16.- Las Vegas, Gardnerville, Winnemucca

16.1 LAS VEGAS LAGUN ONAK
Further south, the Basque settlement in Las Vegas is much more recent. The city's Basque club is a member of NABO and has a young dance group, the Ibar Izarrak. The traditional Basque Festival, held annually in mid October, marks the last of the picnics on the festival schedule in the west. American Basques and non-Basques attend it from southern California, Nevada, and neighboring Arizona.

16.2 GARDNERVILLE
At the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Gardnerville is a small western town, pleasant and inviting, founded around 1880. The Overland Hotel was erected on its long main street in 1906. Today this is one of the oldest hotels in the valley. Elvira Cenoz, from Mutriku, is its owner. Main Street has another Basque establishment, the J & T, founded in 1952. Ten years ago Carlos Iribarren and Jesus Rey opened the restaurant Country Club, which also advertises Basque family style dining. Other ostatuak in Gardnerville have included the French Hotel, the East York, and the Pyrenees Hotel.

16.3 SINGERS AND BERTSOLARIAK
Mendiko Euskaldun Cluba is the local club, which was founded in 1981 and whose membership today is comprised of about 260 families. Some six hundred people attend its summer picnic. Those taking part in the Euskal Kantari Eguna, its best known and most successful event in conjunction with their picnic, include song enthusiasts and bertsolaris from all over the west. Some travel as far as two thousand kilometers just to attend or take part in this American festival of Basque song.

16.4 WINNEMUCCA BEGAN
Three hundred kilometers to the northeast of Gardnerville is Winnemucca. Some guides say that the city began as "a large district inhabited by Chinese, following completion of the railroad, and Basque sheepherders setting up near Winnemucca with a view to working on ranches. As on other occasions, the Chinese gradually disappeared and little evidence remains of their period here, but the Basque influence is evident in the cultural life and in the restaurants of the city." Douglass and Bilbao relate that "by 1900 there were probably several hundred Basques in Humboldt County alone."

16.5 EUSKALDUNAK DANAK BAT
Basque hotels in the city include the Winnemucca Hotel, which, founded in 1863, is one of the oldest in the state. Today it functions much as it did several decades ago. Another is the Martin Hotel, set up in 1913 and rebuilt in 1920, which today is a restaurant only. More recently, the Basque restaurant Ormachea's opened in 1978 and just a few years ago, the restaurant San Fermin. The local Basque club, Euskaldunak Danak Bat, was formed in 1943. It has one hundred and fifty members, and maintains the dance group Irrintzi Dancers. Its activities include a traditional June picnic.