What is Fallon, Nevada best known for?

Fallon is famous for its "Hearts of Gold" cantaloupe. We actually grow cantaloupe here in the valley and we have an annual festival named after that fruit called the Hearts of Gold Cantaloupe Festival. It's every Labor Day weekend. And the reason we grow cantaloupe and crops all in the high desert in Northern Nevada is because Fallon is the home of the first land reclamation project in the United States at the turn of the century. Roosevelt wanted to settle the west and created a way to build farms out here in Fallon by diverting some of the waters in the Carson River. That's how Fallon got its start; with an attempt to reclaim the land from the desert and populate the west with small farms. Fallon is also a home to Naval Air Station. Fallon is where the Naval Air Warfare school Top Gun is located. So Fallon is the home of Top Gun. It's where the movie was filmed as well. Fallon is also the seat of Churchill County in Nevada. There are a couple of other things that are very noteworthy about Fallon. Fallon has some globally important wetlands along the pacific flyway and so Fallon has some world class bird watching that takes place out here. Water is few and far between as you're flying across the desert so we have an awful lot of birds that come into the area, so birding in the spring and waterfowl hunting in the fall are very important tourism related activities that go on here. Fallon is desert located about 4000 feet above sea level in the high deserts in Northern Nevada. Fallon is at 3960 feet above sea level. So if you're used to running a marathon at sea level, it might be a little bit more difficult here, but its not like the Mile High Stadium in Denver where you need oxygen. But the altitude is very mild compared to other places and very easy to get used to. If you know the State of Nevada, Reno is in the north and Las Vegas is in the south and Fallon is just 60 miles east of Reno, so we are in Northern Nevada. It's located on Highway 50, the loneliest road in the United States. It is called that because some writer from Life magazine dubbed it the loneliest road when he was driving through. He said "Lord, someone needs survival skills to drive that road." And the state's Commission on Tourism picked up on that quote and (tongue-in-cheek) created the "Loneliest Road in America" campaign. So we do have a survival kit that we give to people that come to Fallon and travel Highway 50. You can have your survival kit stamped in each community that you go through and you mail that back to the state and they will send out a bumper sticker, a certificate and a key chain that says you survived the loneliest road in America