T & T Railway and the Amargosa Opera House

This weekend we took a drive to see what lies beyond Pahrump. And what lies beyond Pahrump is a fair amount of flat, dry desert.

We drove 20 miles north to where Highway 160 dead-ends into Highway 95. Here Highway 95 is the southern and western border of a vast military area called the Nellis Air Force Base Complex. It covers more than 13,000 square miles, including the Nevada Test Site and Area 51, and, not surprisingly, there are no public roads into Nellis. 

Seventeen miles west, where 373 intersects 95, is a wide spot in the road called Amargosa Valley. Amargosa Valley is home to the Rocket Diner, Alien Travel Center, and the Alien Cathouse brothel. We didn't stop here, so I'll have to try the Alien Travel Center later. It was getting pretty windy and we were only halfway through our route, so we pressed on. 

373 heads due south and into California for a few miles, where it intersects with State Line Road. And at this intersection we found an interesting little place.

First stop - the Railroad Museum, a model railway display where we learned about the Tonopah and Tidewater Railway, a little rail (about 200 miles) that ran through this area from 1907 through 1940. The purpose of the railway was to haul borax, mined in Death Valley. A small community grew up around the rail station, with a school (in an old railway car), offices, homes for families and tents for the single men working the line, all of which is faithfully recreated in the model.

But things change, and the railroad outlived its usefulness. In 1941 U.S. Department of War took up the rails and reused them elsewhere. They say that Scotty's Castle, at the north end of Death Valley, is still using the old railroad ties in it's fireplaces during winter.

At the other end of the building is the Amargosa Opera House. It started life as a community center and, like the rest of the place, got quite decrepit when the railway closed. In 1976 Marta Becket, a professional ballerina, got a flat tire while driving through and discovered the run-down hall. She had an eye for what it could be, not what it was, so she rented it, cleaned it, repaired it, and started giving regular performances. She didn't always have an audience so eventually she decided to paint one. She filled the walls with enthusiastic patrons

and, being confident, included royalty in the central gallery.

She even painted in other entertainers, waiting for their turn on the stage.

Marta performed as a ballerina here for more than 40 years and was still "on pointe" in her eighties. Eventually, though, she created for "The Sitting Down Show" which allowed her to continue performing until early in 2012. She is 91 now and finally retired, having turned the Opera House over to a ballet protege. The 2015-2016 schedule starts in October; we will be getting a schedule and plan to attend.

While we were learning all this fascinating stuff, outside the wind continued to pick up. By the time we were ready to leave, a brown-out was starting - the big dust storms of the west.

Randy waited a bit, but he decided to leave in case it started raining. Fortunately as we drove east on State Line Road, we left the storm behind.

Back in Pahrump we had lunch at Mom's Diner. It started sprinkling when we went in and continued during lunch. And just that little bit was enough to flood parts of the roads. Back in the Midwest it would take a downpour to create this.

This place, that needs water so badly, just can't handle it!