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History
 Eureka, Nevada, first settled in 1864, is located in the
heart of wild horse country in central Nevada. This town
is called the home of the American Curly Horse as a
breed. This remote ranching and mining town is also
named the Loneliest Town on the Loneliest Road in
America, U.S. Highway 50. The surrounding Great Basin
countryside is a high-altitude cold desert dominated by
sagebrush flats and surrounded by steep mountains. Only
the strongest people and animals survive this harsh
environment. However, there has always been a lure of
adventure about this remote region. Perhaps this is what
brought Giovanni (later called John) Damele to Eureka.
John Damele arrived in Eureka from Genoa, Italy in 1879.
He worked as a woodcutter for 11 years, helping provide
wood for the charcoal ovens that fueled smelter furnaces
for the local silver and lead mines. John saved up
enough money to bring his wife and three children from
Italy to join him in Eureka.
In 1898, John Damele and his family made a down payment
on the Three Bar Ranch northwest of Eureka near the
Roberts Creek Mountains. The Damele family began raising
cattle and horses. He and his two boys while riding,
checking cattle saw horses with “curly hair” running
with the mustang wild horse herds. The sight of horses
with long curly hair was not easily forgotten. Wild
horses in Nevada originated from several sources,
primarily from animals that were released by or escaped
from Spanish explorers, ranchers, miners, the U.S.
Cavalry, and American Indians. Around 1931, the Dameles
caught a Curly horse out of the mustangs. They took this
horse back to the ranch, broke the horse to ride, and
latter sold it. According to Damele family history, this
was their first experience with handling and training
Curly horses.
In 1932 there was a devastating winter in the Three Bar
Ranch country. Deep snow and bitter cold hung on for
months. When spring came and the ranch horses were
gathered from where they had “wintered out,” the only
horses the Damele boys could find alive were the Curly
horses. All of the non-Curly horses had perished in this
hard winter. No one needed to tell the Dameles what they
had witnessed. This was a real turning point in their
thinking. True stockman that they were, they realized
that if the “curlies” could be broken to ride and turned
into cow horses, they certainly could be relied upon to
stay alive when other horses perished in the harsh
winters of Central Nevada.
In the fall of 1942 Peter L. Damele, John’s son, his
wife and two sons, Peter J. and Benny bought and moved
to the Dry Creek Ranch that lays 25 miles southwest of
the Three Bar Ranch. This ranch is on the Pony Express
trail. A Pony Express horse-changing station was located
near the Dry Creek Ranch headquarters during 1860 and
1861. They also purchased the Ackerman Ranch, which lays
12 miles north of Dry Creek.
 The Dameles registered the 3D brand. This brand is
placed on the left thigh on horses and left hip on
cattle. This 3D brand is still used on horses and cattle
on the Dry Creek and Ackerman ranches which the Dameles
own today.
The winter of 1951 and 1952 was another brutal, cold
winter with deep snow. When spring came, once again, the
only horses left alive were the Curlies. The Dameles
decided to start breeding Curly horses in earnest that
spring. Before that, Curlies had just been around in the
horse herd. They caught their first Curly horse stud out
of a herd of mustangs, named him Copper D, and broke to
him ride as a two-year old.
The Horses
The Dameles bred the Curly horses and raised cattle
on the Dry Creek and Ackerman Ranches. At one time, they
had hundreds of brood mares running out in “stud bands.
A single stallion could cover about thirty mares
outside. So there was a need for quite a few studs in
this big open country. To handle these big numbers of
horses on the open range, you needed to have good hands
on horseback. The Damele boys were among the best.
Running these horses and catching them in different ways
occupied much of their time.
The Dameles were not as concerned with the Curly horse
as a pure breed. They had specific needs for their
horses and they also had certain ideas about what they
wanted their horses to look like. When the Dameles first
began catching Curly horses out of the Mustang herds,
they were big coarse-looking horses with non-refined
heads, bodies, and legs. The country around the Dry
Creek and Ackerman Ranches is steep and rocky on the
East Slope of the Simpson Park Mountain Range. Dameles
wanted their horses be able to handle steep mountains,
to be good in the rocks, stay sound, survive bad
winters, take the “big outside circle” on the flats,
drag calves to the fire, and be gentle. They wanted to
breed a ranch horse that could do it all. They soon
found out that the Curly horse could do all of this and
maybe more.
 The Dameles purchased many different studs over the
years to be used on their “outside” brood mares. Some of
the better-known studs were: a registered Morgan Stud,
Ruby Red; a registered Arabian stallion, Nevada Red; and
an unregistered Appaloosa stallion.
The more famous American Curly Horse studs were: Peacock
D, Grulla D, Dixie D, Dusty D, and the most famous
Damele Curly Horse stud Copper D. Damele horses with the
3D brand started showing up in several states after
people purchased horses from them. The Curly horse gene
is reportedly dominant in breeding. Many of the Curly
horses around the world today go back to the Curly horse
stud Copper D.
In 1971 a big change took place for the Dameles and
other ranchers in the Great Basin. The Congress of The
United States passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and
Burro Act. Wild mustang herds on Nevada rangelands began
to be managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the
U.S.
 Forest Service. Nevada is home to more than
one-half of the nation’s wild horses. Herd Management
areas were drawn up and monitored by the Bureau of Land
Management and U. S Forest Service. The days of ranchers
running their outside mares with studs on Federal lands
was drastically reduced.
Origins
You may ask yourself after reading this Damele/ Nevada
Curly Horse history, “How did these horses get to Nevada
in the beginning?” So far, to my knowledge, no one has
proven where these Eureka County “Curlies” came from,
but there are many theories concerning this issue,
including:
-
The horses came across the Bering
Straight before the last ice age;
-
Russian settlers brought Curly
horses to America from Russia.
-
An Irishman named Tom Dixon imported
curly horses to the Eureka area. Dixon imported two
pregnant Curly mares and a Curly stud from India and
turned them loose with the mustangs in the 1880s.
-
The horses are native born
mutations.
-
The horses are remnants of
pre-Spanish horses.
There are still reports by the ranchers
and Bureau of Land Management employees that Curly
horses have been recently observed running with the
mustangs in Eureka County, Nevada.
Breed Characteristics
The coat of a Curly horse is the most distinguishing
feature that sets it aside from other breeds of horses.
In the winter, their coat displays long curls. Often
they shed most of the long curly hair in the summer. The
mane and tail hair is curly. There is also another
interesting characteristic of this horse. The Curly
horse is reported to be hypoallergenic. Which means that
people that are allergic to horses can tolerate Curlies
with reduced or non-allergic reactions.
Curly Horses are intelligent, calm natured, and, when
handled correctly, are not flighty and are easily
trained. Curly horses share many physical
characteristics with primitive horses, including
wide-set eyes and strong canon bones. Curly horses have
particularly tough hooves that are almost perfectly
round in shape. That makes them very good in rocky
country. Some owners compare Curlies to mules because
they think things out rather than panic.
 Today
The Damele family is still at the Dry Creek and Ackerman
Ranches. They still use Curly horses for working cattle.
Tom and Peter Damele are raising Curlies and had two
“stud bunches” on their ranch this past summer. For
information concerning Damele Curly horses for sale,
contact Tom Damele at 775-964-1253 or Peter Damele at
775-964-2585. Mailing address: P.O. Box 104, Eureka,
Nevada 89316.
The Damele family is well respected as stockmen who
survived many hard times and carved out a name in Nevada
ranching history. The Dameles and the American Curly
Horse will always be linked together. As they should be!
On October 10-11, 2003, the
International Curly Horse Organization held a convention
at the Opera House in Eureka and made a field trip to
the Damele Dry Creek ranch. Curly Horse owners from
several states and from Norway, Sweden, and Germany were
in attendance. This writer was invited to attend their
meeting and found it to be very informative.
For more information
concerning the American
Curly Horse as a breed, contact the International Curly
Horse Organization,
http://www.curlyhorses.org - 2690 Carpenter
Road, Jamestown, Ohio 45335, telephone 937-453-9829.
E-mail
office@curlyhorses.org.
The American Bashkir Curly Horse Registry is the other
major Curly breed registry. This registry has closed
their studbooks in order to contain their gene pool, and
move toward bloodline preservation and breed status
requirements. Their web site is
http://www.abcregistry.org. Telephone
775-289-4999.
Article by
Mike Laughlin
Books by Dale Wooley for sale
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Dale Wooley's book The
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