Ely is a small copper-mining town in the middle of the Great Basin, and one of the most isolated communities in the lower 48. It sits at 6,400 feet in White Pine County, Nevada, surrounded by long mountain ranges and vast empty valleys. The nearest city of any size is Salt Lake City, roughly four hours east.
The town boomed in 1906 when the Nevada Northern Railway connected the copper deposits of the Steptoe Valley to the national rail network. Kennecott ran the mines for decades before closing them in 1978. What remains is a compact downtown of brick buildings, a fine old railway yard in East Ely, a string of casinos and motels along Aultman Street, and a population that has held steady at around four thousand people since the mines closed.
Ely's best card today is its location. Great Basin National Park lies an hour east — one of the quietest national parks in the country, with ancient bristlecone pines, the deep chambers of Lehman Caves, and Wheeler Peak rising to 13,063 feet. Cave Lake State Park, just south of town, offers fishing and hiking in the Schell Creek Range. The surrounding desert is prime territory for rock hounding, ghost town exploration, and very dark skies.
Downtown Ely rewards a slow morning on foot. The Hotel Nevada opened in 1929 as the tallest building in the state and still anchors Railroad Street. The Nevada Northern Railway Museum in East Ely is genuinely excellent — a complete working railroad yard preserved almost exactly as it was when the mines closed, with steam locomotives that still run weekend excursions. The Ely Renaissance Society has funded a walking art route of over twenty murals painted on building walls around downtown, most depicting the town's mining and railway history.