Famous 'Wally World' Art Collection on Display at Ely's Art Bank

Ely's Art Bank: Home of Wally Cuchine's art collection

  

  An old and dear friend of mine, Wally Cuchine, recently passed away at the age of 75. For those who didn’t know him, Cuchine was a Nevada art collector without peer for most of his life.

  Over decades, he collected more than 2,000 original works by Nevada-based artists, which he displayed in a pair of doublewide trailers in Eureka, Nevada (one was his home, which was jammed with art, and other, which he called the Shed Gallery, was filled wall-to-wall with his art).

  Fortunately, prior to his death, Cuchine donated a good portion of his collection to the Ely Art Bank, a public gallery where his pieces are regularly rotated and displayed.

  Cuchine was born in Helena, Montana in 1947 and, after serving in the Air Force for four years, settled in Las Vegas. He later attended Sierra Nevada College (now Sierra Nevada University) at Lake Tahoe, where he earned a degree in environmental science.

  After that, Cuchine lived most of the rest of his life in rural Nevada. He worked in various positions in Fallon, Lovelock, Caliente, and Hawthorne before operating the Bristlecone Convention Center and the White Pine Public Museum in Ely.

  In 1993, he took on what he described as his dream job, overseeing the restored Eureka Opera House in Eureka. It was a position he held until his retirement in 2011.

  But his passion was always art, especially about Nevada. Beginning in the 1970s (and continuing for the rest of his life), he began collecting pieces of Nevada art—and just never stopped.

  As an aside, he also collected Nevada-related books and had, at one time, a private collection that would rival the Nevada section at the Nevada State Library in Carson City.

  His art collection gained statewide recognition in 2014, when 35 of his pieces toured the state as an exhibit called, “Wally’s World: The Loneliest Art Collection in Nevada.”

  The program booklet for that exhibition (www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/77th2013/ExhibitDocument/OpenExhibitDocument?exhibitId=2186&fileDownloadName=ho0307_nac_c.pdf) offers insights into Cuchine and his collecting, which was written by the late Jim McCormick, a prominent art professor and historian.

  Also, in 2019, former University of Nevada Reno graduate students, Julia Moreno and Shevawn Von Tobel, produced a wonderful short film about Cuchine and his art collection, “Wally’s World: The Loneliest Art Collection,” which can be viewed on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQuIZ7L5SHE).

  Today, the Ely Art Bank/Garnet Mercantile in Ely, Nevada, is where you can view a big chunk of the collection. The Art Bank was established in 2013, when an Art Deco former bank building in the historic mining town was converted into an art gallery and cultural center.

  Adjacent to the Art Bank is the Garnet Mercantile, a former J.C. Penney store, which houses the Cuchine Collection in its basement gallery. The Mercantile is open Fridays 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sundays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

  For more information about the Art Bank and the Cuchine Collection, go to: http://elynevada.net/wally-cuchine-art-collection/.

  For more information about the life of Wally Cuchine, go to: https://sierranevadaally.org/2022/09/24/beloved-eureka-arts-collector-wally-cuchine-has-died-at-75/.

Nothing Middling About Middlegate's Monster Burger

  For decades, the tiny enclave of Middlegate, located about halfway between Fallon and Austin on U.S. 50, was little more than a place to stop if you forgot to gas-up before hitting the Loneliest Road in America.

  Back then, the only business in Middlegate, the Middlegate Station, offered a gas pump, a pay telephone, a small motel, a bar, and a restaurant. The closest attraction was the famous Shoe Tree, an old cottonwood in which hundreds of pairs of shoes, as well as plastic pink flamingos and other objects, had been tossed.

  Fortunately, not much has changed over the years.

  The Middlegate Station and a new Shoe Tree are still there, but what has changed is that the restaurant has become nationally-known for something called the Middlegate Station Monster Burger.

  This beast of beef—which weighs in at a whopping three pounds—includes a 1 1/3-pound angus beef burger on a sourdough mini boule that is topped with lettuce, pickles, red onion, cheese, onion rings, olives, and a pepper, plus fries.

  Anyone who can eat the burger and fries in one sitting can receive either a free t-shirt or a baby monster “onesie” for your baby.

  The challenge of tackling the Monster has made national foodie websites and been featured in media throughout the country.

  The backstory on Middlegate is equally interesting. The area was first named in 1850 by surveyor James Simpson, who was hired by the U.S. government to layout a western route. Simpson saw the cuts in the nearby mountains as “gates,” and named them Eastgate, Middlegate, and Westgate.

  In 1859, the Overland Stage Company began establishing stations across the middle of Nevada to service its stage and freight line, and established one at Middlegate. Later, Middlegate became one of the changing stations (for changing out horses) for the Pony Express during its heyday from 1860-61.

  According to the Middlegate Station website, in 1942, a woman named Ida Ferguson bought Middlegate Station from the Bureau of Land Management at an auction and began restoring the old wooden building still standing at the site. In 1952, she opened a bar and café, which served travelers on the historic Lincoln Highway/U.S. 50 drive.

  With construction of the interstate highway system in the early 1960s, especially Interstate 80, traffic on U.S. 50 dried up. Ferguson sold Middlegate and retired.

  During the next 20 years, until 1984, Middlegate passed through a succession of owners, none of whom updated or tried to do much with the property. But in 1984, the Stevenson family purchased Middlegate and began making improvements, although they admit it remains a work in progress.

  In recent years, of course, all the attention from the Monster Burger has helped raise awareness about Middlegate’s existence. Today, it’s not uncommon to walk into the station and find visitors from all over the world, drawn to the modest structure by its legendary hamburger.

  Features on Middlegate have appeared on the well-known Atlas Obscura website (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/middlegate-station-nevada) as well as on Only In Your State (https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/nevada/epic-burgers-town-nv/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=pinterest&utm_campaign=newsletter) and in Nevada Magazine (https://nevadamagazine.com/taking-on-the-middlegate-monster-burger/).

  For more information, go to the Middlegate Station website, https://middlegatestation.webs.com/.

Owyhee: Unusual Name, Beautiful Area

 

One of the peaceful creeks found at Owyhee, Nevada

   Located about 350 miles north of Fallon via U.S.95, Interstate 80 and Nevada State Route 225 (north of Elko), the tiny community of Owyhee, on the Nevada-Idaho border, is about as remote a place as one can find in the Silver State.

   With a population of nearly 1,000, Owyhee (known as Un Kwahain in Shoshoni) serves as one of the largest communities in the sprawling Shoshone-Paiute Duck Valley Indian Reservation, covers nearly 300,000 acres.

   The town’s unusual name, Owyhee, does not have Shoshone or Paiute origins but can be traced to the early white trappers who, in about 1820, called the Owyhee River, which today runs through the settlement, the Sandwich Island River.

   The name was to honor a trio of native Hawaiian trappers who were killed at the river’s mouth during an encounter with the native Bannock people. After the Sandwich Islands became more widely known as the Hawaiian Islands, the name of the river changed as well, but was phonetically corrupted to Owyhee.

   In 1863, the Western Shoshone chiefs and the governors of the Nevada and Utah territories signed the Treaty of Ruby Valley, which sought to cease hostilities between the Shoshone and white settlers in northern Nevada and allow for development of the lands in the region.

   In the years after the signing of the treaty, the tribe began requesting land be set aside for its needs, which had been promised. It wasn’t until 1877, however, that President Rutherford B. Hayes finally signed an order granting land for a reservation.

   The town of Owyhee was founded around the time the reservation was established.

   Sadly, that was not the end of the tribe’s difficulties with government representatives. In the late 1870s, the agent for the Western Shoshone Agency, a white man, stole goods intended for the Shoshone, a practice that continued until he was replaced in 1882. During his tenure, many Shoshone departed the reservation due to the harsh conditions.

   In 1884, there was a move to force the Shoshone to relocate to Fort Hall in the Idaho Territory but that effort failed.

   In 1886, the government reversed itself and the reservation size was expanded by President Grover Cleveland to accommodate the Northern Paiute tribe. The reservation was expanded again in 1910 by President William Howard Taft.

   As for the town of Owyhee, it became a thriving agricultural community (which it remains today) and gained its first substantial building in 1881, when a schoolhouse was erected. Additionally, that year a stage line was established that connected the town to Elko.

   By 1886, the town gained a newspaper, the Duck Valley News, which, unfortunately closed after one month. But the community continued to grow and by the mid-1890s, it had about 600 residents as well as a physician and a small infirmary.

   In the early 20th century, Owyhee saw the arrival of telephone service (in 1904), a new school (also in 1904), and a hospital (in 1914). 

   Toward the end of the 1930s, a handful of native volcanic stone buildings (resembling the ones built at the Stewart Indian School in Carson City) were erected in the town, including a new hospital, a powerhouse, a tribal gym, and a tribal court building. Many of these structures can still be seen in the community, although not all remain in use.

   Perhaps the biggest development to benefit Owyhee in the post-Depression years was the construction of the Wild Horse Dam, about 32 miles to the south, which, since then, has provided a reliable water source for the Duck Valley’s residents, cattle (but watch out for them, however, they will wander in front of you on the highway!) and agriculture.

   Today, Owyhee is a sleepy town located about 100 miles north of Elko that boasts limited services and a handful of the picturesque native stone buildings erected in the late 1930s. One of the most impressive is the former hospital building, built in 1937, which boasted two seven-bed wards. It closed in 1976, when a new community health facility opened.

   If you pull off the highway south of the town, you can also find several beautiful, creek-fed meadows. Sitting beside one these ribbons of water can be a peaceful respite on a long journey.

   For more information about Owyhee, go to www.shopaitribes.org/spt/.