Transcript of interview with Judith L. Hamblin by Margaret Stambro, March 30, 1976

UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 1 An Interview with Judith L. Hamblin An Oral History Conducted by Margaret Stambro 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 Judith L. Hamblin 2 © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2018 UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 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 Judith L. Hamblin 4 Abstract On March 30, 1976, collector Margaret Stambro interviewed schoolteacher and registered medical stenographer, Judith L. Hamblin (born June 11, 1941 in Las Vegas, Nevada) in her home in Henderson, Nevada. This interview covers the history of Henderson, local schools and teachers, and Helldorado. Also during this interview, Mrs. Hamblin discusses her fondness for Lake Mead, the Basic Magnesium Plant, Nellis Air Force Base, and the early aboveground atomic blasts. UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 5 The date is March 30th, 1976, this is Margaret Stambro, history—a student from History 117, doing an oral interview with Judith Hamblin of Henderson, Nevada. Judy, can you tell us when you were born and where? I was born the 11th of June, 1941, in Las Vegas, at the old Clark County Hospital, which is now Southern Nevada Memorial. Was it located in the same spot? Yes. It’s the same building as the older part. Mm-hmm. That is still in (unintelligible). But they own the grounds now. And were your parents here for some time before your birth? No. They had come from Reno, about three months—about three weeks before I was born. And they lived out in North Las Vegas area. Well, yes, it’s in North Las Vegas. (Laughs) And at that time it was quite a ways out of town. It wasn’t the build-up area that it is now, along North Main area. And Daddy had come down to go to work, and he worked for Oscar Logan Construction, as just a general laborer, and my mother came down to have me. (Laughs) (Laughs) So, and I have an older brother and sister, who came at the time with the family. Okay. Did your father always work in construction? He worked in construction until he moved to Henderson, and then they worked at the plant. Both mother and daddy. What plant? The Basic Magnesium Incorporated Plant. It was built during the war. UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 6 Mm-hmm. For the purpose of building bombs and producing manganese ore and so forth for artillery mainly. Did your father continue to work there (unintelligible)? He worked there until the plant—until the plant was changed from the government hands in to private companies, after the war. Five private companies bought it, bought the housing and so forth, at the plant. And then, he worked there for a short time, then he went to work at Blue Diamond, a short ways out of town here. (Laughs) I bet. Eighty miles. But Blue Diamond at Gypsum Mine. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jus has done considerable research on, of her own on the history of Henderson, so we’d like to refer to it throughout our tape. Can you think of anything particular that you’d like to tell us about? You mentioned earlier that you had talked to many of the old timers who lived here and maybe we could talk about some of them. ‘Kay. We—I, we moved to Henderson when I was only ten months old. And Henderson was a brand new town and when I mean brand new, it was brand new. When they put up the telephone poles or the poles for the lighting and so forth in Henderson. All the copper was moved, and as my mother has referred to it many times in the past, it glowed, just like strings of gold. And all of the houses—the government built one thousand houses, originally. Town—what we call the town site houses. They were built for a temporary purpose and that was thirty-four years ago. (Laughs) And naturally, as government projects go, they’re still standing. So, I remember we UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 7 were one of the first residents to move into the house—housing area, that the government supplied for those who worked at the plant. Prior to that many of the workers lived in Tent City or Anderson’s Camp, which they called it, which is now located on the northwest corner of Lake Mead Boulevard and Boulder Highway. And it was a large tent city where the men came and lived and worked at the plant. Shipped work. And if they had any families, they left them either in Las Vegas where there was housing available or left them at home. And that could have been in anywhere in the United States, because people came from all over when they came to work on the plant. It was hot. I can remember that. (Laughs) I can remember that when we first moved here, what is now Water Street in Henderson was the main street in town and it wasn’t completed yet. It was covered over, and the reason it’s named Water Street is because the water pipe that supplies the city goes down the middle of the street. It’s also the longest straight street in Henderson. And they moved the fence out that blocked the street off about hmm, two or three weeks after we moved in. Now, I don’t remember that. I was a little bit young for that. (Laughs) But my father got one of the first houses and they did it simply by throwing darts at the map. The map of the city had been made out, and the men who worked at the plant threw a dart at the map and whatever house it landed on that’s where you were going to live. Whether you needed a two bedroom or a three-bedroom house, the one that you got your dart on (Laughs) is the one that you lived in. So. What kind of house did you end up getting at that time? We got a two-bedroom house at 39 Water Street. And when I was about eighteen, nineteen months old, then we moved next door to 33—35 Water, where we lived then till I was eighteen—nineteen. And then, later we moved down here, to 33 Mallory. When I was a youngster, the area that I live in now, located behind the hospital, was our pet cemetery. UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 8 (Laughs) Any cat or dog or bird that died in town, we would bring them out in the desert and of course this area was out in the desert then. And, so we often borrowed—buried our dead dogs and birds and cats right here where I live now. Hm. My old backyard. (Laughs) But when I was a youngster, I remember how very barren it was. There weren’t any trees here. They just put up houses and that was all. (Laughs) Houses and streets. There were no sidewalks and in order to skate or anything as a youngster, we had to go uptown to the—what town area we had, up around the post office and the two markets that we had, fire station, drugstore, pool hall, that was about—Victory Theatre, where we used to go to the show for fourteen cents. (Laughs) On Saturday afternoon. And we lined up in droves to see the movie. It was our only recreation. I remember as a child that everything was centered around school. What is now part of the city complex, the city buildings was originally the school and what is now the Southern Nevada Museum was the original gym, the old high school. And all of the schools were there together. When we first moved to Henderson, my brother and sister had to go to—back to Las Vegas to finish the last—last month of school. Inasmuch as we moved here in May, and school wasn’t out until the end of the month. So, we were part of the Railroad Pass School District. And it was called Railroad Pass because there was a railroad and a pass down the road. And they financed the students who lived here in Henderson to go to the Duck Creek School District, which was the next closest one. And it was called Duck Creek because there was an absence of ducks in a creek. (Laughs) UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 9 So, they—they went to school there and then school—our school here, in Henderson was not built until October. Opened in October of forty—43, I believe. So they had almost a full year of school in town, in—what we call town, Las Vegas, before we had a school here in Henderson. So that was a fairly new school by the time you started there? Yes. Well, actually the town grew rather rapidly. There’s an age difference of ten years between my sister and I and seven-and-a-half between my brother and I. So, them being older, they finished school, at the old—what we call the old Town Site School. Roberta graduated when I was only in the Third grade, and my brother graduated when I was in the Sixth grade. So, I finished through junior high there. But in the meantime, right after Ron graduated, the new high school had been built. And that is now the junior high and there is s newer high school yet. So, even since I’ve been out of high school. I graduated in ’59 from Basic High School, and then, the new high school has been up for about four years, five years, maybe. You mentioned that school was your center of activity. So, can you tell us some of the things that you did as far as school activities were concerned? As children, everything centered around school. The only other entertainment that we had in Henderson was Victory Theatre and each other. We didn’t have telephones, we didn’t have television. We did have the radio. And in order to obtain entertainment outside of the Henderson area you either had to drive to Las Vegas and not many people had cars here, or you had to take the bus. So, everything in town was centered around, around school and school activities. If there was a school play, ninety-nine percent of the population would attend all three nights of the play. If there was a school dance, the little kids and the big kids and all of the adults would go to. Because that was the only entertainment we had. We had several bars down in the Pittman area. But other than that for family men and for family women, this was the only entertainment that UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 10 they had. All the clubs in town were coordinated through what they call the coordinating council and in order to belong to coordinating council my mother was a representative for several years, you had to be involved in PTA or the Moose or the Elks or any of the women’s organizations, the church organizations, this type of thing. And then, they got together and decided on the activities for the town. Oh. And so, everything was coordinated through the school. Anytime that we had a ball team that could play at all—(Laughs) Las Vegas was our rival, and many times we would send a ball team on the floor with—well, like for basketball, we have six men and if one fouled out then we only had five left to play. And in ’49 we took the state championship with only four men (Laughs) on the floor. So. And we beat Las Vegas at that. Henderson has always been a very closely-knit group. As I say, mainly because we didn’t have telephones. Mm-hmm. I remember when we did get telephones. We had one and it was at the sheriff’s substation. So if there was any emergency type thing, and other than that, the only phones were at the plant. I see. And if a man had an emergency, they would call the plant, and contact him either on his shift, or send the police to your home, to get you—the police. The county sheriff, really. Mm. And—but when we got phones, I was probably, about in the Sixth or Seventh grade at the time. I see. So. All of a sudden. You know, the telephone operator became our very best friend. (Laughs) Because it was something new and different for us. I can still remember our numbers. They UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 11 were—as I said, we had a telephone operator. And I remember, our number was 619W. I—even now can remember girlfriends’ numbers. And it was quite a while before we got the dial telephones. And at first a course we had a prefix. Our prefix was Frontier, whatever our number was. And then, later of course was changed to, the straight coded numbers. Yes. I imagine this was a big party line. Oh yes. (Laughs) It was (unintelligible). (Laughs) Everybody was on the party line. (Laughs) Mm-hmm. And you knew everyone else’s business. Mm-hmm. Again, sticking together because of the war years and the rationing and so forth of gas and sugar and this type of thing. For a long time, we didn’t have a grocery store here. So, anytime you needed to go shopping in Vegas, you’d go around and you’d ask all of your neighbors if they needed anything from town. And everybody was very neighborly this way. Something that we don’t find nowadays. Mm-hmm. But very neighborly, and they would go and pick up orders for each other. If someone had a sick child, someone else would offer their gas coupons, so that they could get to town to a doctor, and this type of thing. Okay. They were very close—very closely related as a community. Well, I imagine then you had to go into Las Vegas for any kind of medical assistance. UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 12 Yes, until—until the Rose de Lima Hospital was built. And of course, at first it was the government infirmary. And only the—only the men from the plant could be treated there. Their dependents were not treated there at first. They had to go to Las Vegas for care. And after the war then the hospital was turned over to the Sisters of Saint Rose de Lima, and renamed, and has grown tremendously. It was originally a very small hospital and now it’s a large one. It was one of the first ones with cancer unit, research unit, this type of thing, here in Southern Nevada. It’s a very large hospital and well established, well thought of. But at the start of that is, nothing more than about a sixteen bed infirmary. Mm-hmm. For those who were hurt at the plant. My father was injured at the plant in a war, in a fire. And I remember at the time—any time anything drastic happened drastic at the plant, all the sirens would go off in town. We had a curfew that was located out in the middle of town. And it would scare me as a child. So when the war was over. Was it a siren like? Yes. Okay. A siren. And there were a lot of them. And so when the war was over, in ’45, and all the sirens went off, I was very frightened, because to me that meant that maybe my daddy had been hurt again at the plant. Because that was the only thing—that’s what we associated all the sirens with. Certainly not with the joy of the war being over with. Mm-hmm. And I was a little bit young to understand really what the war was all about. But I did associate it with harm and the sirens of course with an accident. UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 13 Was your father seriously injured at that time? He was burned and it left his face partially scarred and his arms partially scarred. He’s a very—he was a very tall, fair complected man anyhow but this of course made his skin even more susceptible to sunburn, which is dangerous in the Nevada desert. And he would sunburn quite easily. But it was—it was not anything that disfigured him for life, really. But something that we in the family remember. Mm-hmm. And we remember all the years that we had to drive back and forth to Las Vegas to the doctor, when I was little and had my tonsils out. We had to go into town. When my brother had his appendicitis, we had to go into Las Vegas. So—and it meant a hardship because the car wasn’t always available. And of course in those days, we were a one—one car families. No one had two cars. Even the ritzy families didn’t have two cars. So—but back to the school, as I said, everything was centered around school, therefore, all community programs: the Halloween parade, was something that everyone in town attended. It was like a city parade? It was. Yes. It was a city parade. Every child from walking age up to middle teens would join in and they would have contests on best costumes and this type of thing. May Day was a very special program. Mr. and Mrs. Burkeholder, Lyle Burkeholder was the administrator of the school area at the time. And his wife was the music teacher. They still live here in Henderson and certainly are well thought of in the community of education in Henderson as a community. But she directed the Christmas program and every child in school, from the first grade through the eighth grade was in the Christmas music program. Oh. (Laughs) Mm-hmm. UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 14 Until it became too large for it to handle anymore. As we increased in population and got more schools of course, the size of the program was cut down, but this came with the growth of the community. Now we have three elementary schools and the junior high, a large junior high and an even larger high school. There are more students in the freshman class at Basic High School now than graduated in all four years that I was in high school. So, when my sister graduated in ’49, there were 39 members of the class, I believe. And when I graduated in ’59, there were a hundred and fifty. So, even though we grew, it still has seen tremendous growth since ’59, when they started dividing, making the new housing tracks. Of the original thousand homes then they built track two, which is the area above oceans streets and going towards Boulder City, they’ve built the golf course area. They’ve built all of the homes here where I live in what we call the triangle. All of the homes on the other side of the highway have been added since then. So. Well, you said, the original population was about a thousand homes. A thousand homes. Approximately. That’s what the government built. A thousand speckled homes. They were all painted different colors for camouflage purposes. Like one side of your house might be pink and one side would be gray and then the other side would be brown and the other side would be yellow, something of this type. And every house in town was about three or four different colors. So that it would be camouflaged from the air. And we all had a flat roof. There was no pitched roof. And it would always—every time it rained, every roof in town leaked. (Laughs) And one lady when I was doing my research had told an incident of—they had gone to play pinochle in (Unintelligible) with some friends and when they came home in a rain storm her daughter was there at home and she had very thoughtfully placed pans throughout the house to catch the rain water. And when UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 15 they—she went back as Mrs. Heatrink went back then through the house she stopped in one of the bedrooms and Margaret had very graciously put a pan on Richard’s chest as he was sleeping to catch the rain water. The only problem was that it was a colander and really wasn’t too effective, I’m afraid. Another thing, as I said, all of the—all the roofs leaked. These houses were not built to be permanent. They thought at most they would be up ten years, and, so, many of the joints in the house didn’t match. And though we had housing that came along and would fix anything for you, still, it was a proverbial problem all the time of something being wrong with the house. As I mentioned, all the roofs were flat. So, anytime that we had a snow and in 1947, Las Vegas Valley had one of the largest snowstorms that it’s had until just recent years. And all the men in town would have to get out and shovel snow off their roof. We never concerned ourselves with the yards. Because most people didn’t have grass. We didn’t have to shovel it off the sidewalks because there were no sidewalks. But every man had to get out and shovel it off of the roof or the roof would cave in, due to the weight of the snow. So, this is something that the houses simply were not constructed for. They were really desert houses and meant to be so. We had—everyone had a swamp cooler, which was a natural part of the construction of the house. How effective were they? Ah, at that time it just circulated the air. And then again, the humidity was not nearly as high then as it is now. So many times in the summertime it was not unusual for our family to tack or nail a cloth over the front of their cooler and then wet it down several times during the day, so that it would blow a little bit cooler air. Many people would wet their sheets in cold water and put them back on the bed or put them over them at night because it was so hot. And—and it was a very dry heat. It wouldn’t be—it was a contest to see if the sheet would dry by evaporation faster than the human body could perspire to wet it again. So. UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 16 It sounds terrible, sleeping in cold wet sheets. But it— Yes. But they weren’t cold that long. (Laughs) It probably felt good, though. I imagine. Oh yes. (Laughs) (Laughs) Yes. Even I could—even at a very early age I can remember how—many times you get out in the middle of the night and get a cold washcloth and put it on your head or your neck. Because it was so sticky hot. Well, it wasn’t sticky hot. But it was hot, and you became sticky. Mm. Maybe that was the problem. (Laughs) Activities—were also centered around various churches. The government donated property in the main part of Henderson for a nondenominational Protestant Church and also property located on Boulder Highway for a Catholic Church. Later of course when the town was incorporated in ’52, the property was purchased from the government. And even now the community church is still a large—a large part of the community. And so of course is Saint Peter’s Catholic Church. Saint Peter’s added a parochial school in the early fifties and it was enforced until cost became such a factor that they had to close the school, and those who attended parochial school then were sent to Las Vegas area. I have friends who graduated from Saint Peter’s and then went on to high school with me here at Basic High School. And later I believe I was probably a sophomore in high school before Gorman High School in Las Vegas was built, which is the Catholic high school in Vegas. But many of the activities would go around church and a lot of the activities were centered around the LDS Church. Although it was several years before they built a chapel here. Henderson has a large LDS population and they are very active in church as they are now. Many of our city councilmen and state senators and UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 17 throughout the state for that matter are LDS men who become involved in city government and state government. Our own state assemblyman from Henderson is James I. Gibson, who is LDS and a very prominent man in the community and in the church. Would you say that originally the people that moved here were or were not from the Mormon faith? Well, of course Las Vegas Valley was originally settled by LDS people. Right. Did they come up this way, as much? There were many who came here at the time of the plant, when the plant opened. Many of our old timers who still live here, who are LDS people. And again, people who are prominent in the community as well as the church. Pratt Prince, who is a former city councilman, owns a barbershop here in town and he moved here shortly after we did, I believe in the fall of ’42. His daughter and I went to high school together; Barney Cabmen, who is prominent in the plumbers union in town, is another who moved here originally—in what we call the old-timers, those who moved here in ’42, ’43, and ’44, are considered old timers. And again, he’s a former city councilman. So, though they had a fairly large population, I don’t think that it was a matter of it being a predominantly LDS community at all. I didn’t join the church until ’56. And so—but I remembered that they met in the old high school auditorium. But then, so did the other faiths. I was Baptist before and I went to church at the old high school gym. Was that before you had the community center church? Yes. Everyone went to church—on Saturday night you went to the dance in the gym and on Sunday morning, you went to church in the gym. And on Sunday afternoon, until the movie house was built, the theatre—you went to the theatre or you went to a play or anything of this type. UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 18 Mm-hmm. Everything was held at the gym. They would get together for card games or play Bingo. Mm-hmm. Anything of this type. Was at the gym, huh? Rummage sales. Everything was at the gym, and everyone went. It didn’t—age didn’t matter or your social standing in the community didn’t matter. The ones who were head men at the plant like Julian Moore, and this type, the executives of the plant hobnobbed with their coworkers, all the way down the line, to the man that swept the floor. Because that was the only place to go. So we all got together. It was—you stayed together because there was no other—together we were united and there was no way to fall, divided. Because there wasn’t any place else to go except out on the desert. And that’s for the lonely. (Laughs) (Laughs) Can you recall any of your teachers that particularly stick in your mind? Oh yes. I started in a special school with Mrs. Nickelson. Due to my birthdate and school law—this type of thing, you know as many small children do, I wasn’t of age to start to school regularly as in kindergarten, so my mother put me in a private school, which was held over in Carver Park, another government area. Where Tent City had been. And—so we started in a special kindergarten over there, and then Mrs. Clements was my First grade teacher and she later remarried and her name was Torraine and her husband was a judge here in town, quite a prominent person. And Mrs. McBride, who still lives here, was my Second grade teacher. And Mrs. King, who still lives here was my Third grade teacher. You see that, that those of us that came very early— (Tape one ends) UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 19 (Unintelligible) Okay. Go ahead. Okay. Those of us then, who came very early, have remained a part of the community. People who see, the old-timers who see each other at the stores always associate their children who grew up together and we talk about the old-timers and the old times in Henderson. You ask about the school district in general. Mrs. Ball was a prominent person in the school district. She was hired by Mr. Petri, who was the first superintendent here, in the school district. And she stayed on and later—not resigned but retired from the Clark County School District. You see, we weren’t—we were all separate school districts. There were several school districts in Clark County, until about 1952 or ’53, and then we were consolidated into one school district, which didn’t make a lot of us happy. We didn’t like the idea of Las Vegas running our schools in Henderson, at first. Of course, in the years since, we realized that economically it has been to our advantage. But at the time, particularly those of us in school were very bitter about it. I imagine the close feeling that you had for the Henderson area. It sort of took that away. Right. We wanted to stay close as Henderson rather than moving in with the hobnobs of Las Vegas, you might say. (Laughs) (Laughs) But Mrs. Ball was a prom—a special person, I suppose, to all of us, who are old-timers. She was the one where we had this social, she was an organist at the community church, which I mentioned. And being the school registrar, she knew every child in Henderson for many, many years. And then, every summer, as part of the club organization, the Missionary Society or something of the community church, they had an ice cream social, where they made, had homemade ice cream. And this was the social event of the summer. Everybody in town went to UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 20 Mrs. Ball’s backyard. And it was lit by Japanese lanterns and this type of thing, and we all had homemade cake and homemade ice cream. And we looked forward to this every year, and it went on for years and years until oh, until she was in her seventies, I suppose, before they quit. But—and it became a project far too large for one home to manage. But the closeness of Henderson, those of us that were close then are still close. As new people moved into town, the closeness left. We’re not—even now, even though we live on the street with several—several of the old-timers, those are the ones we talk to and other than that we’re not that closely associated with our other neighbors, only if we have something in common. Mm-hmm. Judy, can you tell us about your education and where you went to school and your occupations? I graduated from Basic in ’59 and I went to Denver, Colorado, and attended St. Luke’s School of Nursing. And after an accident there I came home and went to work as a registered medical stenographer. I worked for several different doctors in Las Vegas. And then, came to Henderson clinic where I worked for the last couple of years before I went to college in ’68. I decided in 1968 to return to college and I went to school at Brigham Young University, and have my Bachelor of Arts degree with the majors in English, Speech, Drama, and Journalism, with minors in Chemistry and Spanish. I teach at Rancho High School now. I’m on second year of contract. I—before that I substituted for two years. I came into the education market just when they didn’t need teachers, unfortunately. It was perhaps poor timing on someone’s part. But I am a product of the Clark County School District and I love it dearly, and I felt that I would do well within the district. I wanted to repay all the kindnesses that teachers here in Henderson had given me over the years. I felt that they were very understanding of teachers and I helped to emulate some of the things that they had taught me at that time. Would you like to know about the gambling? UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 21 Yes. Why don’t we talk about your feelings about gambling, you said that it didn’t play an important part as far as the recreational activity— Yes. But maybe you can remember some of the openings of some of the new hotels, as they— Okay. Sprung up along the Strip. Okay. The main thing that I remember about gambling is, as a teenager, or as a very small child, not a teenager, as a very small child, while people, youngsters across the nation were learning to read, “See Dick Run” I learned to read, before I started kindergarten by driving back and forth to Las Vegas. And my first words were keno, bingo, (Laughs) Las Vegas, Downtown, Golden Nugget. These types of things. And as far as hotels go, there was only the El Rancho Las Vegas and the Last Frontier Hotel. The show people were much closer to the community then. Prominent stars would often shop at Penney’s or Sears or at the local supermarket. I one time—they would often come here for movie previews, this type of thing. I’ve had my picture taken as a child with Jerry Lewis and Marie Wilson, Diana Linn, some of the older stars. Many times on, particularly on holidays or on Sunday afternoon, we would go out to the hotels, as they sprang up. The Sands and the Sahara, when they became part of the Strip. And we would swim in the hotel pools in the afternoon. It wasn’t closed to non-hotel guests at the time? Technically speaking it was, yes. (Laughs) (Laughs) But they weren’t really too picky about it. And oftentimes we would go out there, I have a cousin who lived in town and we were very close in age and we often went out there and swam. One UNLV University Libraries Judith L. Hamblin 22 night my brother pushed me in the pool at the El Rancho Vegas and I nearly drowned. But fortunately he was also a good swimmer and he saved me. (Laughs) I believes at the promptings of my mot