Elko

Elko is the railroad's child that grew into Cowboy Country's capital. The Central Pacific platted it in late 1868 as a railhead for the White Pine mines; superintendent Charles Crocker is said to have named it by adding an "o" to elk off a list in his pocket. Within months it had dozens of tent saloons; by 1869 it was the county seat. It hosted the first University of Nevada from 1874 until the school moved to Reno in 1885. Basque sheepherders made it their hub, their restaurants enduring. Once a cowtown, Elko boomed again on Carlin Trend gold.

What the plaque says

On December 29, 1868, representatives of the Central Pacific Railroad started laying out lots for the future town of Elko. By 1870, the thriving town had 5,000 people. There was an immense volume of freight and passenger traffic over the stageline roads north and south from the railhead at Elko to the mining area. The University of Nevada was originally built in Elko in 1874 and remained here until 1885, at which time it was moved to Reno to its present location. By the early 1870’s, Elko became the marketing and economic center for northeastern Nevada’s vast range livestock empire. In the 1870’s and 1880’s, great ranching principalities were built on Elko County’s vast rangelands. These ranches were ruled over, absolutely, by such powerful and colorful cattle kings as L.R. “Broadhorns” Bradley, Nevada’s second Governor and its first “cowboy” Governor; the French Garat family, Spanish Altubes, and John Sparks, Governor of Nevada in the early years of this century. Elko remains the economic hub of Nevada’s greatest range area. At the same time, it has also become a recreation-tourism center in northeast Nevada.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Elko — 0.8 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.
• California Trail Interpretive Center — 9.7 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.
• Carlin & the Carlin Trend — 20 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.
• Lamoille Canyon & the Ruby Mountains — 26 mi
  The great exception to Nevada's sagebrush monotony — a glacier-carved canyon and a wall of eleven-thousand-foot granite peaks an hour southeast of Elko, fairly called the state's Alps.

More markers nearby

• Ruby Valley Pony Express Station — steps away
• Elko Airport — 1.6 mi
• Oil From Shale — 1.8 mi
• West End of Hastings Cutoff — 10 mi