The story
National Basque Festival in Elko
The National Basque Festival is an annual celebration of Basque-American heritage in Elko, Nevada, a city with deep historical ties to Basque sheepherders who settled the region in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Elko's tourism authority lists it among the city's signature annual events alongside the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering and Silver State Stampede.
Basque immigrants began arriving in the American West in significant numbers during the mining and livestock booms of the mid-to-late nineteenth century, and many found steady work as sheepherders across the vast, sparsely populated rangeland of the Great Basin.