Eureka, NV to Baker, NV - Like a Rolling Stone

The theme as sung by Bob Dylan on the Sirius:

        ‘How does it feel?

        How does it feel?

        To be on your own

        With no direction home

        Like a complete unknown

        Like a rolling stone?’

The view:

Can anything be better than this?

We began our day in Eureka, NV, another town on the Rte 50 Loneliest Highway. And, again, we find that it is not very lonely at all. Eureka is a bustling ‘city’ of 2100 souls who are experiencing a boom connected to the price of gold. In fact we heard from several people here that they have been experiencing a mining boom for quite a few years because of the desire for gold. This has brought many to Eureka and the town is experiencing the problems with being a boom town: housing is scarce, schools need to be enlarged and - wonder of wonders: they have a nice little treasury built up. Well, maybe the last is not such a problem.

They have also been recovering their past as a booming gold and silver town of the late 1800’s. They’ve refurbished many of their historical buildings and have built up their local museum and are working to attract tourists.

Lead-silver was discovered here in 1864 by some miners from Austin, a nearby town. Great! Except there was no smeltering process which could successfully separate these two ores until 1869. When this happened the town began to boom and they named it Napias. Luckily that name lasted only 14 days until the Post Office was established and the name officially became Eureka. Then the town boomed and there were 9000 by 1878. Some of those who thronged to Eureka came from nearby Austin where the ore boom had turned bust. Eureka then replaced Austin as the second largest city in Nevada. It’s harsh out here in the desert.

Then, to add insult to injury, many of the buildings in Eureka were moved in from nearby communities - like Austin although they were equal opportunity thieves and took buildings from other towns in the area also. In its heyday, Eureka supported 100 saloons, several dozen gambling houses, bawdy houses, 2 breweries, theaters, an opera house, numerous churches, several fine hotels and 5, count them 5, volunteer fire companies. 50 mines produced silver, lead, gold and zinc for the 16 smelters which refined ore in the area. It is said that the smoke from these was so heavy that black clouds floated over the town leaving soot and dirt everywhere. Eureka was sometimes called the ‘Pittsburg of the West.’

Immigrants thronged to the town and the population swelled even more. However, Eureka went through the same boom and bust cycle that every other town in the area did. Boom in the 1880’s when iron was king and production peaked at over 118,000 tons worth $5.2 million. Then it went bust by 1890 but resurfaced again in 1905 to peak in 1909 and to go bust again. Minor booms and busts occured throughout the 20th century. But, as I mentioned above Eureka is experiencing another boom now. All told, in over 100 years of activity in the area, about $110 million was produced.

Huge fires destroyed the northeast portion of town in 1879 and 1880 and most of the buildings in town date from the rebuilding after the fires. Thus - surprise - most of the buildings are brick and many have iron shutters over the windows that can be closed in case of fire. Little construction occured after 1886 when the mine ceased operations.

Here’s the 1879 County Courthouse with the courtroom with the original pressed tin ceiling, the original wainscotting, the original wooden railng, the original HDTV, the original TV on the judge’s dais. And, check out the flag with the stars. Haven’t seen one of these lately, have you? 44 stars.

We met a woman there who has lived her entire life here in Nevada. Last year she and her husband went to Ohio to visit his brother and her comment to us was: ‘I have never seen so much water in my whole entire life.’ We in Iowa take seeing water for granted. Here it is special.

We then went over to the 1880 Eureka Opera House which has also been carefully restored but which still has the original decoratively painted arch and the actual 1924 curtain advertising local businesses. It was built in 1880 and was actually built over the ashes of the Odd Fellows Hall which had burned.

A block from the County Courthouse is the Eureka County Historical Museum which is housed in the original Eureka Sentinal newspaper building. It was built in 1879, again after the fire, out of brick and stone from a local quarry. Here we found the original printing presses used until 1961 when the owner and editor died. Look at the huge ‘fan’ belt’ which moved the trays around. And the walls were covered with old newspapers, flyers, playbills and everything else printed there.

They even had an old Underwood typewriter, which is near and NOT dear to my heart. This is the kind of typewriter that I, in 1964, was using to type my term papers for Ms. Thomas, my 12th Grade English teacher. This machine was archaic and difficult to use. Look how far apart these keys are. Gary tells me that he had a new Smith Corona to type his term papers. Just because my mother liked antiques and decorated our home with them didn’t mean that I had to type on one. Then - for my graduation gift, my parents gave me a new typewriter.

We see quite a few cattle grazing over the countryside. I hear that cattle far outnumber people across the territory covered by Rte 50 and I’ll believe it. Here’s another neat comparison: Eureka County has 4192 square miles (twice the size of Delaware) and a population of 2000, 2 square miles for each person. The average annual precipitaton is 10 inches and the average annual snowfall is 50 inches. Since it is high desert at 6500’ above sea level, the average high in January is 38 degrees and in July is 85. The prediction for Wednesday is the 80’s and high 70’s thereafter. Can’t wait.

We left Eureka about noon, passed through Ely and stopped for an ice cream cone at a real old soda fountain.

And, it was then on towards Baker on the far east of NV near the Great Basin NP. Here we plan to stay 5 nights to explore the area, the park, do laundry and relax. And, we’re going to have to relax since we have absolutely no wi-fi nor cell phone service. We have never seen this message on our phone:

However, there is a convenience store / deli / bar / library / wine shop / snowshoe and ski rental shop / motel / restaurant / pizza parlor, etc which also has wi-fi and we will use that several times while we are here.

Above you can see the convenience store, the deli, the restaunart and the library. The walls are filled with art, both photos and oils that the owner has done and is selling. At the store, we asked a woman about cell phone service and she told us there was none. But - there are several pay phones around. Pay phone? Pay phone? What are those and how does one use them? I’m thinking that using a pay phone is a lost art.

Interestingly, we met a couple in Eureka who are traveling in an RV without a car so their transportation is limited. The most spectacular road in Great Basin NP is the road to Wheeler Peak which limits vehicles to smaller than 24’, which their RV is not. We gave them our personal card and told them to call us and we’d take them with us to the Peak. Oops, we have ’No Service.’ I hope they e-mail us and we can get it when we go for coffee and use the wi-fi in the coffee shop. (Here’s an update for that plan: we went over Tuesday about 10:00 to get some coffee and log on and it was closed, only to open at 3:30.) But we still have no way of contacting them.

Our campsite is a bit unusual. We belong to a camping club called Escapees and subscribe to a quarterly guide called Day’s End, which lists places where we stay at the end of a long day driving for little or no money. This is one of their listings: a spot in back of a self-service Sinclair gas pump with 5 50-amp electric/water/sewer hook-ups for a donation. Well, we found out it’s been changed to $20. Pretty basic but a pretty good deal, especially since we’ve in the back of beyond here in Baker, NV, a town of less than 100 people.

And, look at the other benefits:

Here’s our view out our front window with the town of Baker beneath the heights of the Great Basin mountains. And, if you guessed that some were snow capped - you’d be right.

And, here’s one of our neighbors in back.

It’s so quiet that we can hear the far-off moo-ing of the cattle on the ranch in back of us.

It’s so dark we can see the milky way.

Peaceful and quiet.