Carlin

Carlin is the oldest town in Elko County, and the railroad made it. The Central Pacific established it as a division point in December 1868, where train crews changed and locomotives were serviced on the transcontinental line—a working railroad town from its first day. It settled into a quiet existence as the rails carried the region's cattle and freight. Then in 1965 Newmont opened its gold operation nearby, and the Carlin Trend—a belt of microscopic gold invisible to earlier miners—became one of the richest gold districts on earth. The railroad stop now anchors a modern mining empire.

What the plaque says

Carlin, the oldest town in present Elko County, was established as a railroad division point in December 1868, by the Central Pacific Railroad. It was named, by Central Pacific officials, after William Passmore Carlin, a Union officer who served his country with distinction during and after the Civil War. When the railroad construction crews reached the Carlin Meadows, always a favorite stopping place for wagon trains along the California Emigrant Trail, a townsite was laid out and a large roundhouse and shops were erected. During the 1870's and early 1880's, Carlin competed actively with Elko, Palisade and Winnemucca for the staging and freighting business of the many mining camps north and south of the railroad. In 1965, it became the principle shipping point for the nearby Carlin gold mine, the second largest gold-producer in the U.S. Carlin is still a principle division point on the Southern Pacific. During the period from 1906 until the early 1950's, Carlin was the principle icing station in Nevada for refrigerator cars on both the Southern and Western Pacific Railroads (Western Pacific reached Carlin from the easterly in 1908, but through freight and passenger service was not inaugurated over this transcontinental line until 1910).

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Carlin & the Carlin Trend — 0.9 mi
  The small railroad town west of Elko that sits beside the largest gold complex on earth — and, because the gold is invisible, shows you almost none of it.
• California Trail Interpretive Center — 11 mi
  A free, surprisingly ambitious BLM museum of the overland crossing — eight miles west of Elko, on the trail itself, where the California Trail met the Hastings Cutoff that doomed the Donner Party.
• Elko — 20 mi
  The railroad built it, cattle made it, and gold keeps it — the working capital of northeast Nevada, a frontier cow town that never got around to becoming a relic.

More markers nearby

• Carlin Canyon — 5.3 mi
• Palisade — 8.2 mi
• West End of Hastings Cutoff — 11 mi
• The Cattle Industry — 19 mi