Nevada Smith: The wonders of Windmill Ridge

Back in the 1850s, Mormon pioneers and cattle thieves came to the Pahranagat Valley for its plentiful water. The Mormons settled. The rustlers moved on.

In the 1860s, miners combed the nearby Irish Mountains in search of silver and found some. When Nevada writer Dan De Quille went searching for a fantastical locale to set one of his world-famous hoax stories, he decided to title it “The Traveling Stones of Pahranagat.”

Today, travelers on two-lane US 93 have their own reasons for passing through the Pahranagat Valley with its shimmering desert lakes and roadside springs. But if they stop, chances are it’s for the baked goods or a meal at Alamo’s Windmill Ridge Restaurant & Lodging about 90 miles north of Las Vegas.

Along a stretch of highway where good places to eat are scarcer than De Quille’s notorious rolling rocks, the Windmill has a mirage-like quality. With its 15 cabins, restaurant and bakery, it seems almost like a dream – and that’s before you bite into a cinnamon roll or piece of pie.

For longtime friends Kim Turley and Kris Higbee, the Windmill simply is a dream come true. But it’s a vision that has taken several shapes in the past decade.

Turley is an Alamo native whose folks for many years ran the Chevron station. She graduated from Pahranagat High. (As Turley deadpans, “I actually was born in Las Vegas. There’s nowhere to be born here.”) Utah-native Higbee married a Pahranagat Valley man many years ago.

Together, the women fantasized about opening their own place. It would look a little like a country farmhouse with pine siding: lots of wood and small-town charm. For three years while they searched for a bank to finance their plans and learned that lending institutions don’t often loan money for entrepreneurs from places that aren’t easy to find on a map. So for three years they ran a restaurant out of a rental space in Alamo. Eventually, they landed the real estate they wanted and built the restaurant.

It opened as the national economy was chilling into a recession.

“We opened it up and it did really good,” Turley recalls. “And then the economy about killed us.”  Again they sought help for their business. This time, they found a benefactor in Phyllis Frias, whose husband, the late cab company owner Charles Frias, owned land in the area. The Frias family bought the Windmill last year and was wise enough to make sure Turley and Higbee ran the day-to-day operation.

When told her place is like an oasis, Turley laughs a little and offers, “People say that.”  Good food in an isolated location – about 90 miles from Las Vegas, 50 from Caliente, and 150 from Ely -  was at the heart of the business plan.

“That was one of the reasons we wanted to do it,” Turley says. “We always wanted to have a restaurant, and there was nowhere between Las Vegas and Ely that was too good. We just kind of added cabins to that. We’ve been trying to make it more of a destination instead of a pass-through. We don’t know anything else other than home cooking and home baking. It’s all homemade. It’s what our mothers and grandmothers taught us.”

Although they’re no longer the owners of record, Turley and Higbee have managed to maintain a pride of ownership. The individually themed cabins reflect their sense of interior decoration. Their business-marketing plan has expanded to include weddings and family reunions with Dutch-oven cooking.

In this part of Nevada, there are plenty of weddings and reunions. Although Alamo supports only 400 or so residents, the town’s 2001 centennial attracted 4,000 people, most of whom had familial connections to the Pahranagat Valley.

These days, folks come through Alamo for many reasons.

Once they experience Windmill Ridge, they may never want to leave.