Time Stands Still in McGill

If you visited the former mining town of McGill two decades ago or three decades ago it would look pretty much like it does today.

Certainly, a few more businesses would be open and there might be a bit more foot and car traffic, particularly if the smelter was still operating, but it wouldn’t appear much different from how it looks now.

And that’s the secret of McGill—despite all the changes in the world, it has remained relatively unchanged.

Located 12 miles north of Ely via U.S. Highway 93, McGill is one of the best examples of a company town in the state. For many years, nearly everyone who lived there worked for the mining company, which was originally called the Steptoe Valley Mining & Smelter Company and later the Kennecott Copper Corporation.

Founded in 1906, McGill was first a tent city that rose in the flats near where the Steptoe Valley Mining Company built a massive smelter. The smelter melted copper ore mined in nearby Ruth and was part of the process of extracting the metal from the rock.

Within a year, however, more substantial houses were erected for the mining company officials and a small business district began to take shape.

To provide housing for workers, the company also began building modest wooden homes for them—hence the identical, cookie-cutter appearance of many of the small, older houses found in McGill.

In 1908, the Nevada Northern Railway was extended through McGill on its journey to Cobre, a transfer point on the Southern Pacific Railroad, located about 130 miles north of Ely.

By the 1920s, McGill had grown to rival nearby Ely as the largest town in White Pine County. Even a disastrous fire in 1922, which destroyed much of the smelting complex, didn't slow McGill, which peaked in 1930 when the town had more than 3,000 residents.

The unusually long life of the Ruth/Ely area's copper mines contributed to McGill's longevity. For much of the next fifty years, McGill maintained a relatively steady population of about 2,000 people, most working for the smelter.

During its more than 70-year mining boom, McGill acquired many of the trappings of community, including churches, a newspaper, a movie theater, a large brick school and a municipal swimming pool—actually an Olympic-size, old-fashioned watering hole.

Additionally, as a result of the mining company's aggressive recruitment of new immigrants, McGill became one of Nevada's most ethnically diverse communities. Large numbers of Greeks, Irish, Slavs and other newcomers to the America found their way to McGill to work at the smelter.

But, as with all mining towns, when the mines closed, the jobs disappeared. In this case, McGill's day of reckoning came in the early 1980s when Kennecott closed its eastern Nevada operations, including the smelter.

Much of the town's population began to drift away during the 1980s. Construction of a state prison in the late 1980s did bring an influx of new people to McGill but not enough to change it.

In 1993, Kennecott cleared away the remains of the old smelter complex, including the giant smokestack. The site is now a graded field.

Today, while McGill hasn't recovered from the loss of the smelter, it is certainly in better shape than a few years ago. Many of the old company homes have been repainted and fixed up by new residents.

The downtown business district, however, remains a mix of shuttered buildings and hardy survivors, including the McGill Drug Store Museum at 11 Fourth Street (U.S. 93).
McGill’s unchanging nature is perhaps best represented by the drug store museum, which opened in 1915 and operated continuously until 1979.

Gerald and Elsa Culbert owned the store from 1950 until it was closed following Gerald’s death. In 1995, the Culbert’s children donated the drug store, which still contained its complete inventory on the shelves, to the White Pine County Museum for preservation and display.

These days, visitors can tour this fully intact, 20th century, small town drug store, which still has an operating soda fountain. The museum is open by appointment (call 775-235-7082).

It's proof that not much has changed in McGill.

For more information about McGill contact the White Pine Public Museum, 2000 Aultman St., Ely, NV 89301, 775-289-4710, www.idsely.com/~wpmuseum.