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Nevada County
White Pine County, Nevada
Great Basin National Park and Lehman Caves - from Great Basin National Park (the park centered on Wheeler Peak - Nevada's second-highest mountain at 13,063 feet - protecting the only permanently glaciated mountain in the Great Basin, the extraordinary Lehman Caves' decorated limestone chambers, and one of the world's oldest living organisms - the Prometheus bristlecone pine, cut down in 1964, was 4,900 years old - making Great Basin one of America's least visited but most ecologically significant national parks) to Ely's Nevada Northern Railway Museum (the remarkably preserved ghost of a company railroad - the Nevada Northern's complete original infrastructure, including locomotives, cars, depot, and roundhouse, survived intact because the railroad simply shut down rather than being dismantled, creating one of America's finest railroad heritage museums).
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Office: White Pine County Emergency Management – Main Office: 801 Clark Street; Emergency Operation Center: 1150 McGill Highway, Ely, NV 89301 | (775) 293-6500 | Hours: Mon-Fri 7:00 AM-3:30 PM; Director Michael Dalton, a lifetime Nevada and White Pine County resident and member of the Ely Shoshone Tribe.
Sheriff: White Pine County Sheriff’s Office – 1785 Great Basin Boulevard, Ely, NV 89301 | Non-emergency (775) 289-8808 | Fax: (775) 289-1468.
Notes: For an active emergency, call 911. Other local law enforcement includes the Ely Shoshone Tribal Police Department.
Roads & Utilities
ROADS & TRANSPORTATION
Roads: US Highway 50 (“The Loneliest Road in America”) and US Highway 93 intersect at Ely, the county seat and largest city in eastern Nevada, at roughly 6,400-6,437 feet elevation in the Egan Mountain Range.
Notes: White Pine County, founded 1869, is named for the Rocky Mountain white pine (an old name for the limber pine), common in the county’s mountains. Roughly 8,660-9,080 residents across a vast 8,897 square miles – one of Nevada’s most sparsely populated, remote counties, bordered by Elko County to the north and the State of Utah to the east. Land within the county is overwhelmingly federally administered: Bureau of Land Management (77%), U.S. Forest Service (13%), with only about 5% in private hands. Ely began in the 1870s as a stagecoach station and post office, later booming as a copper-mining hub.
Business & Permits
BUILDING & PERMITS
Office: White Pine County Courthouse – Ely, NV 89301.
Notes: White Pine County is genuinely, remarkably home to Great Basin National Park, established October 27, 1986 and one of the least-visited, most remote national parks in the entire U.S. National Park System – encompassing dark skies, Lehman Caves, and ancient bristlecone pines. Ely also hosts the Nevada Northern Railway Museum, a National Historic Landmark and widely regarded as the best-preserved, most complete steam railroad facility in the United States, with over 70 historic buildings, more than 30 miles of track, and the restored “Ghost Train” excursion; the museum is housed in the 1907 East Ely Railroad Depot. The railway itself, built 1905-1906 primarily to serve regional copper mining, once extended roughly 140 miles north from Ely; Kennecott Mining transferred the entire complex to the museum beginning in 1986. Cave Lake State Park, five miles southeast of Ely in the Schell Creek Range, offers fishing and camping around a 32-acre reservoir. The Ely Shoshone Indian Reservation is located within the county.
Veterans Services
VETERANS SERVICES
Office: White Pine County Veterans Service – confirm current contact via whitepinecounty.net.
Federal: VA facilities accessible via a Salt Lake City VA medical center; confirm current routing.
Libraries
LIBRARIES
White Pine County Library – Ely, NV 89301; confirm current address/phone via whitepinecounty.net.
Parks & Recreation
PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: Great Basin National Park, the Nevada Northern Railway Museum, Cave Lake State Park, and Ward Charcoal Ovens State Historic Park are the county’s premier and most nationally significant attractions.
Notes: The genuine National Historic Landmark status of the Nevada Northern Railway and the presence of Great Basin National Park are among the most distinctive local facts covered in this entire Nevada project.
GIS & Maps
GIS & MAPS
Appraisal/Parcel Search: White Pine County Assessor – confirm current contact via whitepinecounty.net.
Animal Services
ANIMAL SERVICES
City of Ely Animal Control – 1003 Lackawanna Road, Ely, NV 89301 | (775) 296-0567 | Email: [email protected] | Hours: Mon-Fri 7:00 AM-3:30 PM; call ahead for adoption appointments; a recipient of funding from the Dave & Cheryl Duffield Foundation; all stray animals in the City of Ely are brought here.
Environmental & Waste
ENVIRONMENTAL / WASTE MANAGEMENT
Office: White Pine County – confirm current contact via whitepinecounty.net.
NOTES: White Pine County is the seventeenth and FINAL Nevada v2 jurisdiction, completing the entire Nevada v2 A+ sourced redo (Carson City through White Pine, all 17 jurisdictions). The genuine National Historic Landmark status of the Nevada Northern Railway and the presence of Great Basin National Park are among the most distinctive local facts covered in this entire Nevada project. All contact information above was sourced via web search as of early August 2026 and should be reconfirmed directly with the relevant office before a visit, deadline-sensitive filing, or emergency-adjacent decision.
About White Pine County
White Pine County is Nevada’s Great Basin National Park county – Wheeler Peak’s glacier, Lehman Caves’ decorated limestone, and ancient bristlecone pines make it one of America’s least-known but most ecologically extraordinary national parks, and Ely’s preserved Nevada Northern Railway is one of the finest railroad heritage museums in the West.
Ely (the county seat, population ~4,000) is the most isolated county seat in the lower 48 states by some measures – the copper mining heritage, the railroad museum, and Great Basin National Park anchor a remote but historically rich community.
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White Pine County Assessor at 801 Clark Street, Suite 4, Ely, NV 89301, phone 775-293-6563. NV assessed at 35% of taxable value.
Courts & Legal
White Pine County District Court at 801 Clark Street, Suite 4, Ely, NV 89301, phone 775-293-6553, handles probate.
Marriage & Vital Records
Marriage licenses, divorce records, and birth & death certificates are handled by the following office(s):
COUNTY CLERK
801 Clark St., Ely, NV 89301
(775) 293-6501
Genealogy
County-level record sources
Seventh Judicial District Court, White Pine County (probate case files – see Probate section above).
The 1908 White Pine County Courthouse, NRHP-listed, is a significant local landmark.
Local societies
No dedicated White Pine County genealogical society was confirmed in available directories.
Probate & Estate
Losing someone and having to deal with courts and paperwork at the same time is hard. This section won’t make that easier, but it should tell you what to expect, what it costs, and where to go – so at least you’re not walking in blind.
Where to go
Seventh Judicial District Court, White Pine County 801 Clark Street, Suite 4, Ely, NV 89301 (775) 293-6509
White Pine County was founded in 1869, named for the Rocky Mountain white pine, in east-central Nevada, seated in Ely. The Seventh Judicial District also covers Eureka and Lincoln counties. The historic 1908 White Pine County Courthouse, Italianate in style, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Step 1: figure out which path applies
In Nevada, probate is handled by the DISTRICT COURT in the county where the decedent resided. Nevada recently overhauled its small-estate thresholds through SB 404, effective October 1, 2025 – these are current, higher figures; older sources online may still show the previous, lower amounts.
Affidavit of Entitlement (small estate affidavit, NRS 146.080) – available when the estate has no real property in Nevada and the gross value does not exceed $30,000 for most heirs, or $150,000 if the person claiming the property is a surviving spouse. At least 40 days must have passed since death. This skips court entirely – the affidavit is presented directly to the institution holding the property, along with a certified death certificate.
Set Aside Without Administration (NRS 146.070) – available when the estate’s net value does not exceed $150,000. Unlike the affidavit, this requires filing a petition with the court and can be used to transfer real property. If there’s a surviving spouse or minor children, the court can set aside the entire estate for their support, ahead of creditors.
Summary Administration (NRS Chapter 145) – available for estates valued between $150,000.01 and $500,000. Still requires an attorney and court filing, but with expedited notice requirements and fewer formal hearings than general administration.
General (Formal) Administration – required for larger or more complex estates, or when there’s a will contest or dispute over the personal representative.
STEP 2: FILING FOR SET ASIDE, SUMMARY, OR GENERAL ADMINISTRATION
File a petition with the District Court in the county where the decedent resided.
The court appoints the personal representative and issues Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration (for summary/general administration).
The personal representative publishes notice to creditors; creditors generally have a limited window to file claims.
The personal representative inventories the estate’s assets.
After debts, taxes, and expenses are paid, the personal representative (or the court, in a set-aside) distributes the remaining assets and closes the estate.
What it costs
Court filing fees vary by county – commonly ranging from about $72 for set-aside petitions up to several hundred dollars for general administration.
Attorney fees for summary or general administration commonly follow the statutory percentage schedule: 4% on the first $100,000 of the estate, 3% on the next $100,000, and declining percentages above that – though many attorneys quote flat fees instead.
The Affidavit of Entitlement has no court filing fee.
Nevada has no state estate tax and no state inheritance tax. Only the federal estate tax could apply, and only to very large estates.
Probate filings, estate administration, and guardianship matters are handled by the following office(s):
William Bee Ririe Hospital
Public Safety & Arrests
Arrest records, inmate search, and law enforcement services are handled by the following office(s):
SHERIFF
1785 Great Basin Blvd., Ely, NV 89301
(775) 289-8808
Elections & Voting
Voter registration, polling locations, and elections information are handled by the following office(s):
ELECTIONS
801 Clark St., Ely, NV 89301
(775) 293-6501
Health & Human Services
Offices & Contacts
Health services, social services, and assistance programs are handled by the following office(s):
Office: White Pine County Public Health Nurse – confirm current phone via whitepinecounty.net.
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Last verified June 2026
County Facts
County Seat: Ely
Population: 8,700
Area: 8,897 sq mi
Established: 1869
Tier: 3
Public Records
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