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Eureka, Nevada
Calendar of Annual Events
FEBRUARY
Valentine's Dance at Opera
House 775-237-6006
Perdiz President's Day
Shoot775-237-6006
MAY
Eureka High School
Rodeo775-237-6006
JUNE
Perdiz State Ducks Unlimited
Shoot775-237-6006
JULY
Independence Day Parade &
Party775-237-6006
Perdiz Firemen's
Shoot775-237-6006
AUGUST
Eureka County Fair775-237-5484
SEPTEMBER
Louie Gibellini Mining
Contests775-237-6006
DECEMBER
Christmas Bazaar at Opera
House775-237-6006
Firemen's Ball at Opera
House775-237-6006
Also check with the Eureka Opera House for the current performance
schedule775-237-6006
Welcome to Eureka
These businesses are pleased to welcome you
Local Area Information
EUREKA COUNTY CHAMBER of COMMERCE.
In the Sentinel Building. 775-237-5484. On the loneliest road in America,
we welcome you! Step back in history! Take our Self-Guiding Tour to explore
the best preserved mining town on Hwy. 50. A stroll down Main Street will
take you back more than 100 years. Visit our historic Eureka Courthouse,
the Eureka Opera House, and the Eureka Sentinel (museum) Building and enjoy!
Lodging
JACKSON HOUSE.
Main Street. 775-237-5577. Belly up to our antique bar and have a taste
of history, then stay with us and slumber in splendor. One of our 19 fancifully
restored bedrooms (with private baths) is just right for you. Romantic getaways
are our specialty-make your reservations today. We'll make your visit wonderfully
unforgettable.
PARSONAGE HOUSE.
Next to Methodist Church, Corner Spring & Bateman. 775-237-5756.
This one-bedroom jewel-box cottage located in Nevada's Outback has hand-crafted
furniture, antiques, white carpet, chandeliers, fully equipped kitchen-dining
area, six foot tub and unique wine cellar. Elegant luxury accommodations.
Write PO Box 99, Eureka 89316, or call hosts Frank & Carol Bleuss to
make your reservations.
Restaurants
THE OWL CLUB BAR & STEAK HOUSE.
Main Street. 775-237-5280. We've served Nevadans and Nevada's visitors
the finest of food and drink for 50 years, and we'll serve you breakfast,
lunch and dinner 7 days a week. Full bar, slots, "21." Sportsmens' headquarters
and Visitor Information to help you find your way around Eureka.
Special Attractions
EUREKA OPERA HOUSE.
Main Street. 775-237-6006. Enjoy the historic elegance, relaxed small
town atmosphere and full convention and meeting services that the Eureka
Opera House offers. Call us today to reserve your event. Call to get a schedule
of our cultural events and enjoy a performance in the award winning Grand
Hall. Stop and visit.
A brief History & Description of
Eureka, Nevada
by
David W. Toll
Silver strikes made here
in 1864 by prospectors from Austin proved uneconomical to work because of
the high lead content of the ores. Ore was shipped to England and Wales for
reduction until 1869, when the first of sixteen successful smelters was
constructed. Within a decade three mines alone had paid out in dividends
more money than had ever been invested in all Eureka County enterprises combined,
and Eureka was famous as the "Pittsburgh of the West" because of the black
smoke squeezing out of smelter smokestacks to smear the sky and poison the
hardy desert vegetation (and the residents). Eureka produced more than four
times the wealth that Austin did, yet its history is rather prim and staid
compared to adventurous Austin. Perhaps it was because the principal product
of the mines was lead, rather than silver or gold, and drew a less romantic
breed of citizen; perhaps it was because, being richer, Eureka was simply
less hysterical.
In any case, Eureka overtook
Austin in size and mining productivity during the middle 1870s when the Eureka
& Palisade Railroad was extended south from the Central Pacific without
the necessity of bulging the city limits to meet it. By 1878, when Austin
had already begun its decline, Eureka had a population of about 9,000 and
had taken second place among Nevada cities. There were dozens of saloons,
gambling houses and bawdy houses, three opera houses, two breweries, five
volunteer firefighting companies, and two companies of militia as well as
the usual complement of doctors, lawyers, merchants, bankers, hotels, newspapers,
and other businesses. And fifty mines producing lead, silver, gold, and zinc
for the smelters, which were capable of processing more than seven hundred
tons of ore a day.
In 1879 though, flooding
became more of a problem and economy measures were taken. One of these was
to reduce the price paid for charcoal at the smelters. The carbonari - members
of the predominantly Italian Charcoal Burner's Association - answered with
a boycott. The smelters shut down for lack of fuel and passions flamed up.
Threats and counter-threats raged between all the parties to the dispute.
When the carbonari threatened to make charcoal of all of Eureka, a sheriffs
posse ambushed a number of them, killing five and wounding more.
Mining production peaked
in 1882 and tailed off rapidly after 1885; by 1891 the major mines had been
shut down, and production lapsed into the long snooze that had claimed Austin
a decade earlier.
A century later the collapse
of the mines has become the best thing to happen to Eureka since the original
discovery. Neat, clean and prosperous, Eureka is one of the best-preserved
mining cities in the American West. As the city's economy shrank with the
closing of the mines, businesses and residences were acquired and maintained
by the families that stayed (many of whom had come out of poverty in Europe).
Al's Hardware, to take one example out of many, still looks and functions
as it did in 1880 when it was the Eureka General Mercantile store.
A self-guided tour leaflet
is readily available around town, and most of the prominent buildings display
numbers relating to the leaflet.
Many of these buildings
are impressive, but the city's architectural jewel is the recently refurbished
Eureka Opera House. Built in the fall of 1880 on the smoldering site of the
burned-down Odd Fellows' Hall, its Grand Opening was celebrated New Year's
Eve with a gala masquerade ball. The Opera House now welcomes small conventions
from around the state, performances by nationally recognized artists, even
dinner theater, a cosmopolitan touch long unavailable in Eureka.
The guest rooms at The Jackson House have been restored to their original victorian elegance.
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While the splendid Eureka
County Court House across the street is being restored to its 1879 condition
(but with 1995 foundations), county offices have been removed to a new Annex
at the east end of town. Visitors are welcome inside the building again when
refurbishment is complete. The Jackson House across Main Street has been
thoroughly restored to its original 1877 elegance, with nine Victorian bedrooms
upstairs and a bar and restaurant back in service downstairs.
The old Eureka Sentinel
Building has been converted to a wonderful museum, with the old back-shop
as it was left when the last tramp printer finally called it quits, fully
equipped with type cases and working presses, and papered with posters and
handbills dating back to the 1880s. Local area touring information is available
here as well.
Some of the buildings are
less remarkable to look at than to know about. The Farmers and Merchants
Bank building, for example, was originally a brewery, connected with the
hotel across the street by an underground tunnel. The boom days were long
over when the bank was organized by former District Attorney Edna Plummer,
but it was solid enough to remain open through the National Bank Holiday
of 1933 when banks were ordered to remain closed after the conclusion of
business on the stated date. The Eureka Bank avoided the closing by not
concluding business, staying open day and night until the "holiday" ended.
About those tunnels: the
story is that because Eureka's breweries were located on opposite ends of
town, the heavy winters (and the availability of skilled, experienced miners)
prompted the business people to drive tunnels underground from one end of
town to the other in order to ensure the prompt delivery of beer to the saloons
along Main Street. The truth may not be so prosaic. According to family
recollection, Nevada governor Reinhold Sadler (whose two story brick home
is half a block north of the Colonnade House) used a tunnel to get to his
Main Street store in the winter so that he wouldn't have to meet his neighbors
on the street. Much of the old tunneling has collapsed or is unsafe, but
in its heyday it was quite comfortable to use, fancy, even, with bricked
walls, and arched brick chambers reminiscent of medieval dungeons.
There are several cemeteries
in Eureka, including one that was set aside for smallpox victims.
Tax money derived from
the Carlin gold mine at the far northern end of the county has built a new
high school and other modern community facilities in Eureka, including the
enclosed pool, open six days a week year-around.
There is a small handful
of saloons at the heart of town. The brightest of them, The Owl Club, is
also a regionally famous restaurant and bar. Eureka offers an exceptional
range of overnight accommodations, from the classic period piece Jackson
House and Colonnade House to the up to date Sundown Lodge motel, the brand
new Eureka Inn and the elegant Parsonage House hideaway cottage.
And Eureka's mining fortunes
are rising again as the Homestake company is working in the historic Ruby
Hill property.
The country around Eureka
will probably always provide excellent hunting, and simply breathing in the
cedar-scented air of the wide open spaces is an act of pure pleasure, utterly
unimaginable to the people who lived here breathing its poisonous smoke in
the last century.
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