During Thanksgiving Break 2024, I traveled with my partner at the time to visit her family in Gabbs, Nevada. Leading up to the trip, I told my friends and family where I was going by saying the name of the town, waiting for a second, then dramatically saying "population: 58." This usually got a bit of a puzzled reaction, but I felt it conveyed my bewilderment effectively. It seemed like an impossible place to me, far more remote and isolated than anywhere I had been.
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A faded sign outside of Gabbs with a list of obsolete churches and social clubs, November 2024 |
I was perhaps too unbothered by the isolation, as I neglected to fill up my car at my opportunity to do so. As Interstate 80 changed to US 50 which changed to NV 361, the setting sun cast a lovely red glow on the desert, before turning into a pitch darkness that properly spooked me. I love a good country drive in pitch darkness, but the lack of trees or any shapes for my headlights to bounce off of was causing a low-grade panic to set in. My paranoia about running out of gas certainly did not help.
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| NV 361. I swear this was terrifying at night. November, 2024 |
We did arrive safely, not quite sure if we were going to spend that night with our hosts or at a local motel that one Yelp review referred to as "Norman Bates scary." We thankfully did not have to find out what that meant, and spent the night on the couch after some stargazing and exploring our hosts' underground library. The lack of light pollution and
We talked with our hosts quite a bit about life in Gabbs. They were my partner's great uncle and aunt, and they were constantly on the road. They spent about half of the year driving to visit friends, preferring to hole up in Gabbs in the more temperate seasons, leaving mainly during winter and summer. For them, the remoteness was peaceful, and it was where my partner's great aunt and grandmother grew up.
Gabbs was founded around a magnesium mine in 1941, when demand for the mineral was high due to World War II. Though demand dropped off sharply after the end of the war, operations in the mine continued, and the town was built up with a library and a k-12 high school, where my partner's grandmother attended while growing up there through the 1950s. She mentioned seeing nuclear blasts on the horizon growing up, likely seeing explosions from the Nevada Test Site, which operated continuously through the 1960s.
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Wide-Lens Shot of Gabbs, a view from the desert. November, 2024. |
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| An abandoned pool in the center of town, November, 2024. |
On the drive back home I appreciated the beauty of the desert a good deal more. I am also happy to report that I did not run out of gas, though it got a bit too close for comfort at the end there.
2 comments:
This post reminds me of the road trips I have taken with my family, where we would constantly drive through isolated areas. One memory that comes to mind was when we were traveling to Kernville, CA. As we drove on empty roads, I would always say to my brother "I wonder where kids go to school here," because we had not passed a school in hours. Similarly, we would also have to plan our gas station visits in case there would not be one available for a long time.
Gabbs sounds like the same type of boom and bust town that was populated during the extractive phase of its development, but for one reason or another, was abandoned after not making the economic transition to other economic sectors. I remember seeing abandoned gas stations on the way to Nevada or Arizona and immediately getting scared that my car would break down in the desert. 70 miles is a really long way from a gas station. I know AAA has a mileage limit in some circumstances. Anyway, in some research I've been doing on another topic, I noticed that geographically isolated communities have a harder time coming back from depopulation. Villages closer to metro areas, on the other hand, have a greater chance of tying itself to the economy of that metro area and surviving. Nonetheless, maybe another valuable resource can be found near Gabbs, and the town can make a comeback. Never say never.
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