Transcript of interview with Marguerite Goldstein by Carol A. Semendoff, February 25, 1979

UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 1 An Interview with Marguerite Goldstein An Oral History Conducted by Carol A. Semendoff Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada, Las Vegas UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 2 © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2018 UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 3 The Oral History Research Center (OHRC) was formally established by the Board of Regents of the University of Nevada System in September 2003 as an entity of the UNLV University Libraries’ Special Collections Division. The OHRC conducts oral interviews with individuals who are selected for their ability to provide first-hand observations on a variety of historical topics in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. The OHRC is also home to legacy oral history interviews conducted prior to its establishment including many conducted by UNLV History Professor Ralph Roske and his students. This legacy interview transcript received minimal editing, such as the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. The interviewee/narrator was not involved in the editing process. UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 4 Abstract On February 25 1979, collector, Carol A. Semendoff interviewed cashier, Marguerite Goldstein, (born on May 1925 in Oberlin, Kansas) in the library at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. This interview covers early Las Vegas, from 1950 to 1979. Also included during this interview is discussion on local dignitaries, the growth of Las Vegas, gambling as the major industry in Las Vegas, Strip hotels, and housing developments. UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 5 She lived in Reno. But has moved down to Las Vegas since 1950, with her husband, George, who is now deceased. Marguerite, what’s, what is—gambling is the major industry in Las Vegas, would you tell me a little bit about gaming? ‘Kay. I’ll be glad to. I really have to apologize ‘cause I have a terrible, terrible cold. (Laughs) And I’m terribly hoarse. I didn’t live here in, when gambling first started. I think it was legalized in 1933. They always had sort of illegal gambling on the upstairs poker games and mostly pan and things like that. And the major reason for legalizing gambling was the state was almost bankrupt. It was during the Depression and of course they had no cattle, not many cattle, didn’t have anything to get a lot of revenue. So the only way to bring the state out of this bankrupt condition was to legalize gambling. And there’s been a lot of competitiveness between the northern part of the state and the southern part of the state. There is about four big, big people, Wingfield, (unintelligible) and other families, that controlled the northern part of the state. In fact, it goes back farther than 1933, is when they decided to have the state capitol up north. Then when Las Vegas started to expand and outside interests wanted to come in Reno would not allow them in Reno. So they sort of mushroomed here in Las Vegas. This story goes that, it was the man that owned the Hull hotels in Los Angeles, and he had driven down to Las Vegas, and going back on this long stretch, it was only a two-lane highway, it was hot, that he had the idea to build a hotel. And the first hotel on the Strip was—they called it the, I believe it was the Last Frontier hotel, which the building now has been torn down. And he was the first one to come in and then it sort of stagnated till about 1956 or ’57 when the big money (unintelligible) come in from the east to build the fabulous hotels. And I think the first big hotel to go up was The Flamingo. And of course to us living here in Las Vegas it was like out in the country. One time, my husband and I were driving to Los Angeles and I’d gone to sleep. He wakened me and he said, “Look!” He UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 6 said, “There’s a—Bugsy Siegel’s (unintelligible) Flamingo Hotel.” And I looked out the window and I said, “Oh my God! Who is ever gonna drive clear out here to see this hotel?” It seemed to me like we’d gone miles and miles and miles. It was sitting out in the field. Marguerite what about the old homes in Las Vegas? Homes? The wealthy homes of the people that you knew like the Larsons? They were—they were pretty big. They were nice homes. However, we didn’t have the mansions that were built with marble imported from Italy like the Silverkings did in northern Nevada. So I would say, we didn’t really have mansions compared to anything like they had up in Virginia City, in Las Vegas. What about the Test Site? Well, I don’t know too much about that. I know it brought a lot of employment to the town. It was originally called Jackass Flats (unintelligible) over time, made a lot of money. It boosted the economy. I do remember one specific, I believe it was 1956, I hate to give you dates because I’m very bad on years, when they had the first big atomic blast. Course the town was small then and we had no malls or anything like that. We just had Fremont Street and there was just—I would literally say, hundreds, I’d like to say, thousands, it seemed like that or reporters from across the United States every major newspaper in every magazine sent in reporters for coverage of the blast. I don’t remember, it wasn’t such a trauma when it went off. We did feel a little shock, some people said they could see it, a little mushroom. It—people just flocked, near and far, and business boomed. Stores were packed—(Laughs) with all these people buying souvenirs to take back. That’s really about all I can tell you about it. Of course it has really contributed greatly to UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 7 the growth of Las Vegas. IT was about the only major industry we had here except the gambling, and our utility companies. The social life in Las Vegas, can you tell me a little bit about the social life? Oh dear. (Laughs) (Laughs) Well. I guess the social life is probably like it is in any other town, compared today with the 1950s most of them, a lot of the locals did go to the Strip. I remember it was about 1958 or ’59, we went to see the Judy Garland show and it was five dollars. Gee. (Laughs) And we got two drinks for the five dollars, and in the winter time—this was really, it was pretty bad here. This wasn’t year round at all it was very seasonal. And most of the establishments catered to the locals, which is in contrast really about the opposite now. I don’t think any hotel on the Strip would cater to locals, they’re after big business now. They want conventions and junkets and this, so the locals really are not treated as well. Then, course the local celebration, the big celebration was the Helldorado. It was put on by the Elks, sponsored by the Elks, and everyone really got in the game of it. They dressed in pioneer clothes, had street dance down Main Street, which was Fremont Street. We always called it Main Street ‘cause it was hub of the social life and the business, with a kangaroo court, and we had a—I think the telephone company is down the block. But they used to have the (unintelligible). In just that short time Sears Roebuck wasn’t there at the time. It came in since 1950. Most Helldorados changed a lot now. What we had, barbecue and everyone really just knew everyone’s name. Called them by their first main name, was a very casual town. And in comparison Helldorado just doesn’t seem the same. They have it at the convention center. They have a carnival now. And I think they still UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 8 have their barbeque. I haven’t been to one for several years. But I noticed the last one didn’t have the friendliness or just, you just knew everyone, if you hadn’t seen them all year, you always saw them at Helldorado. Everyone turned out for Helldorado. Gee. Has the weather always been as hot in the summers back in the old days as it is today? Oh dear. Or has it changed? I don’t know that the weather has changed. I think the environment has changed. We always had swamp coolers. How were they used, the swamp coolers? Well, their use was water. Mm. And I think even in the 1960s, they were still putting the swamp coolers in the homes. They had no air-conditioning, then. Yes. They had some. But FHA still approved a track or homes to be built without the air-conditioning. It didn’t appear to be that hot. But don’t forget our population was about one third of what it is today. We have many more lawns and it has made the humidity go up a lot. I don’t know that, actually, the weather has gotten any hotter. I—but we seem to notice it more because we didn’t—we always had low humidity, a dry heat. But now it’s different so I—I’ve noticed that change that, it’s almost impossible to live in a home with the swamp cooler now. But that was what everyone had during the 1950s. How about the crime in Las Vegas? Back in the old days did you have to—? (Unintelligible). UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 9 Lock your doors or could you just go leave your doors open? Or do you have to lock them like you do today? Nobody had ever locked their doors. Back in the 50s? Even up in the early 1960s. Neighbors who walked in didn’t knock. I don’t think I even had a key to my house in 1955 or 56. I never even bothered with it. We didn’t have crime. I think we’re the leading state and city in the Union now with crime. They always said that, they established when the east, kept a lot of the petty crime out, at the shoplifters and the well-known drug pushers or robbers or whatever you want to call them. They would say that the city can do every one of them and they just say move on. And they respected their professions of gambling, they knew it was a privileged business. They didn’t want to heed on Las Vegas so I would say, no, we didn’t have a great deal of crime. They just moved on. They saw to it that they moved on. There was a saying, “Never commit a murder in the State of Nevada. Always take them across the state line.” (Laughs) (Laughs) And I would think about when they killed this (unintelligible) who had been connected with Bugsy Siegel and The Flamingo. Evidently he had done something that distressed them. And he and his wife had a home in Arizona and they had gone there for the weekend and they were both murdered. I’m sure that they didn’t intend to kill the wife but if it was a hit they definitely to—the crime was never solved. I don’t think the police did too much work on it. They knew what it was about and one police officer told me that, it was just a waste of time. It wasn’t a passion killing. It wasn’t a robbery. It was just a cold-blooded heat where this man could go in, walk out with no emotion. Since that those crimes were most impossible to solve. We didn’t have murders UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 10 in the place that we have now. We even weren’t afraid to go out at night alone, didn’t lock their cars. So we really didn’t have a lot of crime. The old airport, is there anything left of it now? Or how was that compared to the new airport now? Oh dear. The first airport was at Nellis Air Force Base. It was—it was so tiny, it was, well, might be like my garage, no, it seems like. I flew in from Los Angeles once and we stopped here. I was going to Arden, Utah. And that was just like a small town airport. Was it the old Howard Hughes, down from there? Oh no, no. Howard Hughes wasn’t even here then. Oh. Yes. He had nothing here. Howard Hughes didn’t come in till, in the 1960s. And course, there was a lot of controversy about him coming in here. And that was about the time that Bobby Kennedy was elected attorney general in his bag was crusade against crime. And, so, they established from the east, so the story goes, so they wanted to get in the background. Then Howard Hughes bought so many of them, I think he owned five hotels. And there was a lot of disgust and a lot of talk about that. Because Hughes hired all of his employees through a central agency, the Summa Corporation. So as I say, jobs weren’t that plentiful then. And they would get fired at one hotel, then that would prevent them from working at any other hotels. So they finally put a limit on how many he could own. There was a rumor that he was gonna buy the whole town up. He was always opposed to the test site. And he tried to get quite a foothold in the State of Nevada. But it seemed like Nevada sorta come out of it by restricting him to the power that he could have, over the employees. UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 11 Now your family—what did your children do, when they grew up here? Tell me some stories about your son. Well, I tell you, I just had a nice boy. (Laughs) He just did what every other normal boy did. He belonged to the Boy Scouts. He had his bar mitzvah. He—we were sort of a—just the three of us, we were sort of a close-knit family. We went to Mount Charleston, in the snow in the winter time we didn’t have a sled but we’ve taken old tires up to get down the mountain we’d go. In the summer time we’d go up there for picnics. We went to the lake, we didn’t swim the lake a lot. I didn’t, I was scared of it. It—we didn’t own a boat so, we really weren’t boat enthusiasts. But we did go once in a while to the lake. My son matured in this city with gambling and everything. Does not care for the gambling, just accepts it’s no big deal. Doesn’t drink, he teaches retarded children. We’re a pretty normal family. What kind of work did you do, Marguerite? Worked at the telephone company. (Laughs) I worked at the telephone company. When did you work there? When we first came here. It was very, very small. (Laughs) We didn’t have dial telephones. Even in 1950 you knew the operator. You could really, help you on, Dr. Jones, and he’d get you Dr. Jones. (Laughs) Then she’d get you Dr. Jones. I think our phone number was 456. (Laughs) I believe they put dial in in about 1957 or ’58. In fact, I worked in the telephone company, I’ve been there several years when we put our fiftieth thousand UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 12 telephone in. And they made a big deal about it. They gave the subscribers a year of service free. Now I think we have about three hundred subscribers. The telephone book was almost like a little throw away pamphlet about seventy-nine pages. Interesting story about that, it was owned by two men that owned both the telephone company and the utility gas company. And we had a collector when people didn’t pay their telephone bills, they’d go out, and they sort of helped each other. They couldn’t get the telephone bill out. (Laughs) They shut the lights off. And finally they, I don’t know, the city or the county commissioners made them split. Someone (unintelligible) the telephone company (unintelligible). The gas company was kind of fun. (Laughs). And what kind of work did your husband do while he was here in Nevada? My husband was a pit boss at the Stardust Hotel. Okay. Did you go to many of the resorts around Las Vegas here? On the weekends or did you go to any of the museums around here? Did you find some of the museums very interesting? Well, no, we didn’t really go to the museums too much. My husband was—loved to fish. Oh, fish. So. We used to go up to Ely or—he didn’t care to fish in the lake. He liked the bank fishing. So we’d go up to (unintelligible) springs and like I said, we only had one son. So— Yes. They sort of live a rugged life. They like to hunt. They both went hunting in the—we have a, up northern Nevada they always took—my husband always took his vacation in the fall so we’d go deer hunting up at Elko County. Mm. And but we really didn’t go ‘round the museums much. UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 13 Is the northern part of the state a lot more prettier than the southern part do you think? Well, there’s a lot more water up there. A lot more vegetation. Mountains and all this. And it’s so, well, I don’t think it, yes, we have Lake Tahoe (unintelligible) the Washoe Mountains are up there. You’re a lot higher than these mountains down here. But we do have mountains in West Charleston, up, up past you know, west, whatever. But yes, most of our land in Nevada is still owned by the federal government today. Yes. So they have more ranches up there and they have grazing lands. The vegetation is greener in Northern Nevada than it is here. What made you and your husband decide to move to Nevada? Oh dear, (unintelligible). Mm-hmm. So we’re sort of westerners at heart and we went to—when we first left Cheyenne, we went to Los Angeles and we really were used to that being the city life. And my husband always sort of leaned toward gambling. So he made a trip to Las Vegas, he knew someone here. So we came here and we stayed here short time then we went to Reno. And that time work was a little better in Reno and I don’t know whether I mentioned the fact, cause we was talking about gambling and all that the states were pretty competitive and Las Vegas of course mushroomed and Reno just sort of stagnated. ‘Cause Reno was controlled by some very wealthy men. Wingfield has been there many years. They just didn’t want any outsiders in there. So it was just impossible for them to get a license. Originally they wanted to go to Reno because they felt it would be better. It was on a good highway, though San Francisco, they felt the climate might be better instead of UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 14 the hot summers here. So Reno required that for many years that they didn’t allow them in. And then of course Las Vegas mushroomed and Reno was just stagnated for quite a while. So now it’s believed that, that’s why we came down here. The Stardust hotel opened. He worked for the same company here, (unintelligible) in Reno. That’s how we come to Las Vegas. Hm. And you haven’t regretted it since? (Laughs) No. It’s really home. It’s really home. I still read the obituary columns (Laughs). (Laughs). It’s really home. We only had one newspaper when I came here. Then we had Las Vegas Sun. And you knew everyone, you knew the Sanders by first name and they knew you, was still small. Do you remember any of the big dignitaries that came to Las Vegas, like any of the presidents or congressmen or? We all knew what was—they’re our friends. Our own congressman, everybody called him Walter. His name was Walter Baring. Alan Bible was our senator. Before him was George Malone. You just knew them on a first name basis. They were just down to earth people, in other words. And they campaigned that way. They called you by your first name. You’d even know the governor. I mean it was Vail Pittman, Fred Sawyer. Fred Sawyer was assistant district attorney in Elko County. And I had known Grant very well. I think he was making about two hundred and sixty dollars a month to three hundred. Elko’s a small town up northern Nevada about—well, it’s, maybe it’s two or three thousand. It has a buying power of about six thousand in the whole county. And of course Grant was very successful and became a very wealthy man. And I laugh and I say I knew Grant when he didn’t have an extra pair of pants. (Laughs) UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 15 But no, most of our politicians, our congressman, our senators, course you know, we only have one representative on the count of the population. You just know them. I don’t know how many years this will continue. Marguerite. Are you glad that Las Vegas has grown or did you like it when it was smaller? Oh dear. That’s a hard question to answer. When it first started to grow and all these people started coming here, I disliked it, very much. My husband said, “Well, we’ve got to have progress.” Course the universities here, we didn’t have a university. We have community colleges, and I suppose it is better, we have a lot more employment here. Employment was kinda tough. It’s hard to get a job a few years back. The people that buy buildings that buy apartment houses and they just couldn’t make it. In fact, to tell you a final instant Carol, in 1965 when I gave up my home and I went looking for an apartment, I would pick up the newspaper and this was the ads: “One month free rent for a year’s rent.” “We’ll move you free.” “Every apartment has a television.” You could really just take your pick. And you went there and the owners of these apartment houses would really do everything in the world to try to fill ‘em up. At that time, at that three years between that, from 1964 to 1968, many, many people lost their apartment buildings. They lost their duplexes and their triplexes, and I was looking the other day for an apartment and I happen to call in the newspaper and it said, “The one bedroom is $350” and I said, “Well, I can’t get down till next week, do you have any vacancies?” “One.” The calls I made had no vacancies. But I have to admit that we have to expand, we have to grow, we can’t stay small all the time. But for easy living, there has been a big change. I—you asked about, you asked what we did for social life earlier in the interview. I suppose everybody that lives in Las Vegas has gambled some, they gamble a lot or—but I have to tell you, my little club that they had Downtown was called the Boulder Club. Been there for many, many years, course been torn UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 16 down for many years, too. But everybody knew the Boulder Club. They had ten cents craps, ten cents twenty-five, Blackjack, and a few slot machines, I don’t know. I guess they even had penny slot machines then. So a couple of us girls that we got really bored and want to go someplace we’d say meet me at the Millionaires Club and I (unintelligible). So we’d scoot down there and we’d play ten cents twenty-one (unintelligible) couple of dollars, maybe three at the very most. They didn’t have it fixed up nice. It was clean but they had no fancy chandeliers or overstuffed furniture. So we were laughing. One day we looked over and we see these men that owns the telephone company, (unintelligible), the man that owned the gas company, the man from the bank. So that’s how it’s gotta stay in the Millionaires Club. (Laughs) ‘Cause they’d play (Laughs) and they were sitting there playing their ten cent craps or the ten cent poker. (Unintelligible) And they could’ve probably played eleven dollar chips. So that’s one way the town has changed. And then also Fremont Street and so on, gathering places on Saturday afternoon. You’d start at 1 A. M. and gambled out till the next day meet your friends and chitchat along the way. What were the main streets in Las Vegas back in the early days? Oh, Fremont Street. Mm-hmm. That’s all there, all the businesses was on Fremont Street. In other words, Maryland Parkway is new? Oh yes, very new. Oh. UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 17 Oh very new. And we had no shopping malls. In fact, I know, but can’t remember Sears Roebuck and J. C. Penney’s maybe came in in the early 1950s but they, but that was our street down there. We had a few little grocery stores on the side streets. But everything was Downtown. The bank was Downtown, the post office was a couple blocks off Fremont Street. One post office. No substations like we have now. Or no major, major post office. All the, the hub of the business was down there. And the, let’s say, we used to go to the Strip because they had fantastic buffets for ninety-eight cents. Much better than they are today. They are? Oh yes. The food was much better. And the philosophy of the Strip was they really didn’t care if they made any money on the restaurants or the bar. They’d give everything away and they just wanted to make it in the gambling. Now the corporations have come in and they decide now if they’ll make each little department pay off, each, each one. The showroom has to make money and the rent is, this restaurant has to make money now. Do they have the prostitutes in back then as they have now? Sure they did. It was all along then. Ah. Before we came here they had Block 16. And but that, I don’t remember. I think just before they started the Mercury, the work at Mercury I think that went out, but we had Roxy’s. It was outside of town for a, what do I know, about three or four miles outside of town. Well known. Well known establishment. Everybody Roxie’s. We just sort of accepted it. In fact, many prostitutes are leading ladies of society, today. (Laughs) UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 18 That no one knows. And many of them married and settled down and raised families. It was not exactly legal and not exactly illegal. I think the story of prostitution was that they didn’t want to legalize it with the anti-prostitution so they, the governor sort of compromised. He sort of threw the whole thing out. And said, it was up to each county commissioners when they wanted to legalize their own. So there’s no state law, really, regarding it. It isn’t illegal or legal. It’s strictly about to the commissioners. Marguerite, tell me about labor or the unions in Las Vegas. Well, they’re really, in lots of ways Las Vegas has become a pretty strong union town. The culinary is pretty strong. Of course the electricians and the plumbers and the carpenters, they’ve had two major strikes here, where they closed the Strip down. And—culinary did that. But there is a law in the books that they can’t close a hotel up more than thirty days. So even with a strike. So the last Strike went about, oh, little over two weeks and the governor became over shaded and got that over with. But this—remind me to tell you after I finish this about how we come this (unintelligible) in about thirty days. The strange thing, they’ve tried numerous times to organize the dealers and the pit bosses and things like that. And they’ve never been successful. They’ve spent lots of money, it’s been close. But none of those have been able to get it on, to be a union. I’ll tell you now why they have it for thirty days. Before our little boom here, many hotels would open up and they couldn’t make it and they would just close down. That meant till they could raise more money they’d lock the doors. That meant it threw all those people out of work. And now they have to pass some kind of regulations where they, establishments have to put up so much money. Some of the employees there did get paid. Now they have to have a bond with so much money set aside for employee salaries. You can’t imagine (unintelligible) people not UNLV University Libraries Marguerite Goldstein 19 making it. When I was working at the telephone company some hotels couldn’t pay their telephone bill. Gee. And our collector used to take his little black bag, go right out to the telephone comp—to the hotels, go to the cage and get the money and bring it back. (Laughs) One major hotel on the Strip today was having terrible difficulty and he used to go out there—if I told you which one it was (Laughs) you would be amazed. Mm-hmm. But they had that. So this is why they passed the thirty day regulation period. So when they threw these people out of work.