they separated the locks. And so, they invited the Acquafondata family to the railyard to say their final farewells. His time came only when the clasps were unhooked and the man was promptly ripped him apart. His grave can be found in the Ely Cemetery, with his name misspelled on the headstone.
Much more recently, in 2018, a report involving the Ely Cemetery was printed in local newspapers. A casket had been stolen from the grounds. It was at 11:00 a.m. on May 8 that a City of Ely employee revealed a grave site had been tampered with. When officers arrived, it was immediately determined that someone had dug up the grave. The violator had clearly taken their time. The hole was a perfect rectangle and there were no traces left behind. Even more troubling, the grave belonged to Douglas Evan Nelson, who died on August 7, 1942. Upon research, it was discovered that Nelson’s life was short lived and he only survived for a few weeks. The stolen casket and body belonged to an infant. The mystery of the grave continues, as any offender(s) has yet to come forward or be caught.
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Perhaps you wish to take a self- guided tour and weave your way through the tombstones. Whether it’s geocaching, attempting to find the graves listed in this article, or taking on the challenge of discovering the oldest headstone, you can now carry with you some knowledge before stepping into Ely’s garden of the dead.
Special thanks to Jamie Noyes and Nicole Romero, whose insight, time spent researching, and providing resources were invaluable in making this article come together. And to the state’s best storyteller, Sean Pitts, whose spreading of historical facts cannot be gratified enough.
Great info and story. Didn’t know all these stories and I grew up in White Pine.