Winnemucca is a small ranching and mining town on Interstate 80 in northern Nevada, roughly halfway between Reno and Elko. It is the kind of place most people pass through on a long desert drive, but it has more character than the average highway stop.
The town has a significant Basque community, a legacy of Basque sheepherders who settled the Great Basin in the late 19th century. The Basque restaurants here are the main reason to pull off the highway — the Martin Hotel and the Winnemucca Hotel (the oldest hotel in Nevada) serve traditional family-style Basque dinners with soup, beans, bread, and lamb. The Buckaroo Hall of Fame and Heritage Museum and the Humboldt Museum cover the ranching, mining, and Basque heritage of the region.
Winnemucca sits in high desert at around 1,300 metres, surrounded by sagebrush plains and brown mountain ranges. The landscape is stark and beautiful in its emptiness. The Santa Rosa Range to the north offers backcountry hiking, and the Humboldt River — usually more of a creek by the time it reaches here — meanders through town.
Like most Nevada highway towns, Winnemucca has a strip of small casinos and cheap motels along the boulevard. It is a practical overnight stop on cross-Nevada drives, and the Basque food alone makes it worth a detour.