You may have heard that Nevada has a 'Loneliest Town in America.' It's a fun idea, but the famous nickname actually belongs to a road. Across the middle of the state runs a highway so empty that a magazine once warned travelers away from it. And the little towns along the way have made it a point of pride.
Here's the real story. In July 1986, Life magazine dubbed the Nevada stretch of U.S. Route 50 'The Loneliest Road in America.' It was meant as an insult. But Nevada officials seized the name as a marketing slogan, and today travelers drive it on purpose. As for the towns, one of them, Eureka, proudly calls itself the 'Friendliest Town on the Loneliest Road in America.'
A Lot of Nothing
U.S. Route 50 runs all the way from West Sacramento, California, to Ocean City, Maryland. In Nevada, it crosses the middle of the state through huge desert valleys separated by mountain ranges, part of the region known as the Great Basin. The highway crosses 17 named mountain passes, some topping 7,000 feet.
The emptiness is real. Between Fallon, Nevada, and Delta, Utah, there's a stretch of 409 miles with only three small towns: Austin, Eureka, and Ely. That's roughly the distance from Boston to Baltimore. In 2007, one spot on the route averaged just 530 vehicles a day.
The Life article quoted an American Automobile Association spokesperson warning motorists not to drive there unless they were confident of their survival skills.
Turning an Insult Into an Invitation
Officials from White Pine County decided to make the best of the publicity, and they convinced the state to join in. The Nevada Department of Transportation adopted the name and put up special Highway 50 markers.
The state tourism office even created a 'survival guide' with a passport section. Travelers get it stamped at stops along the route, mail it in, and receive a certificate signed by the governor stating they survived The Loneliest Road in America. The word 'survived' is a playful jab back at that Life article.
The Towns Along the Way
Austin was founded by Pony Express riders who discovered silver. In 1862, at the height of the silver boom, it had about 10,000 people. Today around 300 remain, and the town describes itself as a living ghost town.
Eureka also began as a mining boom town, and its historic district centers on the Eureka Opera House, built in 1880. Ely started as a stagecoach station on the Pony Express route and boomed later, after copper was discovered in 1906.
There's quirky roadside history, too. Near the roadhouse at Middlegate stood a cottonwood tree covered in shoes tossed up by travelers. A legend says it began when a young man, heading to Reno with his bride-to-be, threw her shoes into the tree after she got cold feet. The original tree was chopped down in 2010, and visitors simply started a new one nearby.
Lonely, but Worth It
The road follows a historic path once used by the Pony Express and later by the Lincoln Highway, one of America's first cross-country roads. At its eastern end, it passes Great Basin National Park before crossing into Utah.
So Nevada doesn't really have an official loneliest town. What it has is a lonely, beautiful road and a string of tiny towns with big personalities. And as Eureka likes to remind visitors, lonely doesn't have to mean unfriendly.
