Gregory Martin (2)

Mountain City, Nevada, a small town, only one mile long and situated just above 5600 feet in elevation along Highway 225 North, today is lined with mostly mobile homes with a population of 31, mostly old and retired Basque sheepherders. In 1870, it was a booming copper mining town with hundreds, and later, thousands of hopeful miners. But, by 1882, there only 20 people left in town....16 whites and four Chinese. Another boom occurred in 1904, when hundreds of men once again came again to try the mines at Mountain City, but it was another bust. Fifteen years later, in 1919, there were only about 10 or so people remaining in the area. Then, immigrated the Basque sheepherders.

Mountain City has some of the most extreme weather in the lower 48. Just 8 miles down into the valley, temps can and have reached as low as -60 degrees. Winter storms are so severe that you wait to follow a plow truck down the highway, and if you are 15 minutes behind you are subject to get stranded. The wind blows up to 60 miles an hour, blowing the snow into deep snow drifts within 5 minutes.

This is the authors story of his experiences spending summers as a youth, and summer and winter holidays during his college years with his aging grandparents and other family members in Mountain City, and helping to run the family grocery story, Tremewan's Store.

This store was the lifeblood of the town and all surrounding towns for miles around, as it was the only grocery store to sell groceries and alcohol off the Duck Valley Indian Reservation, which was 13 miles away. Elko, 84 miles from Mountain City, was the nearest "big" city with all amentities with a hospital, funeral, school, nursing home, etc...… (meer)