Barmaid on the Loneliest Road
Traveling the back roads of Nevada
There’s no question about it, Middlegate Station has the best burgers for fifty miles, and not just because there isn't another restaurant for fifty miles. Middlegate serves that fine burger on a road called Highway 50, and Highway 50 is The Loneliest Road in America.
We started hearing about Middlegate long before we got there. Folks we met along the way telling us to hold our appetites till we came to a tiny turnout on the empty road east of Fallon, then pull in there and discover its charms.
In the dusty parking lot, enveloped in the quiet, we stood for a minute taking it all in. Middlegate Station has been here for a long time. It’s a bar, restaurant, gas pumps, and eight motel rooms, with nothing else around for miles. First built by the Overland Stage Company to service stagecoach travelers and freight lines in 1859, it also served the Pony Express for the few short years of its existence. The current place has its roots in 1952 when a woman named Ida Fergusen opened a bar and cafe here. There was no electricity or phone service and the nearest town was fifty miles away, but if you were hungry or thirsty it must have seemed like heaven when you saw it ahead in the distance — actually, it still does. I’ve never before understood what a cowboy feels like after a long day in the saddle but out here I think I get it.
We walk into the dark and cool, find a table, and pretty soon Cheyenne comes over. There’s something special about people who choose to work this far from town. They are obviously ready to live a long way from others but also to take care of their needs. And then there are the qualities that make for a good barkeep, like knowing when to engage and when to polish the glasses. Cheyenne is all of the above, and it makes me wonder what her story is, has she grown up here, drifted here, or made her way here on purpose? But the rules of the road say it’s too soon to ask those questions so I let them be. Cheyenne smiles a big smile and welcomes us, then spends a few minutes telling us about the place and taking our orders. Nothing out of the ordinary, but out here miles from anywhere you notice the little things, like everyday human friendliness and the casual connection of strangers.
What else we notice are the hundreds of dollar bills stapled to the ceiling. They cover every inch of the place, each one signed, and all of them with a story to tell. When Cheyenne brings us our burgers she tells us we are welcome to add to the collection so after we eat and talk some more and are revived she brings us a marker and a staple gun, and Bob picks a spot to add his bill to the collection.
And then it’s time to say goodbye and head on down the road. It’s just a lunch break after all. But it’s lunch and a break in a place that holds on to its history — old things and places with stories to be told.
Maybe that’s why Stephen King stayed here for a week in ‘91 when he was writing Desperation. He conjured up that story while living amidst the abandoned relics and mementos. It must have been good to have someone taking care of his food, drink, and shelter as he wrote his story.
Ready for more stories? Check out Stories I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You. Andy Romanoff’s memoir chronicles his long and crazy years and how he survived them to tell these stories. Andy takes you along for the ride as he makes a meaningful life for himself without turning his back on the things he’s done or the places he’s come from.
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“Andy Romanoff may well be the last surviving beatnik. Not just a witness of the American counter-culture movement, he was a willing accomplice. STORIES I’VE BEEN MEANING TO TELL YOU is a journey through the American underground that began in the 1950s and impacted all the generations after."
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These are the best kinds of places to stop on a lonesome highway. I enjoyed reading about your pit stop and look forward to my own on the dusty stretches of CA 78 this weekend.