Monday, February 10, 2014

Wendover, A Town With a Split Personality

Ah Wendover, what an enchanting place-----not! It’s a remote watering hole on the border of Nevada and Utah at the edge of the great Bonneville Salt Flats. On the Nevada side (West Wendover) there’re mostly casinos and some commercial enterprises. On the Utah side there’re some run down houses mixed in with a couple nicer ones, some more commercial enterprises, funk, junk and rust, and a then there’s the very big ancient playa off to the east. There are perhaps three reasons to stop: get gas, have a bite to eat, or play a game of chance. But if you're like I am, you'll have a fourth reason; you're curious. I stopped and found some things that made the place interesting.
    #1 ... If you had been standing in that desert about 16,000 years ago, you’d have been 1,000 feet under water. How could that be? Well, over a 3,000,000-year period the
climate of North America went from wet to dry several times. Glaciers formed and then receded leaving behind pluvial lakes, great bodies of landlocked water that sit in natural basins. In the southwestern United State several of these prehistoric lakes were the result of the wet periods. One such lake was named Bonneville. It formed about 32,000 years ago and covered 19,800 square miles. Over time, as the climate changed to dry, Lake Bonneville slowly disappeared, leaving behinds salt. Today, the Great Salt Lake and the Bonneville Salt Flats are reminders of the ancient lake.
    #2 ... In 1907, a trio of men wanted to find out if they could drive an automobile across the salt flats. They succeeded and that opened the door. But it wasn’t until the mid 1920’s that a highway (US 40) was built across it. Much later the route was improved and it became Interstate 80. Back in 1924, entrepreneur William “Bill” Smith seized the moment and with $500 he had saved and a partner, built a gas station and garage to service all the travelers brave enough to the cross the salt flats. Smith hooked up a light bulb to the top of a flagpole. This beacon burned brightly 24/7 and as a result, Wendover became known as “the light in the desert.” He later added a café and a few bungalows. In 1931, they received one of the first gambling licenses issued in Nevada and so began the Wendover Hotel and Casino. All went well until Smith and his partner’s family had a falling out. They agreed to flip a silver dollar, winner take all. Bill Smith won. Years later the light bulb was replaced with a waving neon lit statue of the “World’s Tallest Cowboy,” Wendover Will. He has been welcoming travelers since 1952. He’s 63’ tall and includes 1,1184’ of neon tubing. Several years ago he was given a new home on the old highway into town. 
    #3 ... The Stealth Gallery located in the historic and fast deteriorating Wendover Air Force Base is one of the funkiest, if not the funkiest galleries in all of gallerydom. Picture a broken-down, single story military barracks hidden amongst similar ghostly buildings inside a compound marked by a chain-linked fence. The gallery is not easy to find because it hides behind the other abandoned barracks and it hides well. But after a couple false positives I found it and once I entered the door's lock combination (1,2 for any of you incline to wander there) I went inside. Nothing had changed from my last visit.  There were the same land use pictures and information and the same rather ugly pictures. I think the high water mark came when friend Richard Menzies had his show there. He brought a lot of class to the place. Unfortunately it's been downhill ever since.
    #4 ... Wendover Field, a WWII Air Force base is slowly decaying. But a small band of devoted enthusiasts are hard at work raising funds to restore portions. There's a very nice museum, which depicts the base's important contributions to the war effort. It became the largest Air Force base in the world. During WWII it provided training for B-17 and B-29 flight crews. Once they reached reasonable skill levels, they took off, and either flew to Germany to drop bombs on Hitler or off to Japan to do the same to Tojo. No less than the famous Enola Gay was based here. This is where the crew trained. Col Tibbets, its pilot, chose this spot because of the isolation. Big Boy and Fat Man (Atomic bombs) were tested out there in the great expansive desert. Kaboom! and a mushroom cloud!
    The air base is now a civilian airport with what amounts to an unusually long runway. It has been turned over to Wendover and was given a new name, Decker Field. Buildings have been leased for storage, but the hanger that housed the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that was used to drop the atomic bombs, remains much as it once was. A devoted group of people is in the process of restoring some of the old base as a lasting tribute to its historic value.

    Wendover is a town caught between two states, Nevada and Utah, but it’s not only the border that separates. West Wendover, Nevada is prosperous; Wendover, Utah is not. West Wendover has gambling; Wendover, Utah does not. The only place where they seem to come together is time; both are in the Mountain Time Zone. For years Utah and Nevada have endorsed the idea of only one Wendover. The plan called for the eastern part to be annexed into Nevada, but Wendover’s town council voted against it, so until such time as there is annexation, Wendover will remain a place with a split personality.


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