Western Folklife Center

Folk Arts Centre In The Restored Pioneer Hotel In Elko; Home Of The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Held Each January Since 1985 · Elko, Nevada

The Western Folklife Center is a nonprofit folk arts organisation based in the restored Pioneer Hotel on Railroad Street in Elko, a ranching and gold-mining town on Interstate 80 in northeastern Nevada. It is best known as the home of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, a week of poetry, music, dance, workshops and talk about ranch life held every January since 1985, which draws working cowboys, ranch families, poets, musicians and fans from across the American West and beyond. The rest of the year the building is quiet: a small gallery of exhibits on Western ranch culture and crafts, a shop, a performance space and the Pioneer Saloon with its old carved back bar. Taken on its own it is a short stop, so this row also covers Elko as a base: its Basque boarding-house dinners and picon punch, the saddle, bit and spur makers, the Northeastern Nevada Museum, the California Trail Interpretive Center west of town, and the road to Lamoille Canyon and the Ruby Mountains.

501 Railroad Street, Elko, Nevada, 89801, United States

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The typical pattern: outside the Gathering, the gallery and shop open on set weekdays, often roughly 10 am to 5 pm, and are closed on some days and holidays; the Pioneer Saloon keeps limited or event-only hours. During the Gathering in late January the building runs from morning sessions to late-night music. The traps that ruin a day are pulling off I-80 on a closed day, arriving for the Gathering with no room booked, assuming a day pass covers the evening headliners, getting stuck by an I-80 closure before a show, and losing an hour at the Mountain-time Utah line. Confirm current times before relying on them.

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