Meet the new Old West
Nevada became a state in 1864 — months before a saloon in a town called Genoa posted a wanted sign for Abraham Lincoln’s then-unknown assassin, four years before the transcontinental railroad stitched the state to the rest of the country, and five years before the first major silver strike in the U.S. sparked a rush that built Virginia City nearly overnight.
Over the next 50 years, towns flickered to life and blinked out of existence, chasing the veins of silver and metal some 200 feet beneath the desert’s hard-packed earth — land long inhabited by Indigenous communities of the Great Basin, like the Paiute and Shoshone, and the Washoe near Lake Tahoe. The boom-and-bust rhythm shaped not just the state’s economy but its identity — a place built on promise, reinvention, and stories that survived long after the mines ran dry.
It’s easy to picture Nevada as a stretch of dusty nothing between Las Vegas and Reno. But the state is more than its desert scrub. There are the spire-like slot canyons of Cathedral Gorge, the snowy ranges of the Ruby Mountains, and the stargazing solitude of Great Basin National Park. Serpentine highways weave past alien-themed diners, larger-than-life cinderblock women, and Day-Glo boulders stacked like cairns. The surreal lives here — tucked just off the next exit. And beyond the haunted hotel rooms and Wild West souvenir shops, there is, and has always been, the grounding presence of a dining room table.
The boom-and-bust rhythm shaped not just the state’s economy but its identity — a place built on promise, reinvention, and stories that survived long after the mines ran dry.
In early Virginia City, saloons evolved from watering holes into community hubs, where mahogany bartops ferried slippery mugs of ale with the same rapidity as the conversation surrounding it. In the middle of the state, where one of the world’s largest Basque communities put down roots, traditional restaurants still serve family-style courses of charbroiled steaks and roasted salmon to communal tables. At the southern tip, Las Vegas’s most coveted seat is at an 18-stool countertop at the Oyster Bar, where round-the-clock lines wait for thick, creamy pan roasts brimming with seafood. And even today, in a town of just a few dozen residents, one restaurant draws visitors from around the world — strangers who lean over flying saucer-shaped burgers and pies to trade stories of strange lights in the night sky.
There’s nothing more inherently Nevadan than the open road. Once braved by wagon, then rail, and now car, it’s still the best way to cross the state. So take to its desert highways and come hungry. Whether you seek idyllic desert landscapes, the kind of art that only a dust-addled mind could divine, or meals that are worth driving a few hundred miles to enjoy, Nevada has something waiting — and it’s worth the drive.
—Janna Karel, Eater, editor, Southern California/Southwest
Credits
Editorial Leads: Matthew Kang, Janna Karel | Project Manager: Jess Mayhugh
Creative Director: Nat Belkov | Designer and Illustrator: Lille Allen
Editors: Nicole Adlman, Matthew Kang, Janna Karel, Nicholas Mancall-Bitel, Jess Mayhugh, Ben Mesirow
Copy Editors: Nadia Q. Ahmad, Amanda Luansing, Catherine Sweet
Contributors: Krista Diamond, Rob Kachelriess, Janna Karel, Lucas Kwan Peterson
Photographers: Louiie Victa, Matthew Kang, Janna Karel
Engagement Editors: Kaitlin Bray, Frances Dumlao, E Jamar
Special Thanks: Patty Diez, Allison Hamlin, Stephanie Wu
