Desert Companion

It’s early evening on a crisp fall Friday night in the Carson Valley, and the patio is already buzzing at Nevada’s oldest saloon, Genoa Bar.

Deeply rooted at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, less than an hour from Reno, the bar and its red brick building opened in 1853, two years after Genoa was founded. A fire destroyed many of the small town’s buildings in 1910, but the bar on the cozy corner of Main and Mill streets continued thriving.

Beyond the front door, booze is flowing, barstools are full, and history hangs like smoke in the air. Walls are slathered in 19th-century paintings and ephemera, the ceiling is stained with ketchup, and iconic s*x symbol Raquel Welch’s bra dangles from the right antler of a mounted deer head.

The bar has hosted famous folks, including Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt, Clint Eastwood, Clark Gable, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Rob Lowe, and every inch of the room tells a story.

✍️ Aleza Freeman
📸 Courtesy Travel Nevada
🔗 Read the full story in Desert Companion's newest photo issue or visit

Going from boom to bust in about a century might be a tall ask for some places. But not Goldfield, a “living ghost town” just three hours north of Las Vegas.

Now a burg of about 225 residents, it used to be among the most prosperous towns in Nevada, vying for prominence with the state’s capital. A stock exchange, a hospital, three newspapers, a major railroad, and the “finest hotel between San Francisco and Denver” served some 20-30,000 people at the town’s height.

A series of unfortunate events, bad breaks, and poorly parked dynamite cars slowly eroded the town’s population and prestige over the century-plus between the first gold strike and where it sits today. If you’re looking to speedrun your own ghost town creation, we have five tricks to get you started.

✍️ Anne Davis
🎨 Ryan Vellinga
🔗 Learn how to get your ghost town going in five easy steps: https://tinyurl.com/839dp4t5

Birding has become a popular way to get outside and connect to nature. But newcomers to the hobby might have a skewed baseline of what to consider normal as climate change disrupts the typical progression of seasons. So, what are some of the patterns that longtime birders are noticing in the Las Vegas Valley?⁠
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Nature is dynamic, not a still life. As climate change and other pressures, such as urban development, affect our world, it’s difficult to attribute one reason to changes in bird abundance and behavior. One example is migration.⁠
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Typically, in the springtime, hormonal cues triggered by increasing day length spark the urge for many birds to migrate north, beginning with the males racing to secure the best breeding territory. “It doesn’t take much to disrupt the vital flyway that birds have to go through twice a year,” says Tim Almond, a local who’s been birding here since 2000. “And we’re seeing earlier migrations.”⁠
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✍️ Morrigan DeVito⁠
📸 Ronda Churchill⁠
🔗 Read the full story in Desert Companion's newest summer issue, or see it here: https://tinyurl.com/4t8apt2e

I’m on a guided hike at Spring Mountain Ranch State Park, and no one is talking. Even though our group has more than 20 people, we remain mute as we crunch up the gravelly trail. A woman ahead of me stops and steps out of the way, gesturing at me to go around her. ⁠
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I nod, grab my 5-year-old daughter’s hand, and hurry to close the gap in the line that snakes up to a lookout point. In any other circumstance, this wordless exchange might feel awkward. But on this Saturday morning, the quiet is by design. We’re on a silent hike.⁠
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✍️ Reannon Muth⁠
🎨 Noemi Fabra for Desert Companion⁠

🔗 Read the full story here: https://tinyurl.com/sztvz73s or in Desert Companion's newest photo issue

Fifty-first.

That’s Nevada’s ranking in Mental Health America’s latest annual report, published last year. For years the state’s prevalence of mental illness has run up against, and created friction with, a dearth of accessible services.

Measures of Nevada’s continued struggle toward more ubiquitous, better funded, and attainable mental health programs are disconcerting. UNR’s Nevada Health Workforce Research Center estimates that more than 91 percent of the state’s population lives in a federally designated mental health professional shortage area.

Though only 7 percent of Nevadans with mental illness are uninsured, almost 33 percent of residents with significant mental health burdens report being unable to see a doctor because of prohibitive costs — even with insurance.

Now, providers are expressing concern that federal-level funding cuts combined with Medicaid changes, which mandate that all able-bodied adults log 80 hours of work monthly, could create even more suffering for Nevadans seeking mental health care.

🔗 Read the full story here: https://tinyurl.com/bt46cey7
✍️ Anne Davis | Desert Companion
🎨 Ryan Vellinga | Desert Companion

More Than Services Providers of mental health support and families of patients fear the dire consequences that will come from changes to insurance coverage

I hope you’ve cleared your spring calendars, local culture enthusiasts. Our venues, galleries, museums, and various facilities of leisure sure haven’t. The May and early June slate of offerings in Southern Nevada is so robust, it would make an East Coast arts commentator … well, even more pale and flummoxed. Oh, what will they do with their hands if they can’t wring them into bruised stumps?

To wit: The first weekend of May has not one, not two, not three — nay, four opera events in the Vegas Valley. Someone pass Timothée Chalamet the smelling salts! Doing a lot of the heavy lifting are the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District branches hosting most of these productions — which means they’re all free.

Vegas City Opera will be very busy through the first half of May with its Songs of the East presentation of Asian and Pacific Islander staples!

✍️ Mike Prevatt
🔗 Read the full guide:

The Short List Can your calendar handle this much good stuff?

Rounding out our 2026 Focus on Nevada Photo Contest winners and honorable mentions is the grand prize winner, Jarrod Ames! 🥇
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"This was very interesting; I had signed up for a photo walk with Fuji during WPPI and it had gotten cancelled due to the weather. So instead of shooting outdoors the shoot was moved indoors to The Usual Place near the arts district. Here I used one of the models and turned off the lights and used only the light from the flashlight to illuminate her. The story I was building in this shot was if the lights had gone out in the theater and she was backstage trying to turn them back on."
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2,000 images. 600 submissions. 28 winners. Those are the numbers behind the countless perspectives you shared with us. Every year, we’re reminded just how diverse the meaning of home is for hundreds of artists across the Silver State.

The team at Desert Companion and Nevada Public Radio is still coming down from the excitement of last week’s gallery, but we want to thank everyone once again who submitted to this year’s Focus on Nevada Photo Contest for sharing a piece of home with us.

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⭐ The fun’s not over yet! We’ll be highlighting some of the wonderful artists from this year’s contest over the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for features and reflections from some of your favorite photographers from the event!

🔗 Visit KNPR.org to take a peek at Desert Companion’s newest photo issue, and see the full roundup of winners!