Postcards - Fresh Oysters and Ashland Baby Cheese: Fallon’s Moveable Feast

In 1906, my father’s family traveled by train from Louisiana, Missouri, to Hazen, where they caught a stage to their new home, Fallon, Nevada. I opened the pages of the 1906 local newspapers with a question in mind. What scenes welcomed these arrivals to their new home?

Part of the answer is that, at first glance, they would have seen a rather stereotypical Western frontier town, with unpaved streets and numerous horses. In the 1906 newspapers, there were ads from two blacksmiths/horseshoers (Mr. Berney and Mr. Clark), a harness and saddle shop (Mr. Vannoy), Pioneer stables, and freight haulers (Mr. G.B. Williams). Like most frontier towns, Fallon had a barber, an undertaker, and two laundries, one of them Japanese. Not surprisingly, there were also plenty of bars, the staple of the wild west. In October 1906, you could imbibe your way through town, visiting (if still walking) The Oberon Bar, The Fallon Saloon and Café, The Club Saloon, The Palace Saloon, The Cosy Corner, The Richelieu, The Goldfield Club, Swift’s Place, The Reception and The Barrel House. I may have missed one or two. If you preferred to drink at home, you could drop by Callahan’s Wines and Liquors and buy your favorite brand.

None of that surprised me, but what did was the range of eateries advertising in such a small town. You could dine out at the Churchill Hotel, the Spoon Hotel, the New River Hotel, the New Century Café, the Bon Ton Café — “a new brick building one block east of the I.H. Kent Co.’s store” where “Meals will be served at all hours” — or at Fong Wong’s restaurant, which prepared a “fine chicken dinner every Sunday.” The 1906 Thanksgiving menu, advertised by the Churchill Hotel, promised a gourmand’s delight featuring turkey, of course, but the young stuffed bird was attended by celery and shrimp salad, ham with Russian Egg Sauce, Cauliflower Stewed in Cream, Giblet Sauté on Toast, Pineapple Fritters, and fresh “full cream” cheeses … hardly a provincial meal, by almost any standard!

Even more remarkable is the fact that, at such an early date, there were at least four attorneys in town (Messrs. McCabe, Wall, Burd, and Allen), and a goodly number of practicing physicians (Drs. Simpkins, Dempsey, Gardner, Conner, and C.A. Haskell, plus a female doctor, N.B. Haskell or Nellie, quite popular with the ladies). Dr. Dempsey was in the process of building a hospital, and, as an aside, he was leading in a local contest to choose “The Handsomest Man in Fallon.”

Again, against the frontier stereotype, my grandparents would have found some quite sophisticated goods and services. A gentleman could order a custom-made suit from Merchant Tailors, paying between $25 and $50. A lady could visit the new millinery shop. Oysters could be found at the I.H. Kent Co. store and The Fallon Meat Market. A soda shop named Cook’s Soda Factory opened about the same time they arrived, serving sarsaparilla, lemon, strawberry, and cream soda water. The Goldfield Club, The Reception, and The Richelieu labeled themselves “resorts” rather than saloons and offered choice wines and cigars; The Cosy Club even offered “Private Club Rooms” or “Private Wine and Social Rooms.” The Fallon Bakery sold French bread and rye bread, plus pies, cakes, doughnuts, and pastries. A proprietor named Popenoe sold fresh fruit, bragging that, “I ship by express every day.” And the W.W. Williams store advertised “a stock of fresh choice Ashland Baby Cheese.”

There was no official City of Fallon until December 1908, but a lot was going on. The town that had sprung up on and around Maine Street was booming. The editor of the “Churchill Standard” exclaimed, “Out of all the people one meets day after day, whether residents or strangers, there is not a single dissenting opinion from the fact that Fallon is going to be a good-sized town and that, too, in the near future…. Buildings are going up on every side for residences and business purposes and others are being projected” (October 11, 1906).

That was the Fallon my grandparents had moved to. It was an exciting place. They stayed. Next week, I’ll write about the headline stories they would have read in the local newspapers.

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