Wilson-Bates Appliance

Wilson-Bates Appliance is an appliance store in Elko, NV. The store carries kitchen appliances from major brands, along with washers and laundry equipment, living room furniture, bedroom furniture, and dining room furniture in contemporary, traditional, casual, and transitional styles. Its catalog also includes outdoor seating, such as C.R. Plastic Products Adirondack chairs in turquoise, red, white, blue, yellow, sky blue, orange, and chocolate, and it stocks steamers and clothing systems within its laundry department. Wilson-Bates holds a rating of 5.00 from the customers who have reviewed it.

The business has been family-run since 1935, when Mr. and Mrs. E.E. White started out in Twin Falls. Mr. White had been selling Maytag washers across Utah, Colorado, and Nevada since he was 17, earning a reputation as the "Maytag Man" in Ely, Nevada, where he operated a Maytag retail outlet and went door to door with washers strapped to his Oakland automobile. When the Maytag Company moved to wholesale and shut down its retail stores, the Nevada location was the last to close. Mr. White then went to work for Nevada banker O.G. Bates, who agreed to take him and the Maytag laundry line under his wing, and the relationship led the Whites to Twin Falls, where they opened a branch of the Nevada store and bought it a year later. They continued opening stores across the Magic Valley, purchased the Ely store in 1955, and the Elko store in 2013. Two sons and a daughter now operate the business, with their own children involved as well. Mr. White retired in the late 1970s, and Mrs. White worked until 1983.

The store is also a social-purpose business, supporting school fundraisers and community outreach. Organizations it has worked with include the Boys & Girls Club, The Salvation Army, Idaho Food Bank, pet shelters and clinics, Valley House, Safari Club, the College of Southern Idaho Scholarship Fund, United Way, Ducks Unlimited, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Hospice Visions, Red Cross, National Wild Turkey Federation, St. Luke's Foundation, Toys For Tots, Sportsmen For Fish & Wildlife, and Special Olympics.

Wilson-Bates Appliance sits on 30th Street, about a quarter mile from Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway and a short distance from East Jennings Way. Gold Country Casino, the National Weather Service office in Elko, and Roadhouse Casino are each roughly half a mile away, and the NDOT District III headquarters is about three-quarters of a mile from the store.

For Elko households furnishing a kitchen, laundry room, or living space, Wilson-Bates brings nearly nine decades of family ownership and a perfect rating from its reviewers to the appliance and furniture business.