Winnemucca, Nevada

The halfway point between San Francisco and Salt Lake City, Winnemucca owes its real growth to the Transcontinental Railroad. The area had been occupied by Europeans off-and-on since the 1830's. In those days it was beaver trappers like Peter Skeen Ogden who first established a camp on Mary's River in 1830. By the 1850's there were California-bound wagon trains passing through on the Humboldt Trail. That was when the trading post at "Frenchmans Ford" on the southern bank of the river started to come into its own. The rough settlement was renamed Winnemucca in 1863, in honor of the principal Paiute chief in the area. Over time, mining came to be a large part of the local economy, while the railroad has dropped off somewhat in its importance. Once the Transcontinental Railroad was complete, many of the Chinese laborers that had been imported for that work by the Central Pacific Railroad scattered across the west. By the 1890's, a large and vibrant Chinatown was happening in Winnemucca. They, of course, built a very prominent Joss House for worship and celebration. The Joss House became so famous that it was visited by the Chinese president Sun Yat-Sen when he came to America in 1911. Since then, though, the Chinese population has dropped off to where it is almost nothing now.

Many of today's residents of Winnemucca are employed by either mining companies directly or by the mining companies' suppliers, vendors or sub-contractors. Winnemucca also has many bars, casinos and hotels. There are even a couple of large potato processing plants in town. Winnemucca is also home to several establishments where mankind's oldest profession is legally practiced (and regulated and taxed). Cattle and sheep ranching have grown to be large businesses in the surrounding area and Winnemucca is home now to a small but active Basque community.