It was the search for stars that brought me to the town of Ely on a weekend in May. A friend and I had booked tickets for the Nevada Northern Railway, which runs on select summer evenings from mid-May to mid-September (the Star Train runs every Friday, while Thursdays and Saturdays are the Sunset and Champagne Train; both run the same route and the same times, the main difference being the telescopes come out for the Star Train, while the champagne flutes come out for the other).

A four-hour drive from Las Vegas, Ely—a town that sprung up as a Pony Express post office and stagecoach station—has retained a lot of its small-town charm and is in fact quite a bustling hub of activity both indoors and out, with a good dose of Silver State history (it was a boomtown in the early 1900s when copper was discovered to be abundant).

Our first stop was the Hotel Nevada & Gambling Hall, where we stayed for the night. A true-blue gambling hall, it has the look and feel of an Old West joint that its big-city sister to the south tries to emulate in newer hotels. The six-story building, once the tallest building in the state, was built during Prohibition. Today, its recently updated rooms (64 in all) are quaint and cozy, and the hotel’s location in the heart of the town makes it the ideal base station for exploration. 

Ely’s centerpiece is the Nevada Northern Railway, our takeoff point for the Star Train. Unfortunately (or fortunately, however you look at it), instead of stars on the evening we had tickets, there was what appeared to be a blizzard happening. No matter; we got out onto the platform and braved the cold, catching snowflakes on our tongues while watching the verdant-by-day landscape transform into a winter wonderland. It was Christmas in May for a couple of Southern Nevadans who couldn’t believe their luck.

“Mother Nature’s in the driver’s seat here,” Mark Bassett, president of the NNR, tells me later, citing the high desert’s prerogative to do whatever it wants to do weather-wise. It’s part of the magic of this corner of the state, which Bassett, a Chicago native, has called home for nearly two decades. He started the themed train programs back in 2014 in the hopes of drawing more people to experience a true dark sky.

“Eighty percent of the people that live in the United States can no longer see the night sky, they can’t see the stars, the planets, because of the light pollution,” he says. “We’re very, very fortunate to have that, and so we’re very anxious to share that with people around the state of Nevada, in the country and around the world.”

There are two museums in Ely worth exploring: the East Ely Railroad Depot Museum, a highly tactile repository of the town’s history as a railroad stop, featuring employee payroll records, typewriters, original tickets from the ’20s, office supplies and so much more. At the Renaissance Village, a faithful re-creation of houses belonging to different ethnic groups—Italian, French, English, Slavic, Asian, Greek, Spanish—tells the story of this spot in the middle of nowhere that brought together people from all over the world during the mining boom. Glenn Terry, who runs the Renaissance Village, is a walking Wikipedia of history, a well-traveled citizen of the world who found a way to immortalize a piece of it right here.

Ely’s main drag, Aultman Street, has plenty of walkable shopping and eating destinations, including Economy Drug, an old-fashioned pharmacy and soda fountain serving excellent sandwiches, and Taproot, a kid-friendly shop offering coffee, smoothies and packaged teas. Next to Taproot is Garnet Mercantile, which sells jewelry and other handcrafted goods. You can also take an art walk tour of downtown and see Ely’s history depicted through murals and sculptures, all commissioned by the Ely Renaissance Society, or check out The Art Bank, which has a permanent collection of paintings, sculptures and photos, as well as work by local artists.

Plan to spend a few days in this charming little town, where history is celebrated at every turn. And when night falls, don’t forget to look up at those stars that have seen it all.

Click HERE to subscribe for free to the Weekly Fix, the digital edition of Las Vegas Weekly! Stay up to date with the latest on Las Vegas concerts, shows, restaurants, bars and more, sent directly to your inbox!