Home Away From Home: A History of Basque Boardinghouses

By Jeronima Echeverria

In this meticulously researched study of Basque boardinghouses in the United States, Jeronima Echeverria offers a compelling history of the institution that most deeply shaped Basque immigrant life and served as the center of Basque communities throughout the West. She weaves into her narrative the stories of the boarding house owners and operators and the ways they made their establishments a home away from home for their fellow compatriots, as well as the stories of the young Basques who left the security of their beloved homeland to find work in the United States.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Nevada Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 1999
• ISBN: 9780874173918

Book preview

Home Away from Home

A HISTORY OF BASQUE BOARDINGHOUSES

Jeronima Echeverria

UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA PRESS

RENO & LAS VEGAS

Basque Series Editor: William A. Douglass

University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada 89557 USA

Copyright © 1999 by University of Nevada Press

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Design by Kristina Kachele

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Echeverria, Jeronima, 1946–

Home away from home : a history of Basque boardinghouses / by Jeronima Echeverria.

p.    cm. — (Basque Series)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-87417-329-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Hotels—West (U.S.)—History.    2. Boardinghouses—West (U.S.)—History.    3. Basque Americans—West (U.S.)—History.    I. Title.    II. Series.

TX909.E28        1999

647.9478′03′0899992—dc21        99-20593

CIP

This book has been reproduced as a digital reprint.

ISBN 978-1-948908-52-8 (paper : alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-87417-391-8 (electronic)

for my parents, Sofia and David

and for my friend Lentxo

Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Maps

List of Tables

Preface

PROLOGUE. Lentxo: Coming to Amerika, Basque-Style

ONE. From Euskal Herria to the New World

TWO. From the Mother Lode to the Great Basin

THREE. Ostatu Amerikanuak: The Basque-American Boardinghouse

FOUR. The Earliest Hotels

FIVE. Los Angeles and San Francisco: Two Early Basque Towns

SIX. Southern California’s Spin-Off Hotels: The Legacy of Los Angeles’s Early Basque Town

SEVEN. The Golden Years in the Great Basin and Beyond

EIGHT. Boise’s Basque Town and Its Spin-Offs

NINE. Stockton’s Basque Town and Northern California Ostatuak

TEN. Inside the Ostatu Euskalduna

ELEVEN. Etxeko Amak, Second Mothers: The Women of the Basque Boardinghouses

TWELVE. Basque Boardinghouses in Other Settings

THIRTEEN. Agur Ostatuak

EPILOGUE. Agur Lentxo

APPENDIX A. Basque Population in the United States, 1980 and 1990

APPENDIX B. Chronological Listing of Ostatuak

APPENDIX C. Ostatuak and Their Owners/Operators

Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

A room at the Star Hotel, Elko, Nevada

Valentin Aguirre

A celebration in a Basque boardinghouse, Alturas, California, ca. 1920

Hotel exteriors and their external light sources

Hotel fronts and their floor plans

Aguirre’s hotel in San Francisco, California

Bernardo Altube standing in front of the Hotel Vasco, San Francisco, California, ca. 1870

First- and second-floor plans for the Santa Fe Hotel, Fresno, California

Joe Borderre’s French Hotel, Santa Barbara, California, ca. 1915

The Star Hotel with sign, Elko, Nevada

Louis Erreguible and J. T. Lekumberry, ca. 1980

The Martin Hotel, Winnemucca, Nevada

The Martin Hotel, exterior elevations

The Martin Hotel, floor plans

Tomasa Alcorta standing in front of the Martin Hotel, 1937

Bridge House, Paradise Valley, Nevada

Bridge House, section drawing

The Star Hotel and its proprietors, ca. 1920

The Star Hotel, north elevation, Elko, Nevada

The Star Hotel, floor plans

J. T. Lekumberry tending bar, early 1960s

The Anduiza Hotel in Boise, Idaho

Anduiza’s interior ball court with pala players

The Anduiza Hotel, west and north elevations

The Anduiza Hotel, longitudinal section

The Anduiza Hotel, basement floor plan

The Anduiza Hotel, first floor plan

Boise’s Basque Museum

The Uberuaga, elevations and floor plans, Boise, Idaho

Madariaga’s Boardinghouse in Jordan Valley, Oregon, ca. 1930

The Madariaga Boardinghouse in Jordan Valley, Oregon, ca. 1918

Urbano, Albert, Mary, and Elvida Pedroarena in front of the Buena Vista Hotel in Alturas, California

Interior hallway and a room at the Star Hotel, Elko, Nevada

Basque herders and sheepmen dancing the jota

Basque herders’ Christmas dinner, Buena Vista Hotel, Alturas, California, 1947

Elvira Cenoz with William A. Douglass

Six of Fresno’s best-known hoteleras

The Winnemucca Hotel as it appears today

The Winnemucca Hotel

The Winnemucca Hotel planning stages

A wedding celebration at a Stockton, California, boardinghouse, ca. 1920

The author with Lentxo Echanis and John Yturry, 1988

MAPS

1. Euskal Herria

2. Rail System and Basque Settlement in the American West

3. Basque-American Settlement Patterns

4. Distribution of Basques in the United States

5. Major Basque communities with Ostatuak

6. Communities with Ostatuak in California

7. Los Angeles’s Basque Town, ca. 1891

8. Hotel de France and Hotel Pyrenees, Los Angeles

9. Los Angeles’s Basque Town, ca. 1920

10. San Francisco’s Basque Town, ca. 1899

11. San Francisco’s Post-Quake Hotels

12. Noriega Hotel, Bakersfield

13. Reno’s Basque Town

14. Communities with Ostatuak in Nevada

15. Communities with Ostatuak in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Montana

16. Boise’s Basque Town, 1920s

17. Communities with Ostatuak in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington

18. Stockton’s Basque Town

TABLES

2.1 Basque-American Populations in Four Western States, 1900 and 1910

3.1 Occupations of Basques in 1900 and 1910

4.1 Guests of Plaza Hotel, San Juan Bautista, California, 1863–1866

4.2 Staff of Plaza Hotel, San Juan Bautista, California, 1870

5.1 Los Angeles’s Ostatuak, 1872–1890

5.2 Los Angeles’s Ostatuak in the 1890s

5.3 Los Angeles’s Basque Population, 1900 and 1910

5.4 Los Angeles’s Ostatuak, 1900–1910

5.5 San Francisco’s Ostatuak, 1866–1906

5.6 Origins of San Francisco’s Basque Population, 1900 and 1910

5.7 Post-Quake Hotels

7.1 Reno Ostatuak, 1900–Present

7.2 Chronological Listing of Nevada’s Ostatuak

7.3 Elko’s Ostatuak

8.1 Boise’s Early Boardinghouses and Rooming Houses, 1891–1920

8.2 Boise’s Ostatuak in the 1920s

8.3 Boise Ostatuak since the 1920s

8.4 Other Ostatuak in Idaho

9.1 Stockton’s Basque Hotels, 1907–1970

12.1 The Clemençot Hotel Register

13.1 Boardinghouses Still Operating in California and Nevada

Preface

For the past century and a half, Basque immigrants have relied upon the ostatua Amerikanuak (hotels and boardinghouses of the American Basques) to help them find their way in the American West. At the Basque hotels, they found a familiar language, cuisine, and culture to ease their way in their new homeland. In later decades, generation after generation of their offspring returned to the ostatuak to discover and maintain their Basque identity.

Despite the fact that this ethnic institution was critical to Basques’ adaptation to the New World and that the ostatuak were the major ethnic institution of Basques before the arrival of their families, next to nothing has been written about them. Home Away From Home records the emergence of Basque boardinghouses and describes their critical role in Basque-American communities.

This work on the ostatu Amerikanuak is the result of several treasured personal and professional experiences. When I was younger, my parents David and Sofia took me, my brother, and sister to Robidart’s Centro Vasco Hotel, to La Puente’s Valley Hotel, and to Bakersfield’s Noriega and Amestoy Hotels. With them, in these settings, we learned about the ostatuak firsthand.

Years later, under the tutelage of generous and patient mentors William A. Douglass, Richard W. Etulain, and Gus Seligmann, this work developed into a scholarly pursuit. Without Seligmann’s encouragement, Douglass’s vision, and Etulain’s editorial guidance, the project would not have materialized. Librarians, research assistants, and colleagues at the Basque Studies Library in Reno, at the Idaho Historical in Boise, at the Bancroft in Berkeley, and at the Henry Madden Library at California State University, Fresno, have provided invaluable assistance and encouragement. Robert Boyd of Oregon’s High Desert Museum shared his photographs for this book and deserves special thanks. Professor Thomas Carter and his students from the University of Utah’s School of Architecture contributed their field drawings of existing ostatuak. Some, like graduate assitant Dominique Comeyne, copy editor Maggie Carr, and Sara Vélez Mallea of the Basque Book Series have given an extra measure to improve the quality of the manuscript. Perhaps most importantly, hundreds of Amerikanuak—like Lentxo Echanis, Lyda Esain, and Elena Celayeta Talbott, Lucia Osa, Jay Hormaechea, and Maria Echanis—gave me the heart and soul of this work by allowing me the privilege of sharing their stories here.

Most scholars dealing with Basque topics have to wrestle with the highly dialectical Basque language, Euskara. That is, should one use the modern unified version of Basque, batua, throughout the narrative? If so, should batua replace the native speaker’s voice if he or she is speaking in Bizkaian, for example? If the speaker is a Basque who has long since dropped his native Euskara and has adopted Spanish as his primary language, what should be done? I have chosen the speaker’s voice when possible, employing Basque and non-Basque terms when they were used consistently by the people I interviewed. Thus batua, Gipuzkoan, French, or broken English may appear in direct quotations. When linguistic variations among Amerikanuak have appeared, I have attempted to select terms mostly closely associated with the speakers or regions under study.

Additional methodological questions arise when one is considering the ostatuak. In several locations, for example, boardinghouses were known by the operator’s surname, but the business either had no name or if there was one it was unattainable. Occasionally only a mention of an ostatu exists. That is, a few people have reported that they remembered hearing of the place, but documentation was not available. Also census takers, public recorders, and local authors have frequently misspelled Basque surnames. In these cases, the spelling appears as it was discovered in the historical record, with likely errors noted for accuracy in the endnotes.

This book began over ten years ago when I started visiting Basque picnics throughout the eleven Western states and asking for information on the ostatuak. At each Basque picnic, I identified the community elders, asked them about the local ostatuak, and asked them who could tell me more. This process, repeated several times over, resulted in a remarkable journey. Interviewing led me into hoteleros’ homes, into their lives, into county and statewide historical collections, into private holdings of letters, memorabilia, and artifacts, out on the range and into the mountains. Although the ostatuak presented herein were often located first within the memory span of the people I spoke with or whose interviews I consulted, historical documentation, scholarly and popular literature, and local directories corroborated their existence. And although this study has generated more ostatuak than have been previously collected, several Basque boardinghouses lie beyond human memory and will remain unrecorded. For them, and for those I remember fondly, I offer this history of the Basuqe ostatu in the full knowledge that several may remain unrecorded.

Prologue

Lentxo: Coming to Amerika, Basque-Style

Like so many sons and daughters of Euskadi, as a sixteen-year-old Lentxo Echanis braved the Atlantic in the first decades of the twentieth century to come to America. And, like so many of his countrymen, over the course of his eighty years in the United States he relied upon Basque boardinghouses. In exchange for the promise of loyal patronage and friendship, Basque hoteleros provided food and shelter, arranged jobs, encouraged recreation, and served as translators for Lentxo and other newly arrived Basques.¹ Unlike the hotels and pensiones of Euskadi, however, the ostatu was a New World institution, appearing first in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, Uruguay, and later in California immediately following the gold rush.²

In the early decades of the twentieth century, Basque boardinghouses spread throughout the American West, and eventually they sprung up on the eastern seaboard once transcontinental travel via railway was established in the 1870s. Thus the network of ostatuak crisscrossing the United States and the influential hoteleros who operated them were critical to the immigration story of the Basques, especially during their peak years of immigration, 1890–1930. The Basques’ immigration experience is reflected in Lentxo Enchanis’s sojourn to Amerika, his rail trip crossing the Great Plains, his settlement in the Boise and Steens Mountain area, and his eventual resettlement in southern California.

In 1914, at the age of sixteen, Lentxo decided to leave his birthplace and go to work in Amerika. He had received a letter from his older brothers Joe and Jack who reported that work in the Crowley, Crane, and Steen’s Mountain area of southeastern Oregon was plentiful and rewarding. The elder Echanises encouraged him to leave Mutriku, Gipuzkoa, and join them quickly, because they had expanded their herd and desperately needed an additional herder. When the letter arrived, Lentxo was earning seventy centavos a day working at a rifle and munitions factory in the neighboring village of Eibar.³ He was putting in a minimum of six ten-hour days per week, paying his employers for room and board on the premises, sharing a healthy portion of his take-home pay with his parents, and dreaming of a more comfortable future.

Lentxo’s parents, Benita and Joxemari, were saddened by their youngest son’s decision to leave, but they were not surprised. Because his parents rented their small baserri overlooking Mutriku, neither Lentxo nor his older siblings could inherit the Echanis baserri, mendi beltza, meaning black or dark mountain. Later in life Lentxo described his options as a young man: Back there, I had no future. But here I had brothers in sheep. You know, it’s a sad thing, thinking of my mother and father, that all of their children came here. But there were no chances for us in Mutriku.⁴

Lentxo’s final days at the factory passed quickly as he dreamt of his future in America. After his last week at the factory, on Sunday morning he walked through Eibar heading for the bus that would take him to Mutriku s central plaza, just as he had always done on his usual Sunday visits home. He anticipated his climb up the steep hills overlooking Mutriku to mendi beltza. Lentxo envisioned the family’s meager kitchen and remembered scenes from his childhood. Over the years he, his brothers and parents had sat around that table, each holding a hand-carved spoon and eating from the family’s only wooden bowl, placed at the center of the table so that all could reach it. The bowl usually contained warm cornmeal and milk at dawn or a hearty garlic-laced soup at sunset. As he approached mendi beltza he mused to himself that it seemed odd that although the family now had more dishes, only two of us will remain to use them. He wondered whether he or his brothers would ever return, thinking, "Will I be the last Echanis to talk with Ama and Aita? Will this be my final time at mendi beltza?" He had a feeling he would never see his parents or the family home ever again. In both regards his suspicions were borne out in later years.

During that final stay in the baserri of his childhood, Lentxo spent a few weeks helping his father clear land and work the crops. He said his good-byes to neighbors and extended family, arranged his travel plans, and raised money for the trip. Of the $150 he thought he would need, Lentxo had saved one third from his work in Eibar. A generous aunt loaned him the balance—and it took him over a decade to repay the loan. Arranging for passports in Gernika, reserving train travel to Hendaia and sea passage by steamship, and buying an $11 travel suit constituted Lentxo’s largest pre-trip expenses. The teenager monitored his expenditures carefully. He had to have money on hand upon arrival in the United States, since he knew he would be required to present $30 in gold at the Ellis Island Immigration Center and that the cost of traveling across the United States might be steep.

Lentxo left Europe for the United States just before World War I erupted, as did tens of thousands of other southern Europeans. When the train from his homeland arrived at Hendaia, France, where he would embark on his ocean voyage, he headed for the harbor immediately. Dock-side, he spotted an enormous white ship with gray and black smoke billowing from its two smokestacks. It was the largest oceangoing vessel he had ever seen, and certainly the first he had seen close up. Within a few hours the somewhat stunned sixteen-year-old was climbing her gangplanks with about five hundred other anxious travelers.⁵ Owing to unseasonably rough weather, the crossing that was anticipated to take six days took fourteen. During the four most violent days of the journey, the seasick, disoriented teenager clung to his bunk, because he found climbing to the main deck and battling the relentless motion of the ship more nauseating than lying still.

On the one calm night during the two-week journey, on the evening after the storm had passed, a Basque bound for Homedale, Idaho, named Toritxu led the small Basque contingent from the steerage compartment up to the main deck. There Toritxu played his concertina while his fellow passengers danced the aurresku and porrusalda. Lentxo described the scene many decades later: It was the only peaceful or happy time I remember on the ship. We were happy to have made it through the storm, and I was happy to have a few Gipuzkoans and Bizkaians to talk and dance with.

That same evening, Lentxo danced with a young woman whom he later referred to as Maitia from Lekeitio. In the following days of the journey, they talked frequently, discovering to their mutual delight that they were both destined for work in southern Idaho and southeastern Oregon. Soon thereafter, Lentxo, Maitia, and a few of their traveling companions vowed to take the transcontinental portion of their journey together, and, thereafter, to stay in contact after they settled in America.

When they arrived at the Ellis Island Immigration Center, however, the ship’s Basque contingent was separated into three lines in the Great Reception Hall. After passing through a series of waiting lines and intimidating inspections together, Lentxo and Toritxu exited the building with relief and excitement. Joining some of the other Basques who had collected outside, they learned that Maitia had been detained within. One of the women told them that an inspector had spotted Maitia’s slightly deformed left hand, and that Maitia would be sent back to Hendaia on the same ship that had carried them across the Atlantic. Despite the Basques’ pleas for leniency on Maitia’s behalf, the inspectors stood firm. Much later in life Lentxo remembered how he felt about learning the news that Maitia would not be permitted to enter the United States: My heart was sick. I didn’t even know if I wanted to stay here anymore. Inside there [Ellis] we were treated like a bunch of stupid jackasses in a line. Now they weren’t going to let that sweet girl come in. We couldn’t say good-bye to her or nothing.

Lentxo and the small band of sojourners had no choice but to recoil from the news and collect themselves, for they had gained admission and could not turn back. Thankfully, their spirits lifted dramatically when they heard a young man shouting, "Kaixo. Eskualduna zara? (Hello. Are there any Basques here?")⁶ After a brief moment of disbelief, the small band joyfully scurried to the man’s side. It was Tomas Aguirre. He and his brothers Peter and John used to take turns welcoming transatlantic arrivals from Spain and France and escorting elated patrons to their father’s famous boardinghouse on Cherry Street in Greenwich Village.

As others have noted, the boardinghouse of Benita and Valentin Aguirre was legendary among Basque Americans. In addition to greeting newcomers warmly, Valentin had become known for being a master at arranging all the details of traveling in this vast country. He helped fellow Basques book travel to and from New York City, recommended other ostatuak along the way, and, with the help of his sons, delivered sojourners to their point of departure on time. In fact, numerous Basque Americans have referred to Aguirre’s as the Basque travel agency of its time. Consequently, many Basques—including Lentxo—would return to the Aguirres’ boardinghouse decades later while en route to Euskadi, or during subsequent trips to the eastern seaboard. They would also strongly encourage their friends and relatives to stop at Valentin’s whenever they were traveling through or to New York City.

For two days and one night, Lentxo enjoyed the familiar and warm surroundings of Valentin’s boardinghouse on Cherry Street. There he recovered from his seafaring voyage, ate heartily, discussed Idaho and Oregon with newfound friends, and prepared for the long train ride west. When he was ready to depart, one of Valentin’s sons took him to the train station, handed him a package of sandwiches, fruit, and wine, and pointed him in the direction of the westward-bound train.

Lentxo showed the train conductor a detailed note, written by Valentin in English, describing the details of his route. As Echanis recalled years later, he showed that slip of paper to everyone he encountered between New York and Boise. At times during the three-thousand-mile trek, Echanis found himself either staring at Valentin’s indecipherable handwriting or unconsciously clinging to the one slip of paper that made him and his destination intelligible to strangers.

In 1914 Ogden, Utah, was the end of the line for direct rail travel from New York and the major switching station for westward-bound train travel. As Lentxo stepped onto the train platform in Ogden, he spotted a row of small businesses across the street, among them the small Basque boardinghouse that Valentin Aguirre had described. To Lentxo’s delight, it was as easy to find as Valentin had promised. Even though he could neither read nor speak English, Lentxo had successfully negotiated the first leg of his journey across America. At that Ogden boardinghouse, Lentxo ate, bathed, and slept soundly in his sparsely furnished room. The next morning, he had breakfast with some Basque herders from the Intermountain and Great Basin regions. He listened attentively to their stories about herding, about dealing with Americans, and about surviving the long days and nights in the sheep camps. Early that afternoon, after checking to see if he still had Valentin’s instructions, the young Gipuzkoan walked back across the street, held up his note and tickets, and boarded a train bound for Boise. On the train, a Pocatello-bound Basque named Domingo called Lentxo over to sit with him. Later they stopped and dined at the small rooming house owned by Domingo’s cousin in Pocatello, and Lentxo was tempted to linger a few nights before moving on to Boise. But reluctantly Lentxo moved on. Had he had the time while en route to Boise, Lentxo also could have visited Florencio and Antonia Uriaguerecas’ boardinghouse in Gooding or Jose Bengochea’s Basque Hotel in Mountain Home.⁷ But Lentxo was compelled to follow his brothers’ instructions, which were to go directly to a Basque hotel in Boise and stay there until we come into town for you. By the time Lentxo reached Idaho, he had begun to realize that boardinghouses and the Basques who frequented them were generally easy to locate. Most boardinghouses could be found a block or two from a railroad station, and to make sure he had the right place he had only to stand near the front door of a prospective ostatu and listen for the voices of his countrymen speaking Euskara within. With less trepidation than in Ogden, then, he disembarked in Boise and began looking for the towns Basque district.⁸

This time, however, the search proved more difficult. The Boise train station was unique in that it was a little farther from the central ostatuak on Idaho, Grove, and Eighth Streets. When Lentxo exited the station, he stared at the Boise River and the bluff that rose up above it. Behind him were the comparatively tall buildings of downtown Boise with the state capitols dome towering above them. Remembering that Valentin and Peter Aguirre had described numerous boardinghouses as being located in the center of town, Lentxo set off on foot in the direction of what seemed to be downtown.

A few minutes after crossing the tracks of the Oregon Short Line, he entered a busy neighborhood where he heard Euskara being spoken. In very little time he knew he was in the right neighborhood and began inquiring about where he might find a night’s lodging.⁹ There was a long list of ostatuak to choose from in those days: among them Benito Arego’s, José Arregui’s, the Uberuagas’, Anduiza’s, the Belausteguis’, Barbero’s, Antonio Letemendi’s, Frank Aguirre’s, Jayo’s, the Capitol Rooms, and the DeLamar Hotel.¹⁰ Decades later Lentxo confided that he had had two criteria for choosing Barbero’s: Well, first ole’ Barbero was from Lekeitio—not far from my Mutriku—and knew some of my people. Second, his place had one of those player pianos, you know. When I heard that music, that’s where I had to stay.

Lentxo passed three or four relaxing days before his brother Jack arrived to retrieve him. While waiting, Lentxo discovered that many of Boise’s Bascos were Gipuzkoanos and Bizkainos.¹¹ Their familiar dialects put him at ease in this new place, where he enjoyed talking with compatriots from Mutriku, Eibar, Gernika, Lekeitio, and other coastal villages that he had only heard a little about in the Old Country. As it happened, it had been a long winter, many herders were in town that spring, since they were staying close to their home bases while awaiting summer grazing season.

When Jack Echanis reached town, he began asking after his younger brother. It was only a few hours before the two were united. After talk of home and the voyage, the conversation turned to work in the sheep camps. The next morning the two brothers rose before the sun and rode west out of Boise, hoping to make Ontario before nightfall. In Ontario they were joined by Txomin Patchuaga, another Mutrikan who had worked with Jack and Joe in eastern Oregon. From Ontario the three horsemen started for their Juntura camp, accompanied by two pack mules loaded with supplies for their newest herder.

Within three weeks of saying good-bye to Benita and Joxemari in Mutriku, after a number of new experiences, including an extended and stressful transatlantic crossing and a lengthy transcontinental train ride, Lentxo sat by a campfire in southeastern Oregon, listening to the sheep in the quiet of a High Desert night. All too soon Jack, Joe, and Txomin would leave, and Lentxo would begin his intensive on-the-job training. As he nervously surveyed the thousands of sheep, two sleepy dogs, a tent, pack mule, rifle, cooking gear, and his new leather boots, he marveled at how far he had come and wondered what the future might hold for him.

Although Lentxo Echanis was unaware of it throughout his life, his story of coming to Amerika was representative of the experiences of many Basque immigrants coming to the Western United States between 1890 and 1930. At every critical turn in his journey, he placed his fate in the hands of the ostatuak and their hoteleros. Whether it was Aguirre’s well-developed transportation center in New York City or the Ogden boardinghouse, or the tiny house in Pocatello, the network of ethnic boardinghouses made it possible for Lentxo to cross the continent without a personal guide, without knowing English, and without understanding Americans or their customs. Whether en route from Mutriku to a Steen’s Mountain sheep camp or, years later, making his way from Boise to Los Angeles, Lentxo relied on services he could find only in the Basque boardinghouses. Although there was no equivalent to the ostatuak in his homeland, like other Basques who preceded or succeeded him he learned of America’s ostatuak out of necessity and often by word of mouth.

After joining his brothers, Lentxo herded sheep on the ranges and mountains of eastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho from 1914 through 1922. During those years, the local Basque boardinghouses became his home away from home. In addition to providing a roof, a bed, and a bath when he was off the range, they provided entertainment and social contacts in the form of music, card games, and dances.

When he had a free day, Lentxo usually rode down to the railway shipping center in Crane, Oregon, where there was a small boardinghouse owned and operated by Andy Urquidi.¹² If he had more time he might travel farther afield to the larger Star rooming house in Burns, Oregon, and stay there with his friend Chino Berdugo.¹³ From early 1922 on, Lentxo regularly stopped at Echanis’s in Ontario, where his brother Jack and sister-in-law Marie had opened their own boardinghouse on Oregon Street.¹⁴

On the rare occasions when Lentxo had a few weeks to journey back to Boise’s Basque district, he preferred to stay at Barbero’s or Anduiza’s. At both boardinghouses he appreciated the home-style cooking, enjoyed talking with other Basques, and sought out recent arrivals who might carry news of Mutriku. On Grove Street, he could happily play handball, dance on Sunday nights, and bluff his way through many a weak hand of mus.

Twice during the eight years he spent herding sheep in Idaho and Oregon Lentxo was told that his bosses had busted or gone broke. After the first incident, he and his brother Joe started their own herd and built it up gradually, but unfortunately three consecutive harsh winters wiped them out. Later, when Lentxo was twenty-four and working for another herder, his brother Joe told him that their boss was claiming to have lost all his profits in a poor banking investment. The younger Echanis was bitterly discouraged. He realized that he had little to show for his eight years of labor, and he was on the verge of making some life-changing decisions. As he described it years later, Me and my brother were standing on the side of the road there and the sheep weren’t ours. We weren’t watching our own sheep anymore, and I told my brother, ‘What the devil are we doing here?’ For Lentxo, herding for someone else in the hope that he and Joe might someday start on their own again made little sense. Even worse, he feared he might never be able to save enough money to get out of herding. He later remembered, I didn’t have ten cents in my pocket. There, on the side of the road, I nearly went crazy. I threw my shepherd’s crook as far as I could. I quit right there. I was so mad I started running the twenty-eight miles to Boise. I didn’t know what else to do.

After the disgruntled herder had run-walked about ten miles along the highway, a driver saw him and stopped to offer him a ride. In Boise, at a dry goods store where the owner had been kind to him in the past, Lentxo borrowed supplies, clothing, and a few personal items. He soon discovered that even in Boise it was difficult for herders who spoke only Euskara to find work in other trades. After a few months of picking up odd jobs for Boise hoteleros in exchange for room and board and working a few short-term ranch jobs, Lentxo was forced to return to herding. Only six months passed before he quit again. He couldn’t get beyond the frustration of working for over eight years and having little to show for it. This time he had a plan for starting over in Amerika.

Upon making his final break with herding, Lentxo decided to propose marriage to Felicia Madariaga. He had met Felicia at Andy Urquidi’s in Crane, Oregon, when he and his brothers drove spring lambs to the rail shipping center there.¹⁵ Felicia had left her home in Gernika, Bizkaia, upon the invitation of her cousins in Crane. When Lentxo met her, Felicia was serving meals, cleaning rooms, and pitching in with kitchen duties at Urquidi’s. Lentxo courted her there for two years before asking for her hand in 1922. Thereafter both Lentxo and Felicia worked resolutely to save enough for train fare to Los Angeles where, they had heard, work was plentiful and the climate was inviting.

With his new bride, Lentxo once again counted on the ostatuak to help him get by. During their first few months together, Lentxo and Felicia worked and lived in and around the boardinghouses of Boise and Crane. En route to Los Angeles, they stopped in Winnemucca, where they stayed in the boardinghouse of Henri and Augustina Martin. At that time, the Martins operated a small store, a restaurant, the rooms upstairs, and the adjacent Lafayette Hotel and Grill.¹⁶ There were a few other Basque-owned establishments in Winnemucca that the Echanises visited during their two-day stop. They walked a few doors up the tracks from the Martin to Etchegoyen’s Busch Hotel and also strolled across town to the not too distant Winnemucca Hotel, which featured a beautiful hand-carved oak bar that predated the Civil War.¹⁷ In addition to being the town’s oldest and largest hotel in 1922, by that time the Winnemucca had been Basque-owned and operated for decades.

From Winnemucca, the couple embarked upon the final leg of their journey by rail to southern California. Lentxo and Felicia had been told that there was a thriving Basque town not far from the downtown