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Part of an interview with Jerry Eppenger by Claytee D. White on September 14, 2011. Eppenger describes his arrest for a curfew violation while leaving work following a riot on the Westside in 1969.
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Jerry Eppenger oral history interview, 2011 September 09. OH-00542. [Audio recording] Oral History Research Center, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, N
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in 1969 there was a riot here on the Westside. Right. Tell me about the riot and what caused it. Okay. Well, the blacks were really growing. The Westside was growing, okay? They had really 33 opened up Vegas Heights to blacks more because at first Vegas Heights was all white. So now the Westside really started expanding. And so they wasn't doing anything to help blacks do anything on the Westside. They opened that Nucleus Plaza, but everything was white owned, the shops and everything. So when the riot took place, it mostly was in that Nucleus Plaza. They went over there and tore it up. They tore the stores out, broke the windows, stole the TVs. Every store in that Nucleus Plaza was white-owned. I don't know any black business owner there on the Westside. Over in the Plaza it was all white. But anyway, between that and frustration I would say did it, because at that time I'm dealing at the Mint. I wasn't doing bad. But I knew it was bad over here because everything started dwindling down. Now, this was — we're talking 60s. That's right. Because all the clubs are closing. Closing. Okay. Now, they had the big riot. And it was a big deal because I got off from work. Four in the morning I got off from work and I was heading home, trying to get across Washington, where you go on Washington to Main Street (I turn north on D Street), right up here. At that time there was railroad tracks come across down there. And you had to cross those tracks or go straight up D Street and go around to Bonanza, underneath the bridge. I went under the bridge. Well, nothing and so everything was this direction. So actually Owens, Washington, and Bonanza were the only places to get to the Westside from, that area, because there wasn't any other way to go. Even like now, you can go all the way to Martin Luther King. There was nothing back that way. Anyway, so they blocked all the streets off. As I'm trying to get home, getting off from work, so I didn't even know anything about a riot because I'd been at work eight hours. I come across Washington, they got it all blocked off. They arrested me for being passed curfew. And they could see me with a white shirt on, everything. I'm getting off from work. They arrested me for passing curfew. Took me to jail. The next morning I got out. It cost me a hundred dollars to get out of jail. Jail's bondsman make me pay a hundred dollars to get out of jail because I broke curfew.