BOB MCCRACKEN Nye County History Special to the PVT These photographs reflect the interior and exterior of Carver's Cafe Bar as it stands today. Advertisement

Nye County is a big place --18,294 square miles, to be exact. Its area exceeds that of several small American states combined. At about 220 miles north to south and more than 165 miles east to west at its widest point, it is larger than many nations. But with a population of less than 50,000, it is scarcely settled in some people's minds.

With its wide-open spaces, it takes a special kind of person to make a home and a living in this out-sized place. I'd like to tell you about one such individual. Her name was Jean Carver Duhme. If there ever was a can-do person who relished the challenge of building a life on the western frontier, it was Jean.

I first met Jean back in 1990 when I interviewed her for the Nye County Town History Project, the county's ongoing effort to understand and preserve its history by recording and publishing recollections of some of its older residents. Thus far, the project has produced more than 80 oral histories totaling some 5,000 pages as well as 14 books on the history of Nye County communities. All are available at Nye County's museums and libraries and at UNLV and the Nevada Historical Society in Reno.

Jean Carver Duhme was born Jean Patterson Dutton in Iowa in 1915, and grew up in Vermont; Portland, Oregon; and Salt Lake City, where she graduated from high school. In 1936, she graduated from Oregon State University. In 1943, she moved to Smoky Valley, Nevada, where she married local rancher Gerald Carver.

In the early 1850s, Carver's forebears drove 800 head of cattle from Salt Lake City, Utah to Placerville, Calif., in the gold country. They were likely the first ranchers to run cattle in Yosemite Valley, which is now a national park.

After Gerald Carver's first wife died, he looked for land in Nevada. In Tonopah, Sheriff Bill Thomas told him of a small ranch for sale in Smoky Valley. Carver purchased the 300-acre place in 1939 and soon added 640 acres that had belonged to Mimosa Pittman, widow of Nevada Senator and political powerhouse Key Pittman.

When I asked Jean what brought her from the big city to such a remote place on the Nevada desert whose main link to the outside world was some 50 miles of dirt road to Tonopah in the south or Austin, to the north, she replied, "I was fed to the teeth with people, traffic, and keeping up with the Joneses -- do you know what I mean?" I understood and told her so. But don't let her remark fool you; Jean was as personable and caring a person as you would ever be lucky enough to meet. What she didn't like was crowding and people by the thousands with an "I'm better than you" attitude.

Jean and Gerald had two children; Dick, born in 1944, and Gary, born in 1946. In the 1990s, Dick served as a Nye County Commissioner and was pictured on the cover of Time magazine in 1995, for his leadership in Western land issues. Dick passed away in 2003; his widow, Midge Carver, currently serves as a Nye County commissioner.

In 1947, about four years after Jean and Gerald were married, the state of Nevada began work on a north-south highway down Smoky Valley to connect US Highway 6, east of Tonopah, with US Highway 50, east of Austin. The new road cut across a corner of the Carver property.

Jean and Gerald thought about the prospect of increased traffic and decided to open a bar and café adjoining the highway. They moved two old houses to the site; one from nearby Round Mountain and the other from Monarch, a ghost town east of Manhattan. They joined the structures together, moved in a bar from a Round Mountain hotel, and named their creation the Rainbow Ranch Bar and Café. It opened in April 1948. Not long after the opening, they changed the name to Carvers Station.

Carvers Station was a big success. It became a gathering place for local residents up and down Smoky Valley, from nearby Round Mountain and Manhattan to Austin and Tonopah. They served good food and drinks, the company was excellent, and the dances the Carvers regularly put on were affairs to be remembered.

Between 1948 and 1955, the Carvers' business grew from a mom-and-pop operation to a widely known establishment where long-haul truckers could buy diesel and eat. Carvers became almost legendary for its ham and eggs, among the best available anywhere.

Jean imported delicious ham from a processor in Billings, Montana, initially on the recommendation of a trucker who hauled meat from Billings to Los Angeles. At first it was only three or four hams per week; eventually, they were using a case every week.

For many years, Nevada Route 376 (at that time, it was known as 8A) up Smoky Valley was the preferred north-south route through Nevada for road travel between Los Angeles and Las Vegas and points north as far as Canada. One night, 14 trucks, loaded with bananas from the port at Long Beach, Calif., and headed to Calgary and Edmonton, fueled up at Carvers.

Gerald Carver died suddenly in 1956 and Jean ran the business until 1975, when she sold it. In 1970, Jean married a geologist named Mac Duhme, but she lived nearby most of the remainder of her life. She died in about 2005.

During the course of my interview with Jean, she mentioned in passing an unpublished memoir she had written on her life in Smoky Valley. Since I am always on the lookout for documents prepared by people on their own local history, I asked her if I could see it. She seemed pleased by my interest and let me borrow her only copy.

The next time I saw her, I told Jean how much I had liked it. I suggested we publish it. She though it might be a lot of work, but agreed.

We began preparing her manuscript, A Smoky Valley Memoir, for publication. She approved the final form of the manuscript but unfortunately, the volume's publication got sidetracked for about 14 years.

Though Jean was gone, I never forgot about her memoir. Thanks to the current Nye County Commissioners, Jean's memoir was published in August by Nye County Press and is available at the museums in Pahrump, Beatty, and Tonopah and at the libraries in Manhattan and Round Mountain.

From a ranch house located alongside a dirt road 60 years ago, Carvers is now listed on the official map of the State of Nevada. The bar and café are still in business and a thriving community has blossomed nearby. Jean's lovely memoir of life in the community she and her husband founded represents a valuable contribution to the history of Nye County and the American West.