Elko Regional Airport, formerly Elko Municipal Airport, is a mile west of downtown Elko, in Elko County, Nevada.The airport was named J.C. Harris Field in 1975 in honor of Jess C. Harris, a sheriff from Elko known as "The Flying Sheriff".HistoryOn April 6, 1926, when it was called Elko Airport, the airfield was the terminus for the first scheduled air mail run in the United States, flown by Varney Air Lines. Varney was a predecessor of United Air Lines.As early as 1931, Elko was stop on a passenger service flight between New York City and San Francisco. In the June 15, 1931 timetable United Airlines predecessor National Air Transport flew New York City - Cleveland - Toledo - Chicago, connecting to Boeing Air Transport's flight to Iowa City - Des Moines - Omaha - Lincoln - North Platte - Cheyenne - Rock Springs - Salt Lake City - Elko - Reno - Sacramento - Oakland. Schedule time was 31 hours westbound and 28 hours eastbound. United later served Elko with Boeing 247s, Douglas DC-3s and Convair 340s.Starting in November 1977 United Boeing 737-200 jetliners flew San Francisco - Reno - Elko - Ely - Salt Lake City service and back; in 1982 United ended this flight, which had been previously operated with a Douglas DC-6B aircraft and was United's last piston powered flight. In the April 27, 1969 United timetable a DC-6 was listed as the aircraft type operating San Francisco - Oakland - Reno - Elko - Ely - Salt Lake City service; the return trip skipped Oakland. This was the only piston flight in the timetable at the time. In 1970 United replaced the DC-6 service with Convair 580 turboprops operated by Frontier Airlines (1950-1986) via a subcontract arrangement; the flights used the "UA" airline code until 737s took over.
