Saddle Tank Locomotive for Switching Service. Built by the
Baldwin Locomotive Works for the Nevada Consolidated Copper Co. , 2007 The Nevada Northern owes its beginnings to the discovery and development of large porphyry
copper deposits near
Ely early in the 20th century. Two of the region's largest mines (including the
Robinson Mine) were purchased in 1902 by
Mark Requa, president of the
Eureka & Palisade Railroad in central Nevada. Requa then organized the White Pine Copper Company to develop his new properties, and it soon became evident that rail access to the isolated region would be essential to fully exploit the potential of the mines. Originally plans called for extending the narrow-gauge
Eureka and Palisade Railroad, which Requa was president of, effectively doubling the length of that line. Subsequent surveys indicated that a standard gauge railroad would be the most cost effective and that the most practical route for such a railroad was northward from Ely, connecting with the Southern Pacific somewhere in the vicinity of
Wells. The Ely-area copper properties were further merged in 1904, forming the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company, and the Nevada Northern Railway was incorporated on June 1, 1905, to build a line connecting the Nevada Consolidated mines and smelter to the national rail network. The task of building the new railroad was contracted to the
Utah Construction Company, which began work on September 11, 1905. Construction began at
Cobre, where the Nevada Northern connected with the Southern Pacific and proceeded southward. The line was finished a year later, its completion marked by a two-day celebration in Ely. The railroad's symbolic final spike—made of local copper—was driven by Requa in Ely on September 29, 1906, which was designated as Railroad Day. To celebrate the new railway, a
ball was held inside the
Northern building, which was still under construction at the time. Additional Ely-area trackage was constructed in 1907–1908 to serve the local mining industry. This trackage, known as the "Ore Line," included a route bypassing Ely to the north and continuing west up Robinson Canyon to the copper mines at
Ruth. East of Ely, the Ore Line project saw the construction of the "Hiline," a branch leading to Nevada Consolidated's new copper
smelter and concentrator at
McGill. The Ore Line immediately became the busiest segment of the Nevada Northern by far, hosting dozens of loaded and empty ore trains daily. As a subsidiary of Nevada Consolidated, the primary purpose of the Nevada Northern throughout its history was the haulage of copper ores and products. Other freight traffic was also carried, and the railroad operated a daily passenger train between East Ely and Cobre until 1941. Local trains were also operated from Ely to Ruth and McGill for the benefit of mine employees and others until the 1930s, and special school trains carried students to
White Pine High School in central Ely. A series of corporate financial transactions in the 1920s and 1930s brought Nevada Consolidated under the control of the
Kennecott Copper Corporation, and Nevada Consolidated was merged into Kennecott in 1942. The Nevada Northern thus became a Kennecott subsidiary. Faced with declining ore reserves and low copper prices, Kennecott closed its Ruth-area mines in May 1978, thus ending the ore trains between Ruth and the McGill smelter. The smelter closed on June 20, 1983, and the Nevada Northern suspended all operations immediately thereafter. ==Current status==