Western Railroad Discussion > Elko (Nevada) railroad themed Centennial Tower

The City of Elko, Nevada, has been celebrating its centennial (of being an incorporated city) throughout 2017. Among the most visible parts of this event have been about 40 large cowboy boot statues scattered throughout the city, all sponsored by and painted for various civic organizations or businesses, and the nearing completion Centennial Tower. The tower itself had been the source of some controversy throughout the last year and a half or so, both in the allocation of funds towards the project and its location. Original plans were for the tower to be completed this past spring, but the conflicts delayed that, and it finally was installed over the last week or so. Formal ribbon cutting is scheduled to occur this coming Saturday as part of the annual snowflake festival.

I had a little bit of business to do in Elko yesterday morning, and after getting that done I dropped by the tower to get a couple quick photos of it. The final location sits squarely on the original Central Pacific/Southern Pacific right-of-way through the center of town, across the street from where the WP locomotive and caboose are on display. In addition to the Elko lettering, the tower has the stylized railroad tracks on both sides. The Chilton name on the tower honors Mark Chilton, one of the driving forces behind the project that relocated the SP and WP main lines out of the center of town to along the river back in the early 1980s. At least two of the boots installed around town have at least some railroad theme, and I got a photo of one of them, which sits in front of the old WP depot building and across the street from the famous Star Hotel. I'm glad I shot these yesterday, as its been snowing steadily in this part of the world all morning.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

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Thanks Jeff. I showed these to my wife who was born and raised in Elko.

John Bromley - Omaha

Reminds me of the coaling tower in Chama (before they straightened it up). So, does the tower have a LIEN on it already?

Ed

Was the relocation of tracks around town an early example of forward thinking to get rid of congestion within the central business district or where there other reasons to do it?

--j

jofegan Wrote:
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> Was the relocation of tracks around town an early
> example of forward thinking to get rid of
> congestion within the central business district or
> where there other reasons to do it?
>
> --j

Reminds me of the old Elko joke:

“A guest in the Stockman’s Hotel calls down to the front desk and asks: ‘Say, what time does this hotel get into Chicago?’ “

Beautifull tower

Pedro Rezende
Vespasiano MG,
https://youtube.com/c/minasgeraisrailways1

Thanks to all who have replied...

To answer the question as to why the relocation, attached should be a map of downtown Elko. Prior to 1983 the Southern Pacific main line ran right through the middle of what is now parking lots between Railroad and Commercial Streets, while the Western Pacific mainline ran right down the middle of Silver Street a block to the southeast. What is shown on the map as 535/227 is Idaho Street, that was old US 40. I have placed blue and red dots on the map, the red dot is the location of the tower and the blue dot is the location of the boot I posted. The original WP yards stretched south and west of the blue dot, the area has now been heavily developed and no traces of the facilities remain. The relocation project channelized the Humboldt River through town and moved both mainlines down next to it (and royally screwed up the hydrology of the river in the process as an unintended consequence) and built the WP/UP the present Elko yard and shops and other facilities east of town. As can be seen, the tracks ran right through the middle of the business district and some residential areas and were causing a whole lot of problems (not a good idea to have an active railroad mainline six feet from the front doors of the many bars and restaurants).

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

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While driving through Elko this summer, I noticed lots of cars/trucks displaying red and yellow flags, with an "X" symbol as I recall. Does this relate to the local gold mining industry in some way?

TIA

ShoreLineRoute Wrote:
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> While driving through Elko this summer, I noticed
> lots of cars/trucks displaying red and yellow
> flags, with an "X" symbol as I recall. Does this
> relate to the local gold mining industry in some
> way?
>
> TIA

I believe so, here in Utah we have similar flags and even light sticks (looks like a white Christmas rope lift) that extend up 5-6' on vehicles that work at the mines like Bingham Copper.

And I like the cowboy boot!

Nathan

Posted from iPhone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/17 21:37 by atsf121.

The flags are designed specifically to prevent accidents such as this from happening. They don't always have the cross, some are just solid orange or safety yellow. The cross is usually some sort of reflective tape or material to improve visibility at night.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

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Here is a detailed story on the “Project Lifesaver” line relocation in Elko...

http://kenvtv.com/news/local/celebrate-elko-history-project-lifesaver-12-15-2016

Our belt services office was left of Jeff's map and between the WP and SP lines. Our biggest competitor was West of us about a mile
and being on the West end of town helped both of us service the Carlin Trend mine locations. Jeff talks about unintended consequences,
well until the line consolidation was finally built the traffic tie ups were so bad that new industrial construction rather than on
the West side of town went to the far East side of town and above both railroads. The SP line and to an extent the WP lines were much
busier back then and the traffic some days was ridiculous!

Out