Hello Everyone!
It’s been a week of old towns, dusty bars and wide-open spaces as I made my way across the great state of Nevada along U.S. Highway 50. U.S. 50 is also called the Lincoln Highway and was established in 1913 as the first transcontinental road for cars. Back in 1986, Life Magazine called the stretch of U.S. 50 that crosses Nevada “the loneliest road in America”, something the local communities out here wear as a badge of honor. It’s a fascinating stretch of road that runs along the old Pony Express trail, was once a storied stagecoach route and was where the first transcontinental telegraph crossed the state. For some reason the railroad chose the northern route across Nevada which is where Interstate 80 runs today. That has left this stretch of road far less traveled and far more interesting and the historic (and active) mining towns along the way are all worth a visit in their own right. It’s one of my favorite road trips in the country and one I’ve made several times over the years, but it was nice to take an extra day or two and not feel rushed in the crossing.
After I left you last week, I made my way out to the tiny town of Genoa, Nevada which is the state’s oldest settlement. Mormon pioneer John Reese established a trading post there way back in 1851 which was often referred to as “the Mormon Station”. This post served emigrants navigating the Kit Carson route though the Sierras on the California Trail. Two years later, a saloon would open and the Genoa Bar is now the oldest “thirst parlor” in the state of Nevada. The town was later renamed for the Italian city of Genoa and would become Nevada’s first state capital before moving just up the road to Carson City. I enjoyed wandering the streets of Genoa, reading all of the historic plaques left there by a half-dozen different groups and taking some photos. Of course I had to visit the Genoa Bar for research purposes and enjoyed tossing back a cold beer while I was there. Then I headed on up to Carson City for the night. I always feel comfortable in a state’s capital city and Carson City is no exception. The people are friendly and it’s generally a lot quieter than Reno or Las Vegas. I ran some errands and got myself resupplied and then had a nice evening in the tiny Timbers Pub – a friendly little spot where everyone introduced themselves either on my way in or on their way out. It was a fun place to have a few beers and listen to people chat about life in Carson City.
On Thursday I spent the morning out at the old Stewart Indian School just south of town. In the late 19th century, boarding schools were set up around the country to try and assimilate Indian children into the American lifestyle. Children as young as 4 were forcibly removed from their families, their hair was cut short and they were forbidden from speaking their native languages. While I honestly believe that there was good intention behind these schools, they are pretty horrifying looking back at them from today’s perspective. I have visited several of these boarding schools around the country, and was fascinated to learn that this one operated until 1980 and was closed over the objections of the students and their families. While the origin of the school was the same as the others, it shifted over time and became a treasured part of the community, providing an option to traditional American public schooling. I appreciated that this school has been turned into a museum which is run and interpreted by the four Nevada tribes. It showed that despite being separated from their families, the children there still were able to have some good times, playing sports or an instrument in the band, attending dances and secretly practicing their native languages and culture. In addition to the history on display, there was a temporary exhibit on Native basket weaving with some beautiful examples to explore. The buildings were constructed under the supervision of a Hopi stonemason and are really quite something in and of themselves.
In the afternoon I headed over to the Nevada State Railway Museum which had some beautiful old trains and told the story of the building of the Virginia-Truckee Railroad which was built under difficult conditions to supply the boom town of Virginia City. I found it interesting that these trains were bought by Hollywood studios to produce movies about the railroads which is why they were saved from the scrapyards during World War II. It was a neat museum and a nice place to visit. In the evening, I took a nice long walk around town and ended up back at The Timbers for a few beers before calling it a night.
I spent a nice chunk of time on Friday morning at the Nevada State Capitol. It’s a small capitol building, but a nice one. There’s a statue of a miner on the grounds as well as one of the town’s namesake Kit Carson. I especially appreciated the many displays inside regarding the strong women of the Silver State, and particularly the statue of Sarah Winnemucca which is the centerpiece of the whole building. The Battle Born museum in the old state senate chamber was quite interesting, with a lot of state history and some cool artifacts, and I even popped into the governor’s office for a chat with one of the people working there. From there I left Carson City behind and made my way east and then north into the mountains to Virginia City. Virginia City was the heart of the historic Comstock Lode, a gold and silver deposit discovered a decade after the California gold rush took off and which would be far more valuable in the end. In today’s money, the Comstock Lode produced several billion dollars’ worth of gold and silver. In its time, Virginia City was one of the biggest cities in the west and was buzzing with activity 24 hours a day. While it’s considerably quieter today, the town has done a good job of preserving the Old-West mining town feel with many historic buildings lining the main thoroughfare of C Street. I’ve been to Virginia City before, and was happy to be able to return there for a bit of a longer stay. I arrived in the late afternoon and enjoyed a long stroll around town before stopping into the Bucket o’ Blood Saloon for a beer. I was hoping they had some live music, but was out of luck so I went downstairs to the Silver Dollar instead, where beers are still $2 and it’s a great place to chat with the locals.
I spent all day Saturday in Virginia City as well. I started the day by visiting the Historic Fourth Ward School Museum. This school was built in the Second Empire style in 1876 and once enrolled over 900 students. When the mines played out and the population dispersed, a much smaller school was built and this building sat dormant for many years. Thankfully local residents petitioned for funding to restore it and today it’s a fascinating place to visit. When I finished there, I stopped in to take a tour of the old Mackay Mansion just down the road. This house was built in 1859 by George Hearst whose son William Randolph Hearst would later build the Hearst Castle in California. In 1871, George sold the property to John Mackay, an Irish immigrant who showed up in Virginia City with 50 cents in his pocket and left as the 17th richest person in the world after he discovered the Bonanza vein. It’s a cool old mansion with some great period furniture and apparently a few ghosts floating around as well. The tour was great and very informative. From there I went a little further down the road to St. Mary in the Mountains, an incredible catholic church which, like the school and the mansion, feel out of place in today’s Virginia City, but these buildings all hark back to the heyday of the town. The church is open to visitors and has a cool museum in the basement which has collected artifacts from many of the now-closed catholic churches around the state. The day was starting to fade by the time I finished there, so I wandered out to the cemetery for a bit and then came back to town for a beer before calling it a night.
Virginia City is a tough place for me to leave. I love the history of the town and there are only a few places in the country which brings history to life so well (Mackinac Island, Colonial Williamsburg and Tombstone spring to mind). Virginia City in its time was rough, violent, dirty and disease-ridden, but it was also undoubtedly exciting and very alive. I don’t know if I would have liked to be there at that time, but I like to pretend that I would. A morning wander around town was nice and with a satisfied soul I hit the road east. My next stop was Fort Churchill State Park, located between Virginia City and Fallon. Fort Churchill was built in 1860 as a response to the Pyramid Lake War to protect American settlers on their way to Nevada (many undoubtedly on their way to Virginia City), and would serve that purpose for nearly a decade. It was also a stop on the Pony Express route and would house a transmission station for the transcontinental telegraph. Fort Churchill was built using adobe which would have long-since deteriorated into the desert if not for the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s which helped preserve it for the future. It’s still in ruins, but it’s easy to imagine what it looked like back when it was an active fort and to imagine what life was like there. I was one of the only people out there on a Sunday evening and I enjoyed having it to myself.
Leaving the fort, I cruised down the highway to Fallon. Fallon is home to the country’s Top Gun naval training center (it moved there in 1996, a full decade after the movie Top Gun was made). The oldest continuously operating theater in Nevada is also in Fallon and still showing movies today. I also enjoyed a stop at the bar of the old Overland Hotel, a classic old hostelry that once hosted the likes of Theodore Roosevelt and Butch Cassidy. The bar was old and dusty and just how I wanted it to be. Across the street was an old garage which had some beautiful old cars in it. They were also covered in a serious layer of dust and it didn’t look like anyone had been in there in a while but it was cool to see them through the windows. Fallon isn’t the most exciting place in the world, but it was a good place to spend a night and I’m glad I stopped through.
Monday was a busy day. Leaving Fallon I headed just out of town to Grimes Point which has a cool trail leading past thousand year old petroglyphs (rock carvings). Continuing up the trail you come to a nice overlook of the naval air base and can get a good look at some cool planes and helicopters zipping around the sky. I was out there for an hour or two and then cruised down to Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park which was about an hour detour off of the main highway. This park preserves two entirely different places – the first being the historic mining community of Berlin and the second being a rather dense collection of Ichthyosaur fossils (Nevada’s State Dinosaur). Both were really cool and worth the trip out there and I especially enjoyed the massive old stamp mill which had been partially restored by the park.
Leaving the park, I continued a little further on to the old town of Ione, “The Town That Refuses to Die”. There isn’t much out there, but it is a cool old town with some very photogenic old buildings. You must really enjoy the quiet life to live there as it’s pretty far from anywhere. It was getting late, so I backtracked towards the highway and got to Middlegate Station just before dark. Middlegate is a classic old roadhouse in the middle of nowhere and a favorite stop of mine along the way. They’ve always got a hot cup of coffee or a cold beer waiting for the weary traveler and there are usually good conversations to be had there as well. You’re also welcome to park there overnight for free which is a definite bonus. They make a good burger, too, and I certainly enjoyed my night out there in the boonies. The stars were amazing.
They make a good omelet at Middlegate as well and I found myself lingering there for much of the morning, soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying my bottomless coffee. I read for a while and chatted with the folks there and finally headed on down the highway. This is a lonely stretch of the Loneliest Highway, but I enjoyed the tremendous open desert, the wind in my hair and some great tunes as I cruised on to Austin. Austin is a cute little mining community with a lot of old churches, a few bars and some turquoise shops as there is quite a bit of turquoise in the area. I really wanted to go check out the Stokes Castle while I was there as I had never been before. The dirt road to get there was covered in ice and snow, so I decided to walk. I could use the exercise anyway. The Stokes Castle was built by Anson Phelps Stokes, a mine developer and railroad magnate, in 1897 and was supposed to resemble a tower he had seen outside of Rome in Italy. After its completion, the family used it for exactly two months and it has been empty ever since. It must be quite something to have that kind of money to throw around. I’m glad I finally got to see it as it is definitely a strange thing to stumble upon in the middle of Nevada.
I strolled back to my van and then cruised on down the highway a ways before cutting down a dirt road to have a quick soak in the Spencer Hot Springs, a nice little oasis in the desert. While it is quite well-known and often busy, I had the main tub to myself when I was there which was nice. Feeling warm and relaxed, I continued on to the town of Eureka, a much more active mining community about an hour up the road. Eureka has a beautifully restored opera house, a nice county courthouse and a cool historic hotel (apparently also haunted). I stopped into the bar there for a quick drink and then drove out to the rest area just outside of town to cook up some dinner and do some reading before bed.
This morning I spent a little more time in Eureka. I took some photos and ducked into the opera house which was hosting some sort of town meeting. I had a coffee at the old depot and then zipped off through some cool mountain passes here to Ely (pronounced “eelee”). I like Ely. It has a lot of character and I always think of it when I think about the trip down highway 50. I’ve booked a room at the historic Hotel Nevada casino for the night as I can use a shower and to get off the road for a minute. I’m looking forward to it. Most of the old businesses around are closed, but they’re also pretty photogenic and I’m looking forward to wandering around and taking some photos while I’m here.
I may stick around here tomorrow as well. There’s a good library in town and I definitely need to catch up on some work. I was hoping to get out to Great Basin National Park, but most of the roads out there are closed for the winter and it doesn’t look like there would be many hikes open if I did go. That’s a shame, but it is the middle of winter. From here I will head south, stopping in some cool state parks and historic towns on my way to Las Vegas. I’ve spent a lot of time in Vegas in my life, and I enjoy it there. There are a few museums I always want to get to and never seem to have the time so I’m looking forward to seeing them on my way through. I won’t be there for too long, but I may still be there by this time next week. I hope you’ll come back to hear what I get into in the meantime. Stay warm out there my friends, be kind to each other and have a great week. Thank you, as always, for reading.
Mike