White Pine news. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1920-1923, 1923-06-10
WHY Is ELY?

fOr the last tWO Huoutno q PiS'C VI
newspaper reprint has been going
the rounds of the California press,
with the heading why Is Ely, Ne
yada?" The matter under the head
ing purports to have been written in
Ely and starts off by saying. There
is no excuse for this town $ exist
ence." II says, among other things.
hat there are z,200 people in Ely.
nearly all of them dissolute persons,
male and female, and that they are
wolves waiting to catch the sheep as
they come from MeGill. Ruth and
Kimberly, which they do every pay
night. II tells about it being a wide
open town, dissipation Running riot,
with only politicians to be met on the
streets in the daytime.
The writer of hat non-ciassie
plainly is not a person with enough
breadth of mind 10 fnow what con-
stitutes the essentials for the making
of a trading center necessary. He
refers 10 certain persons getting pay
checks from McGill, Ruth and Kim
berry. but he has not found out what
the pay is for. He does not know
whether the men so paid oft occa-
sionally are shoveling sand or pitch
ing hay, for he makes no mention
of this being the biggest copper min
ing and smelling center of several
states and one of the largest in the
world. But il he does know ii or has
heard of il he would not know what
the meaning were. for all the meas
ure he has of a place is that of the
tenderloin and its habitues. which
part he claims he saw ard he think J
that is the whole town
AS was remarked not long ago
about the man who condemned Paris
as a home of the demimonde, claim
ing that was all he saw there, men
going to q place looking for prosti-
tuition always find it, for it is to be
found in every city and town where
a person desiring to find IL makes
the search with half diligence. The
fellow writing the squib in question
admits he was successful in his little
quest.
But aside from what this simple
Son saw or heard II imagined he saw
or heard, he has failed to take note
of the fact that if there were not a
copper mine or smelter in the wide
world, this is the center of a vast
livestock region. teeming with sheep
and cattle, and there is the same
excuse for the existence of Ely, re-
gardless of its importance as a min
ing and smelling center, as there Is
for Elko, Winnemucca. Lovelock,
Alturas, L~akeview. Burns. Nampa.
Weiser and To a lesser extent that OF
Reno or Boise. There may not be
an excuse for the existence of any
of those places. but IL there is any
whatever there Is exactly the same
excuse for Ely on account of its
grazing resources. without taking
into account its mining resources,
which none of the others mentioned
has.
Granting that several of the neces-
sites of actual existence may be had
at McGill. Ruth and Kimberly and
the mines might be run In a way
without Ely. IL would simply mean.
in the first place. that the essential
business facilities OF this place would
have TO be removed to those places
and they would have to be enlarged
accordingly. In that way the would
he writer could have his wish graf
flied and Ely wiped of the map. But
il that were done there would still
be the r%anching trade sor some town
to take care OF. and II Ely were gone
that simply would have to go 20 Nc
Gill, Ruth, Kimberly or all OF them.
They would have TO he enlarged ac-
cordingly. so in that respect 1t would
be exactly az long as I Is BROAD
little longer. in fact, for none Of
them has the advantage of the nat
ural location to accommodate that
trade.
There is the same excuse for the
existence of some towns as there Is
for some people, and sometimes
quite a little more.