Coming Together. Coming Back.

Ely, Nevada, with a population of about 5,000, is located in east-central Nevada. It's a spectacular part of the country, with mountain ranges interspersed with ranching operations in broad valleys.

[photo: heading towards Ely from the east on U.S. 50]

Ely is not close to any other community -- the nearest other small town being Eureka, some 70 miles to the west on Highway 50. The major city that Ely most relates to is Las Vegas, some 240 miles to the south.

Ely has long been a mining hub. And copper has been the mineral. From its origins back in 1878, the health of the copper industry has governed life in the Ely area. As with many mining areas, this has meant a boom and bust cycle.

[photo of the huge Liberty copper mining pit, opened in 1911 and in operation until the 1980s. Mining operations take place in Ruth, Nevada, just four miles west of Ely. You can click on the photo for a larger size; notice the dust cloud rising in the far right of the image. An explosive charge had just gone off in an active mine nearby]

The latest "crisis," as Ely reisdent Virginia Terry put it, came in 1999 when BHP (Broken Hills Proprieties) announced the closure of its Ely area operation, laying off nearly 500 employees. BHP was by far the largest employer in the county.

Within a one year period, Ely's population plummeted by 1,000. According to Virginia, "the city could barely hold itself together to provide essential services." Then the major downtown store, a J.C. Penney's announced it was closing in 2002.

Virginia, a former Ely school superintendent and principal whose family owns several downtown businesses, got together with others in the community to see if they could find some way for the city to come back.

One of the problems they faced if Ely were to attract new businesses and residents was the unsightly, run down nature of many properties downtown.

An idea emerged (based in part on what had been done in Delta, Colorado) -- add some murals to blank walls in the 11 block downtown core.

Margaret Miller Bath (photo, below right), a pharmacist whose family had long owned Economy Drug & Old Fashioned Fountain in the heart of Ely, wrote out a check for $5,000 to jump start the effort -- and the birth of a new nonprofit, Ely Rennaissance. A dinner fundraiser added $6,000.

  And then Ely played its "ace in the hole" -- the loyalty and love of its former residents. An "all-class" reunion was held. That is, all graduates of White Pine County High School were invited back. The focus was on reviving downtown. The result: raising $80,000 in alumni donations for Ely Rennaissance.

The murals (and now sculptures as well) have played an important role in all this. They're more than just art -- though they're done by some of the world's top mural artists. They use as their theme Ely's history and, most especially, its ethnic diversity. There's a mural focusing on the areas Italian immigrants; another on its Basque heritage; one on its Greek workers; and so on.

By focusing on diversity & the city's origins, the murals have fostered pride.

[mural immediately above: Basque Tribute, by artists Don and Jared Gray, celebrates the role the Basques played as early herders in the area; above that, the Liberty Pit mural, by Wei Luan] 

As Margaret explained, "Ely Rennaissance has kept the community in the community, and given everyone something positive to focus on." In fact, some Ely alumni even started to come back to the town as a place to retire to.

Ely Rennaissance's work on the murals and the way that pulled people together led to one other surprising result. The return of a department store to downtown. But not a chain you've heard of. Ely tried without luck to attract another national to replace the J.C. Penney's.

When those efforts failed, Ely residents decided to take a gamble and emulate what had been done in Powell, Wyoming -- develop a community owned store. The result: Garnet Mercantile (photo above).

[photo below right: Ernie Flangas and Virginia Terry inside Garnet Mercantile]

Many of the store's 350 shareholders are residents of Ely; others are people who grew up in Ely, or folks from around Nevada who heard about what Ely was trying to do and wanted to help. Each share costs $500, and the maximum any one person can invest was set at $10,000.

Ernie Flangas, who serves on the White Pine County Regional Planning Commission, has also been active in these efforts. Ernie's family came to Ely from Greece back in 1906. His father worked for the railroad for a time (the railroad was important to mining activities). For Ernie, the key is "to put the nucleus of downtown back together." That, as he acknowledged, is a hard task. 

Ely also has some other things going for it. There's a small campus of Great Basin College. The tourist-oriented Nevada Steam Railroad is thriving. And copper is starting to rebound.

Despite the difficult years it has gone through, Ely residents have learned -- and benefited from -- an important lesson: by coming together, a community stands the best chance of coming back.