Elko Info (Las Vegas, Carlin: environment, attorney, real estate)

[bako.mc]

We are considering accepting a job transfer and Elko is one of our choices. I was wondering if anyone could tell me a little about the area. We currently live in Bakersfield, Ca. We would like to go somewhere with better air quality. Bakersfield is ranked the worst air quality in the nation and the 3rd worst for particulate smog.
I would be interested in the air, weather, housing availability and is it easy to make friends. We would be leaving a place I have been my entire life. I am late 40's and my husband is mid 50's. We are empty nesters.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[humboldtrat]

Elko is a great place. It has about 16,000 or 17,000 population. The air is good (a lot better than Bakersfield). The weather is warm - in the 90's during the summer, but cold with snow in the winter. There is also an airport with scheduled flights and Amtrak stops there. If you like the outdoors, you will like Elko. There are the Jarbidge mountains to the north and to the east are the Ruby mountains HIKING THE RUBY MOUNTAINS with lots of camping and hiking possibilities. To the east of the Ruby Mtns., are the Ruby marshes, a national wildlife preserve.

[conovercourt]

Elko is beautiful, with lots of clean air, and lots of space. My only problem with it is its extreme isolation. No hopping over the pass and being in LA!

[bako.mc]

We do not hop over the pass to LA all that often. We are more home bodies. I am an Paper Craft Artist and my husband likes cars, grilling, auto racing and we love being outside. We aren't really athletic so much as we enjoy being outdoors and natural surroundings.
I was concerned about being able to visit our children and grandchildren easily but with an air access to SLC, there is a direct flight from there to Bako.
Are the people friendly? Do people who live there like it? Are there homes available?

[Nevada1]

Elko is a nice little town. Very clean. My wife is originally from Elko. Her family is one of the big ranching familys there. We are both attorneys in Las Vegas and considering moving to Elko and applying at the local practices. Is there a need for attorneys there? It will be interesting going from $100,000,000 corporate real estate and water rights transactions to a small practice but I think that we will enjoy it. I speacialize in water law and environmental matters so I know that I should be able to cater to local builders and ranchers too.

We are going to Salt Lake on Saturday and thinking of driving to Elko the later part of next week to check out real estate and the legal community.

By the way, you don't need to fly to Salt lake. It is a very easy 3 hour drive down I80. It will take just as long to fly with the airport situation the way that it is nowadays.

[Jose Montara]

My wife was born and lived in Bakersfield. Her family moved to Elko when she was nine, this was back in 1974. She loved the town.
Later she taught school in Ruby Valley, which is a beautiful valley near by. Elko County may be the best place in the country to live, if you like the outdoors.

[beagle gal]

i moved to elko eight years ago, having grown up in alaska...i just love it in elko... being an alaskan, i suppose that i am used to isolation, because elko doesnt feel isolated to me...i love the wide open spaces, the primitive landscape... i am a retired empty nester

[NVDave]

Elko is a large community by north/east/central Nevada standards. In north/east/central Nevada, a "big town" is one that has more than two grocery stores.

Elko is growing rapidly, based on the gold mining industry. The mines are not in Elko, or even in Elko County. The majority of the mining jobs are at mines in northern Eureka County, and the miners are bused up to the mines from parking lots in Elko & Carlin.

Elko won't have the typical "big box" stores. They have a super-Walmart, they have a Home Depot that seems to not be well stocked, and they have a Office Depot. Then they have the local stores.

The area still has a strong Basque influence from the decades past when Basque sheepherders ran huge bands of sheep in the mountains north of Elko, up into the Jarbidge area. The best restaurant in Elko, IMO, is The Star, which has always been owned by a Basque since it's founding. It is really a hotel that serves dinner. Bring an appetite - they don't serve weenie portions.

Air - generally clean. The summer months might bring some dust; all Nevada communities have dust issues whenever you disturb any soil in the summer.

Housing: reasonably priced, lots of new housing going up. NB that when (not 'if') the mines shut down (because *all* mines eventually shut down), there will be a housing price depression in Elko when the miners leave.

Easy to make friends? Only you can answer that, really. There's more than enough people in Elko to find some friendly folks. There's a community college and plenty of volunteer organizations in the area.

If you're the artsy type, NB that there is an artists' colony of sorts in the mining ghost town north of Elko called Tuscorora.

"Isolation" is a relative term. For someone from a big California city, Elko seems isolated. For us here in Eureka, Elko is a pretty big outfit.