Horseshoe Art on the
Loneliest Road
Raine’s
Market, in the outback of central Nevada, Eureka, Nevada, is an
old-time general store that sells everything from whiskey to
horseshoe nails. This market is a wealth of supplies and
information for the traveler that braves the “Loneliest Road in
America,” Highway 50.
Scott Raine,
who is a fifth-generation Eureka County resident, is the manager of
this store that was opened as a grocery store in 1929. Scott and
his family have owned the business since 1973. Scott is also
interested in horseshoe art. Scott said, “I created this mule deer
and Desert Bighorn sheep starting from a pile of used horseshoes. I
don’t use photos or references, just my own knowledge of the
animals.”
You may ask why
Scott would go to all the work to create his art. Scott says,
“After being appointed to the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners
and seeing first-hand the complete refusal by the administration of
the Nevada Department of Wildlife to acknowledge the glaring
problems with our devastated mule deer population or take even the
smallest meaningful action to manage and enhance our mule deer
populations, I saw that one day the only way the people of Nevada
would likely see a mature mule deer buck would be for me to build
one. I gathered quite a selection of used horseshoes, pulled the
nails, cleaned them up, and, over several months, welded about 442
of them into a larger-than-life three-dimensional image of a mule
deer that even a supposed wildlife management agency with a
completely misdirected administration like NDOW can't kill. I then
built a larger-than-life Desert Bighorn Sheep to celebrate the
hardiness of this magnificent species that is the state animal. The
horseshoe bench is a recent addition that allows one to relax after
shopping at Raine's Market.”
Scott is an
avid hunter, presently serving on the Nevada Board of Wildlife
Commissioners,
and is the Board’s immediate past Chairman.
Scott, appointed to the Commission
in 2007 by former Governor Jim Gibbons,
is the only member to have been
appointed from Eureka County since 1969.
Prior to 1969, each County
had one representative on what was then a 17-member Commission and
Eureka County has had no other members during the 40-plus years
since the elimination of the 'one Commissioner per county' rule.
When you are in
the neighborhood, stop by and take a seat on the horseshoe bench,
sit back and admire the life-and-a-half size images of indigenous
big game animals, and then join the two kinds of visitors inside the
market that also houses a large mounted big game collection. Owner,
Lee Raine, says, “Many customers are just looking down, filling
their carts and intent on the price of peas, but there is another
contingent that walks about gazing up at the big game mounts and
other artifacts in the store. Both groups are most welcome in
Raine’s Market.”
Article by:
Mike Laughlin
Photos by PJ Nosek |