The Shoe Tree of Middlegate

Near the one-horse town of Fallon, Nevada, on US Highway 50, the so-called “Loneliest Road in America,” set against a backdrop of barren, arid desert and mountains, grows a lone cottonwood tree strung with footwear. Trees decorated with objects–shoes, underwear, gum, or whatever else passersby have handy–are as wholesome as apple pie, and nearly as common in America. This shoe tree, however, has a particularly good story (and a lot of shoes) attached.

It happened like this: on a warm desert night, a newlywed couple camping beneath the large cottonwood got into an argument. The woman, a quick-tempered sort, threatened to walk away. “If you do,” growled the man, “you’ll have to walk barefoot.” He then proceeded to throw her shoes up into the tree and drive off to a nearby bar, where the bartender, an upstanding citizen if ever there was one, convinced him to return to his wife. He drove back to the cottonwood tree—needless to say, his wife was still there—and the couple managed to reconcile and live happily ever after. They returned several years later with their first child to throw his shoes up into the tree under which they had fought and reunited. The rest, as they say, is history.

Witness the footwear of generations gone by. Participate. Drive barefoot the rest of the way. In the summer, the shoes might look from afar like some odd fruit hanging from the leafy boughs of the cottonwood. In winter, they make a particularly impressive spectacle, set against a background of desert frost.

Alas, the original Shoe Tree was cut down by vandals on the night of December 30-31, 2010. However, a couple of nearby trees have since taken up the slack, and are now festooned with shoes themselves.