Elko home on the range for cowboy poets — PHOTOS
It was just before dawn in Las Vegas.
When I left amid darkness and sages
It wasn’t the sea and the waves and the sand
or adventure I sought, nor Disneyland.
To hear cowboy poetry was my aim
Elko, Nevada was calling my name
You can fly to Elko for the annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, but there are few or any direct flights so with flight times ranging from three and a half hours to 14, I opted for the overland route, a nearly seven-hour drive across some of the loneliest and most striking territory in the country. In fact, my journey included a section of U.S. Route 50, that was named The Loneliest Road in America by Life magazine in July 1986.
It did not disappoint. For those looking for the great outdoors and the paths less traveled, it delivers both in spades. There is a powerful amount of “out” out there.
This is not a journey for the unwary or those in a hurry. There are very few places to stop, refuel and wet your whistle, so it’s never wise to see how far you can push that tank of gas.
I traveled for hours on wheels and caffeine
When Elko appeared with its cowboy scene.
Elko is squeezed between Interstate 80 and the Humboldt River. There are most of the the amenities you’d expect in a town of 18,000 or so and a lot of the businesses and the motels are along Idaho Street, the east-west route that runs through town. It’s a fairly compact town, with an old core including a couple of two-, three- and even four-story buildings around what is currently a central parking area near the casinos, and the Western Folklife Center, 501 Railroad St., which is the host of the gathering and where a lot of the small- and medium-sized events are scheduled.
If you stayed at one of the downtown motels, you’d hardly have to set foot in a car all week, but there aren’t a lot of rooms in the middle of town, so a wise traveler books early.
I arrived on a Wednesday afternoon and the bar at the Folklife Center was packed with an odd assortment of buckaroos, vaqueros and other folks. The outfits ranged from worn blue jeans and well-scuffed boots to cosplay cowboys. No one had gone full-on Roy Rogers but there were some outfits with way more silver and fancy engraving than seemed appropriate for a hard ride corralling the doggies.
None of that seemed to matter much as everyone was hunkered down to have a good time and tell tales about the trail and the ranch. Without much fanfare, music broke out and a cluster of cowpokes settled around the couches in the corner where a pair played piano, strummed guitar and yodelled up an hour or two of entertainment.
The event runs Jan. 25-30 in 2016, but it doesn’t really get into full swing until Jan. 28. A three-day pass will get you into a lot of the general events Thursday through Saturday and there are several other events, classes and readings before, during and after that are available with a separate ticket. Most of the big events and concerts are at the Elko Convention Center, 700 Moren Way, just more than a mile away from the folklife center.
The early days of the gathering include some hands-on classes in cowboy and Western skills such as hat making, leather carving and learning to play the bones. There also are art shows, Western item sales, dances and dance classes along with old time Western music, and, of course, poetry readings.
The poets were sharp, well-hatted elite.
I knew I was in for a folksy treat
Cowboy poetry tends to shy away from the free-verse, angst-ridden sort of thing you might find in a coffeehouse poetry reading. It doesn’t shy away from speaking of pain, loneliness, heartbreak or the struggles of the working man, but it’s often couched in a folksy, upbeat narrative with more than a few laugh lines mixed in with hard-won wisdom, like the frequent admonishment not to squat with your spurs on.
The event draws patrons and poets from across the west, even the west of Canada and Mexico. It also draws in locals, such as Dan Thurston and his wife, Paula, who I met at an open mic event. Local is a relative term.
“We live about 10 miles out of town, off the grid,” Paula Thurston said. “We have to come in town to get our mail. We have a generator, some solar power and some goats.”
Dan Thurston stepped up to the front of the room and began to explain how he’d decided to come in to read some poetry, but while he was signing up he spilled his coffee and after that everyone had to sign up on coffee-tinted paper. He was a few sentences into the anecdote when I realized his story was in verse. If I was elsewhere, I would have assumed that it was a charming conceit attached to a carefully crafted, written, workshopped and re-written story in verse. In Elko, it was easy to believe it was something he scrawled on the back of a coffee-stained scrap of paper that morning.
After that tale, he launched into the poem he had intended to read, beginning;
“You’re here for cowboy poetry, great doings to relate?
There’s a couple of things you ought to know about Elko and our state.”
What followed was several vignettes about visitors who didn’t understand that Elko was not Las Vegas, all told with a grin in the voice and attitude of gentle ribbing for those who would have the temerity to mispronounce Nevada.
Prior to reciting the poem, Thurston had noted that he didn’t know if he liked it.
“Sometimes I think it’s a little too preachy,” he said.
The reaction when he finished said otherwise, with a mix of hearty laughs and raucous applause.
Though the poems were good and mighty strong
you can listen to words for just so long
though the dudes read well, without many glitches
I had to stretch and hitch up my britches
Elko maintains the old Western traditions of ranching and staying in touch with the wide open spaces. It’s easy to forget the rush of the day and the insistent cry of social media and 24-hour news.
The town sits at just more than 5,000 feet and the seasons are mild, but not as subtle as they are in Southern Nevada. Temperatures hover at about freezing in the winter and usually top out in the 90s at worst in the summer, with a significant drop in temperature at night.
It is a town that relishes its rich, Basque heritage. The Star Hotel, built in 1910, is the most popular Basque restaurant in Elko. There was a line out the door and at least an hour wait even on Wednesday night before the biggest events of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering got underway. I was told that the crowd wasn’t just because of the gathering, but that there’s a line outside most nights, especially on weekends.
Fortunately, there are other options in a variety of culinary styles without the wait. Four short blocks from the Star Hotel I found The Coffee Mug, a family restaurant that happened to have live entertainment for cowboy poetry week. The room was busy, but I took a seat at the counter and was served what was, without hyperbole, the best pork chop I have ever had.
Downtown Elko has several options for entertainment, including small casinos, a few pool halls and the Tiki Hut, which was not a very strongly themed tiki bar, but it made up for that in friendly charm and a casual atmosphere. On the night I visited, a group of locals and the bartender were huddled along the bar playing Cards Against Humanity, a card game that revels in its humorous vulgarity. It was also the only place in town where no one was wearing a cowboy hat, so it’s possible it had become the de facto refuge for locals seeking shelter from the wholesomeness of the gathering. It was either there or the brothels.
Curiously, the brothels are fairly close to the middle of the town, clustered together on one street in older houses. They aren’t subtle, with one featuring a sign offering dancing and a word I’d never seen in neon before.
After I declined having the ladies come out and line up, (No ma’m, I’m just here for the drink, really) the bartender at Mona’s Ranch told me that it was one of the most famous brothels in Nevada, because it had been the subject of a country song. She was talking about Calgary, Alberta, born and raised Ian Tyson’s song “Fifty Years Ago” in which he sings about his youth when “The adrenaline came quickly/ And Juanita down at Mona’s/ Was my only heart’s desire.” It’s unclear if the song is actually about the place, but it makes a good story, and has its own sort of poetry.
The town is well worth a visit even when there aren’t hundreds of cowboys milling about. The Western Folklife Center is dedicated to the preservation and presentation of the traditional cultures of the American West. It is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday when there aren’t special events like the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering happening.
The Northeastern Nevada Museum, 1515 Idaho St., features exhibitions of culture, history and wildlife specimens from around the world displayed in natural settings. There is also a permanent art collection, and rotating art exhibits, research facilities that include more than 40,000 photos, area newspapers from 1869 to present, public records, manuscripts; and a 1,000-volume research library and 90-seat theater. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for seniors 65 or older, $3 for students 13-18 and $1 for children 3-12. The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday.
There is skiing at the Elko Snowbowl, fishing at several places, including Wildhorse Reservoir and Angel Lake and several scenic byways within an hour’s drive of town. The spectacular Ruby Mountains are south of town and locals say Lamoille Canyon there is a sight not to be missed, presuming the road isn’t closed by snow.
Aside from the poetry gathering, the area hosts the National Basque Festival and Silver State Stampede in July, the Elko County Fair in August, the Ruby Mountain Balloon Festival in September and other events. More information is available at exploreelko.com.
When next year returns with its buckaroos
I’ll stick to my pics and my interviews
I’ll leave this verse I’m carelessly spewing
To the cowboys who know what they’re doing.
To reach reporter F. Andrew Taylor email ataylor@reviewjournal.com or call 702-380-4532.
