"A friend and I drove into Gardnerville on a midweek afternoon earlier this month, between the lunch rush and the dinner rush. Besides the passing cars on the main street, the town was quiet, baking beneath the hot August sun. The restaurant is easy to spot. It's an old white building with a front porch in the middle of town. Red-and-white signs on each side of the building advertise Basque lunch and dinner."
"I opened the front door and stepped into what felt like a time capsule: The place feels like a restaurant and saloon that existed decades ago, when ranchers and cowboys slid onto the barstools. The building itself dates back to the 1870s and the Comstock Lode, originally built in Virginia City. In 1896, it was moved to its Gardnerville location. Eventually, the Jaunsaras and Trounday families - the J and the T of J.T. - turned it into a Basque hotel, saloon and dining hall."
"In 1947, Jean Lekumberry left his home in the Basque region of southern France and immigrated to the United States. The 22-year-old landed in the Carson Valley with $32. An uncle helped him find a job as a sheepherder. By then, Nevada's Great Basin had a well-established community of Basque people. California's Gold Rush and then Nevada's silver Comstock Lode drew the first Basque sheepherders out West. But like many newcomers, rather than pan for gold or venture deep into the earth to mine for silver, Basque immigrants realized a more fruitful path could be found in raising livestock."
J.T. Basque Bar and Dining Room in Gardnerville serves French Basque cuisine within a historic building that dates to the 1870s and was moved from Virginia City in 1896. The Jaunsaras and Trounday families converted the building into a Basque hotel, saloon and dining hall. Jean Lekumberry immigrated from the Basque region of southern France in 1947 and found work as a sheepherder in Carson Valley. Basque settlers established communities in Nevada due to sheepherding tied to the Gold Rush and Comstock Lode and many turned to ranching in Northern Nevada and California's Central Valley.
Read at SFGATE
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