The Other Nevada
"This has to be Metropolis," said Gabor Ekecs. We were standing in a snow-covered field in northeastern Nevada and we were miles from any town. We had been driving for hours in search of Metropolis, a famed ghost town left behind by a visionary community that had tried and failed to tame the desert, when we had spotted a collection of abandoned buildings. There was a ramshackle house, a shed, and remains of several more buildings. So we parked the car and huffed across a quarter-mile of snowy fields – in places the snow had drifted to hip-height – and now we were amidst the remains of these turn-of-the-century idealists who had believed they could build a better way in a new town they ambitiously called Metropolis.
Except Daniela Schmid, Ekecs’ partner in photography, disagreed: "This is wonderful. But it is not Metropolis. Where’s the arch," asked Schmid.
A book on Nevada’s ghost towns had enticed us to search for Metropolis with a photograph of a large, magnificent arch and none was in sight. But I had a ready explanation: "The arch must have fallen down." At that moment a powerful wind blew across the field, so I added: "In a storm, the arch got blown down. It’s under a drift around here someplace."
Schmid snorted with disbelief, and I set off in search of the arch. I quickly uncovered a rusty child’s bike, with one wheel still attached. There were bits of other toys, old bottles, even a few shreds of clothing. I kept hunting until I howled in triumph: "Here’s the arch!" On the ground beneath a thin layer of wind-whipped snow there were many long hunks of wood. The debris looked rather like timber that had been used to create a makeshift corral, but in the windy cold it looked enough like an arch to me.
"This is not Metropolis," Schmid stamped her feet in the snow.
"Of course it is," Ekecs said as he began snapping photographs of the lonely landscape. "But," Ekecs hesitated, "wasn’t the arch made of stone?"
I shrugged and said, "This has to be Metropolis. We’ve been looking for it for hours and there’s nothing else that comes close."
Ekecs concurred so we had out-voted Schmid and that was that until we started our return to inhabited Nevada and, a few miles down the road , I spotted a tiny sign that read: "Metropolis."
"Look over there," roared Schmid and when we looked where she pointed we saw Metropolis’ stone arch.
We followed the road towards the arch and came upon a plaque, "Remember Metropolis," it read; it had been erected in 1989, to commemorate the settlers who had built a school, a grand Hotel Metropolis, and of course the tall arch. They founded the town in 1912 and had fared well enough for several years until lack of water and crop failure drove the dreams from their heads. Today, little remains of their community – except a small cemetery, some sidewalks, and the arch. But that is plenty to engender admiration for the pluck it took to try to create a town when all the odds were stacked against succeeding.
We had come to the Other Nevada – the Nevada that is not Las Vegas or Reno or Laughlin or Lake Tahoe – in search of just that spirit and, in a week of roaming down dirt roads and nearly empty highways we found that what the vast but sparsely populated region lacks in road signage it makes up for with surprises. For much of the 2000-mile trip through ghost towns, snow-packed mountains, and a nearly-deserted national park the three of us were lost because, frankly, nobody has bothered to thoroughly map the eastern half of Nevada. At least we couldn’t find a map that kept us on course. But that proved not to matter because wherever we stumbled, we found delights.
Near the abandoned shacks that turned out not to be Metropolis, for instance, Ekecs yelled: "Look at that bird on the pole. It’s huge!" Atop a telephone pole just a few feet from our car there was a massive bird who was keeping a close eye on the snowy field. "A hawk?" I said.
Ekecs gave me a doubting look and, then, to prove I was wrong the bird took flight. Its giant wing span was no hawk’s – "that’s a golden eagle," said Ekecs.
I have seen hawks aplenty but this was only the second time I had seen an eagle – and it is an awesome sight to watch this bulky bird so effortlessly glide over the fields in search of prey.
That alone made the trip worthwhile to me, but before the week was out there would be many more special sightings. On I-80 near Imlay, for instance, we were speeding down the highway when, suddenly, we glimpsed a collection of primitive sculpture, mainly of people, along the roadside. "We have to see this," Schmid commanded and so we double-backed and parked to get a closer look.
When we got nearer, the sculpture got weirder – many typewriters, for instance, are set in concrete. Another repeated motif is the setting of car windows in plaster walls. Rusty plows, animal skulls, and farm tools covered the grounds, but all were neatly, precisely arranged. This was no junkyard; it is a conscious work of art.
What’s it about? "Thunder Mountain," a sign proclaimed, and more signs explained that it was the work of Chief Rolling Thunder – "Nevada’s Sage Brush Sculptor," said the Salt Flat News in a yellowed clipping from 1975 that is displayed in a glass case at the site. Other clippings reported that the Chief had died in 1989. The Mile Post Guidebook: Interstate 80 adds that local residents "remember an Indian from Arizona constructed it as a curiosity for bored travelers." Left unexplained was who is maintaining the tidy site – which even features a collection box for donations.
"This place is unbelievable," said Ekecs, and I agreed by shoving a few dollars in the donation box. I did not comprehend Chief Rolling Thunder’s message, but I admired his nonconforming tenacity in making it on a scale large enough to lure us in from the interstate highway.
The Cherry Creek Chili Cook-off
But more incredible sights awaited us as we proceeded deeper into the Other Nevada. Like Cherry Creek, a ghost town north of Ely. The route in was a dirt road -- 26 miles long -- that had been turned into mud by melting snow. Several times we had hit mud so deep it nearly halted our car, but the realization that we were miles from anything – certainly from tow trucks – kept us moving forward. Towards what? Cherry Creek of course, and it’s a town that never had a creek – or cherry trees for that matter – but it once had a population over 6000 and its whimsical name alone made us want to see the remains of this mining town that had been founded in 1872 and died in the next decade when the silver market crashed and the local mining lost its luster.
We went to see the old log cabin jail – still intact with a sign proclaiming this to be the JAIL – but Cherry Creek is awash in abandoned buildings, dozens of them. I walked in the living room of one home and saw a former occupant had carefully decorated the walls with Norman Rockwell art torn from the pages of the old Saturday Evening Post. "Together we make a difference," one proclaimed to the empty household.
Outside, I wandered down Cherry Creek’s streets – all empty. In every building I looked into, there were bare mattresses on the floor and, frequently, heaps of junk – ironing boards, suitcases, even uprooted bath tubs and sinks.
Then I spotted a saloon that, amazingly, had people inside and was open for business. Inside the barroom was jammed with neatly arranged tables, complete with chairs. A layer of dust covered everything. But a woman sat behind the bar, two men were bent over an old pool table, and to all appearances the place was ready for business. I ordered a beer and, before I could take a sip, I was asked to sign the guest book. The most recent entry was several months earlier: "We don’t get many visitors," shrugged the bartender.
Above the bar a sign proclaimed that soon there would be a chili cook-off, a fundraiser for the volunteer fire department. "I made the chili," one of the men at the pool table said. "It’s from my mother’s recipe. Do you want to try it?"
"Sure," I unenthusiastically mumbled. But when the chili was put before me, it smelled good – and tasted fine.
The man beamed at the compliments: "Well, everybody used to say my mom made very good chili."
"Uh," I had to ask, "just who do you expect to show up for the chili cook-off?"
"Twenty-six people live in Cherry Creek," said the barkeep. "They’ll come, and lots more live around here in places with no name. We’ll get a crowd."
The sun was setting and we wanted to be clear of dirt roads before darkness set in, so I left $5 on the bar and made my exit.
"Come back to visit us again soon," said the woman barkeep.
I doubted I would stop by again, but I nonetheless was happy to have found Cherry Creek, and to have tasted that chili.
Pots for Sale
Do people live in ghost towns because they have no better choices? You might suspect, but Tuscarora – 50 miles north of Elko -- is the proof that isn’t so. In the 1870s, more than 3000 people lived in Tuscarora. They worked the booming silver mines and they spent their earnings in the town’s saloons, hotels, and numerous shops. But the silver collapse that undid Cherry Creek also hit Tuscarora and the town spiraled towards extinction.
When we entered today’s Tuscarora, there was no one to be seen. A lame dog hobbled through snow that reached its shoulders. A line of dead cars, all from the 1940s, stood parked in high snow. Many buildings – some brick, some wooden – lined the streets; most were in advanced decay, with missing windows and doors.
"The dog’s name is Cyndee. With two ‘e’s,’" said a man who emerged to greet us. "Did you come to see Dennis? He’s not in town. He’s in Prague, I think."
As it happened, we had not come to see him but we well knew about Dennis Parks, a famous potter who lives in Tuscarora when he’s not putting on shows or holding classes around the world. "Go down to his school. The door’s open," advised the man.
We followed his directions around the block and entered an immaculate home that Parks has transformed into a gallery for himself and potter-friends. Beautiful cups, vases, plates – hundreds of them – were on display. The cheapest item I saw was a mug priced at $20; other pieces cost well over $100. Nobody was around to collect on any purchases. A sheet of paper advised leaving cash on a table if a visitor wanted to walk off with a special mug.
We bought nothing but as we left Schmid said, "I want to live in this town. Maybe for a few months a year. I could run a photography school here. It is a special place."
I do not know if the Schmid Photo School will ever open in Tuscarora, but Daniela is right: It is a special place.
Neon Snowmobiles
Just as Donna is a special woman. We met her in the Ruby Mountains outside Elko. It was snowing hard and, even with chains, our car kept sliding badly enough so that we had pulled into a turn-off and parked. "Good thinking," said a ranger who happened by in a 4-wheel drive truck. "A mile ahead the snow drifts are 9 feet; we’ve had to use backhoes to get a half-dozen cars off the mountain so far this year."
As he said that, a heavily padded person zoomed by on a snowmobile. The deepening snow did not faze the machine as it hit speeds upwards of 50 mph. But soon the driver circled back, stopped by us, and introduced herself: "I’m Donna," she said. I admired the mobility of her snowmobile – "it’s a 98 horsepower Yamaha," she said and asked if I wanted to go for a ride.
When I timidly agreed, she told me to climb on behind her and to hug her tightly in order to stay aboard. I squeezed her and we took off amidst the thunderous roar of the machine. Minutes before I had been slowly trudging up the snow-shrouded mountain; with Donna at the wheel, I raced up it. I’ll grant the environmentalists are right – snowmobiles are infernally noisy – but there also is an undeniable kinetic excitement in effortlessly going places that would be treacherous, if not impossible, on foot.
"Don’t you love it," said Donna when she returned me to our car. "I’m up here on the mountain every chance I get. I’ve brought my mom here to snowmobile – she’s 72! It’s such a kick."
"Oh," Donna added. "You might have noticed: I cannot pivot my body. I’m wearing a full-body cast. I broke my spine last year. The cast comes off next week," and, with that, she floored the snowmobile and roared away.
As Donna noisily receded in the distance, we hiked further into the canyon. Soon a silence surrounded us, and the few noises we heard – bird squawks, the rustling of a creek – seemed almost startlingly loud. I was glad we had met Donna, but now I was gladder there were no snowmobiles around as we slogged through knee-deep snow in Nevada’s virginal mountain wilderness. There were a few trees – pines, junipers – but mainly it is a treeless, rocky landscape that with a snow covering was startlingly beautiful. "Amazing, isn’t it, that we’re in Nevada. There’s not a neon sign in sight," I said, and Schmid and Ekecs slowed the clicking of their camera shutters long enough to agree that indeed this was not the Nevada they knew.
Snow Wrestling
I had started it, back on our first morning in the Other Nevada. Fresh snow was falling , so I stooped down, made a surreptitious snowball, and as I stood up I picked Schmid as my target because I saw that Ekecs was fiddling with a camera and the expensive gear gave him protection. I didn’t so much throw the snowball as flip it but, in a devilish fluke, it had glanced off Daniela’s head and directly down her collar.
"That was so mean," Schmid had shrieked as the snow melted against her skin. She added: "I’ll get you for this."
In the days that followed we had seen plenty more snow but there had been no retaliation and I had simply forgotten about the incident. Schmid hadn’t, as I discovered when the three of us were high up in Great Basin National Park, a 77,000 acre slice of the desert in the southeastern corner of Nevada that was officially designated a national park in 1986.
Great Basin is a little visited park – perhaps 70,000 tourists come in a year. But it’s a remarkable slice of desert landscape – with everything from mysterious caves through 13,000 feet mountains. We had come to enjoy its jewels, the bristlecone pines. Freakish trees that are gnarled and twisted, bristlecones are rarely over 6-feet in height but some approach 5000 years in age, say the scientists. They are rare, but there are large stands of bristlecones in Great Basin’s high elevations.
The pines were why we had driven down to Great Basin, but at the visitors center we got the bad news: "You cannot get there," a ranger flatly told us. Access wasn’t prohibited, but this was early March and nobody had plowed the road that leads up to the pines. Snow – in places five feet deep – blocked the route. "You could go in on snowshoes," the ranger brightly told us. "It’s a day in; you camp the night on the mountain; and it’s a day coming down."
So much for the bristlecones. But with a day that suddenly was free, we decided just to explore Great Basin – at the lower elevations at least – and that was why we were in Upper Lehman Campground. It was a gorgeous high desert day. We stood amidst a pine forest and a bright sun heated the air up to about 50 degrees, but snow – in places four feet deep – remained unmelted on the ground.
The three of us were alone on the mountainside when, suddenly, Schmid snatched my gloves from my jacket pocket. She darted to the left, Ekecs darted to the right, and I promptly found myself in the center of a snowball crossfire. They pelted me mercilessly – snowball after snowball bounced off my chest, my head, my legs.
I dashed towards Schmid, the smaller of the two, and was about to tackle her. When I neared her, I couldn’t do it. She’s a terrific girl and a friend and I halted in my tracks.
"Feigling!" Daniela cackled in her native German, and I knew enough of the language to know I’d just been called a sissy. That was too much. I picked her up off the ground, tossed her into a snowdrift, then leaped on top of her. As we rolled in the snow, Ekecs shouted, "Don’t stop. I have to get photographs of this." But we were having fun anyway – acting about 10 years of age – and we did not quit wrestling until we were out of breath.
"I won," I told Daniela.
"You cheated," she said.
"Maybe. But I did win."
She picked up a small snowball and pelted me again in the head…and all I could do this time was laugh. We had come to the Other Nevada, we had found delicious strangeness, but at the end we had become just as weird. And we were having a ball.
Copyright by Robert McGarvey, 1997.
This article, in slightly different form, originally appeared in Avenues Magazine.