The Middlegate Shoe Tree

No one can say for certain how it started. The most-repeated local legend, told by the family that runs nearby Middlegate Station, is that a newlywed couple argued on their wedding night, and the groom threw his bride's shoes into the tree to keep her from leaving. They made up, the story goes, came back to add their children's shoes, and others followed until the branches filled.

Whatever the true origin, the ritual took hold. Passing drivers on one of the emptiest highways in the country would stop, tie their laces together, and heave a pair up into the cottonwood, leaving a small mark of themselves in a place where there is otherwise nothing but sagebrush and sky. Over the years the shoes numbered in the hundreds.

In late December 2010, vandals sawed down the original tree, and the news traveled fast among road-trippers and locals who had come to love it. The people of Middlegate salvaged part of the trunk and turned it into tabletops that still sit in the station's bar, keeping a piece of the original alive.

The story did not end there. A second cottonwood had already been growing beside the old one, and by the mid-2010s people had begun tossing their shoes into the new tree, laces knotted the same way. The comeback of the shoe tree became its own small legend, a reminder that a good roadside tradition is harder to kill than one tree.

The shoe tree sits on US-50 across central Nevada, a route a 1980s magazine article dubbed the Loneliest Road in America, meant as a warning and embraced by Nevada as a badge of honor. The highway crosses one wide desert valley and mountain range after another, with long gaps between the small towns of Fallon, Austin, Eureka, and Ely.

That emptiness is the whole appeal. Driving it, a shoe-covered cottonwood standing alone in the sage is exactly the kind of human, slightly absurd landmark that makes the vastness feel less lonely. It is one of a scattering of oddities, from a leaning outhouse to old mining camps, that reward travelers willing to take the slow road across the middle of Nevada.

The tree is an unmarked pullout beside the highway, with no services, so top off your fuel and carry water before the long stretches between towns. If you want to take part, bring an old pair of shoes to add to the branches, and take only photos otherwise.

A few miles west, Middlegate Station is the nearest outpost for food, fuel, restrooms, and the tabletops made from the old tree, a fitting place to hear the story. The stop itself is quick, but on a long desert drive it is the kind of small, strange, human moment that people remember long after the miles blur together.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.