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