Hotel Nevada

The six-story red brick hotel, once the tallest building in the state, memorializes the boom times Ely experienced as a copper mining capital. Built to be fireproof, the hotel has a steel frame and concrete between the floors. Although the walls of the ground level have been obscured by new construction or the addition of panels of aggregate to cover street-level windows, the upper stories of the exterior remain intact. The building has a main facade of five bays. The two outer bays, containing a single double-hung window on each floor, are edged with ornamental brickwork of small raised rectangles running from the base of the third story and ending at the roofline. A set of three narrow blind arches terminates the top of each end bay. The center bay follows this overall pattern, but contains pairs of double-hung windows on each floor and has a set of five blind arches at the top. The windows along the sixth story are capped by flat arches emphasized by decorative brickwork and a background of tan brick. Most eye-catching are the vintage neon signs, including the two-and-one-half-story-tall “Unknown Prospector,” reflecting the mining base of the local economy. The hotel has been renovated recently but retains many of its originnal exterior and interior features, including wooden walls bearing the brands of local ranchers dating from the 1960s.