Transcript of interview with Lucille Down by James Hanson, February 21, 1972

UNLV University Libraries Lucille Down i An Interview with Lucille Down An Oral History Conducted by James Down 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 Lucille Down ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2017 UNLV University Libraries Lucille Down iii 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 Lucille Down iv Abstract On February 21, 1972, James Hanson interviewed Mrs. Lucille Down (born December 14th, 1911 in Wellington, Kansas) in her home in Las Vegas, Nevada. The interview covers the lives of Union Pacific Railroad workers, and local education at schools such as the Las Vegas Grammar School and Las Vegas High School. Lucille discusses her first job, which was at the Southern Nevada Telephone Company. She also mentions having a swamp cooler attached to her family home. She concludes this interview with recollections on the social, recreational, religious and economic, changes that contributed to the development and growth of Las Vegas, Nevada. UNLV University Libraries Lucille Down 1 Nevada History, Oral Interview Project. The student interviewer: James Hanson. Date of interview, 2-21-72. Name: Mrs. Lucille Down. Address: 1141 South Sixth. Telephone: 384-6576. Are you a native of Southern Nevada? No. I was born in Wellington, Kansas, and had lived in many places before we finally decided to make Las Vegas our permanent home, or rather, my parents did. Ah, when did you come to Southern Nevada? We came to Southern Nevada in 1919 from Montpelier, Idaho. Why did your family or you come here? My father was an employee of the railroads and we had been living in Montpelier, Idaho when he decided to change to Las Vegas area. And Las Vegas at that time was basically, or I guess it was completely a railroad terminal for the Union Pacific Railroad and was the only means of economy. And it was growing and seemed to be a future so we moved to Las Vegas. Were you educated in Southern Nevada? Yes. I attended the Las Vegas Grammar School from the third grade to the eighth, and Las Vegas High School and graduated with the class of 1929. What were your occupations? I worked for two years, after I graduated from high school, for the Southern Nevada Telephone Company. And I was married in 1931 and haven’t worked outside of my home. I’ve been a housewife since that time. At what addresses have you lived in Southern Nevada? The first address, or whom we came to Las Vegas, we stayed for about week in a room that my father had over the Oak Hotel. It was on Fremont Street and it was over a drugstore. It was at First and Fremont. And then, we found an apartment for the family in about, about three blocks UNLV University Libraries Lucille Down 2 south of Fremont Street on Main Street. It was called The Brae Apartments. And then, we moved into a duplex on South Second Street, where the Carousel Club is now. And then, we made our family home, for many years, at 517 South Third Street. They were called Company Houses or the homes for most of the railroad employees and their families lived. And then, of course, after I was married we made various moves in apartments around the area. We built our home in 1940 at 1141 South Sixth Street and it is our present address. Were you married in Las Vegas or Southern Nevada? Yes. I was married in 19—August, the thirty-first, 1931, in Las Vegas, Nevada. At the First Methodist Church parsonage. Is or was church activity an important part of your life? It was very important when we were children, in fact, I remember I attended so many churches that our neighbors wondered what church we really belonged to. But it was very common to get up on a Sunday morning and attend early mass with a young school mate and then make the next church service that (unintelligible) met at the First Methodist Church, and then go to the Mormon Church after that. And the churches were the main source of social life for most of the young people in the community. Were you or are you a member of a social club or other special interests groups? Yes. I’ve belonged to many social groups in Las Vegas, over the years. The first one was the Forteniter’s Club. And then I belonged to the Las Vegas Art League and was an organizing member of Service League, which is now Junior League. While the children were in school I was a member of the PTA and held various offices, like most parents did. I was a den mother for the cub scouts, and I also conducted the Las Vegas Library Children’s Summer Reading Program. First during the war years, I was the US (unintelligible) Traveler’s Aide, where I enjoyed doing UNLV University Libraries Lucille Down 3 what I could. But when we were children in Las Vegas, the main social club was the Mesquite Club. And I remember they had a Story Book Ball every year, where all the little children in the community were—most of them were involved. That was a very fine program. And we have a special interest in antique bottle collecting at the moment, in visiting Nevada ghost town. I think this is a great area for many interests and there’s lots of wonderful places to visit around the area. Was gambling an important recreational activity for your family? No. Gambling has always been sort of—it was there but it didn’t bother us any. We were never personally involved in gambling. But neither do we see any reason why it would be a detriment in any way to anyone who would like to move here. Other words, you can take it or leave it. What—what were some of the recreational activities for your family? Or did you have many at all? When we were children we had to make our own recreational activity. The town was so small, we saw practically, if we would walk up town in the morning, we would see practically everyone we knew, and stop to visit, and play on the courthouse lawn or go to the Public Library, which was right by the courthouse. The main summer activity was swimming at the Old Ranch, which was a long hike, actually, from where we lived, because we had to walk down a dirt road without any shade. And we, most of the time, most of the summers, we would go back to our grandparents’ farm in Missouri as soon as school was out. My mother would get the big trunk packed and we would get on the Union Pacific and travel back to Mountain Grove, Missouri, and spend the summer on the farm, which was a really wonderful, wonderful thing to do, because it was such a change from dessert living. And we didn’t ride in cars, because very few people had them when we were children in Las Vegas, in the early twenties. We did go horseback riding at the ranch and around the area. And some of the ranches had big reservoirs, where we used to just UNLV University Libraries Lucille Down 4 hike out to the ranches and they would let us swim there all we wanted to. And one of the main attractions for Las Vegas children, too, was to walk the old water pipe, which was wooden, out to the big spring. And catch pollywogs or frogs, and this was the main source of the water supply, from the big artesian well, that furnished the whole area at that time. But we never seemed to lack for anything to do. Although, we were doing it without spending any money at all. It seemed that money was not even required for entertainment when we were children. Did you live in Southern Nevada prior to refrigerated air conditioning? Yes. Did you have a swamp cooler? Oh, when we built this home on, in 1940, we had a swamp cooler, what was called a water cooling system, and it was, ours was built right with the house, underneath our house and it was very adequate until we got so much humidity in the area we had to revert to refrigeration. So it was a manufactured air conditioner? Yes. It was manufactured. How ‘bout during hot weather? Did you leave town? Quite often we would drive up to Charleston or go to the beaches, California beaches. We always had a vacation, at least two weeks every summer and of course we always made it to a cooler place. But we didn’t go because we couldn’t stand the heat, it was just that we had two weeks coming and we always took advantage of it. How ‘bout changes in Southern Nevada, since you first arrived, economic changes? When we first came the whole economy was based on whether or not the Union Pacific employees were in Las Vegas. The merchants wouldn’t have been able to sell anything to speak of without the big paychecks from the railroad each month. And that was the only source of UNLV University Libraries Lucille Down 5 economy in the area. And then, of course, we had heard talk for years about Union Pacific pulling their big shop department out of Las Vegas and the town was supposed to fold up when they did. Eventually they did move the Union Pacific shops to Pocatello, Idaho, but the town was still struggling along. There were bad times when some of our most prosperous old timers had said that they would have left town if they had had the money to do so but they had to stay and it meant prosperity in the long run. But all during these times there was talks of the Boulder Dam being built, which would mean of course a big change in many ways of benefit. And eventually that came about that brought in a boom and was the result of the government building a beautiful city of Boulder City. Then after Boulder Dam was built the people who were thinking the town would fold up were crying the blues. World War II came about and we were given Nellis Air Base, which brought a lot of revenue into the area. The first resort hotel was supposed to have been very foolish to build it in a spot like this but after the first one was the El Rancho Vegas and it did so well that others started coming in. I think that some of our most prominent citizens today were at one time stationed at Nellis Air Base and they liked the area during the World War II and after they were released from service came back and established their homes here. After the war it seemed that we had been finally discovered by the tourists and they liked the friendly atmosphere and the relaxed way of living and I think that’s been the greatest thing that’s ever happened to this area, is having people be able to come here and get away from it all and go home feeling that it’s been worthwhile. How ‘bout environmental changes? What was the weather like when you were a kid? Is it similar to nowadays or was there much pollution? The weather? Yes. UNLV University Libraries Lucille Down 6 Ah, well there wasn’t, actually, there wasn’t any pollution to speak of, except the smoke that probably came from the big engines, Union Pacific ran through here. There were very few automobiles and of course, no industry at all, to cause any pollution as far as air pollution is concerned. People were able to burn their leaves in the fall and their garbage in the backyard if they wish to and there weren’t many regulations and rules in regards to environmental or pollution, as we call it, today. Because the community was small and there were more, there was so much wide open space around us. I think that, today, with so many automobiles in the area that we can’t expect not to have problems. How ‘bout, was a small population in other words then, a lot of dirt roads then—do you remember how the town grew? Did it grow fast and what kind of changes took place with the roads and the buildings and that? Well, the town, the main part of the town was from, everything started from the Union Pacific Depot and extended to Fifth Street. What we call Fifth Street. It’s now called Las Vegas Boulevard South and that was to the east. North of Las Vegas was—the edge of the north part of town was probably what we used to call the Old Creek. And it ran north of the community about where the City Police Department is now and the fire department. And there were a lot of little shacks and things along the creek. And then the southern boundary of the community, was at the end of the Company Houses. The square block houses that the Union Pacific built for their employees. And that I believe, ended at Garces Street. The main street in Las Vegas in the old days was Main Street; that’s where the Los Angeles Highway came through town. And Las Vegas Boulevard South was just the street on the edge of town. The growth, the town didn’t really start growing until the Boulder Dam was built and then that brought people in from all over to work at various jobs on the dam. Engineers and their families and construction men, high UNLV University Libraries Lucille Down 7 steelers, what have you. And some of those people came here and saw what we have, liked it and stayed or went off and told of their experiences here and others came and that was about the time when the growth really started. How ‘bout social changes? Were there many blacks in Vegas or? Were there many prejudice against many people in the early days? No. I think that was the really wonderful real spirit of the west, that did, was a part of everyone’s life in Las Vegas. There didn’t seem to be any race consciousness. There were very few Negro families in Las Vegas. But the ones who were here were respected. The railroad people had the big paychecks. They were the ones who kept the economy in the town going. The merchants were very fine people. If somebody had a problem with finances, his word was taken as is good as the written word if he just said he would pay the bill and of course, it didn’t always work but it mostly did and actually Las Vegas at that, in the early days, the early twenties was just like one big happy family. There weren’t any crime connected with like rape or if there would be it would be a rare incident. Because we had a wide open Red Light District, as it was called, on North First Street, two blocks north of Fremont and especially during the Boulder Dam days, when some of the workers who came to work on the project were the type that followed these big construction jobs. They were pretty tough characters, some of them. They didn’t have to celebrate or let down in the main part of the community. It was all done up on North First Street. And it kept that element away from the respectable part of the town. And it had its place in the growth of the community, too. Of course, during, when the Nellis Air Base came in, the Army said they wouldn’t put the base here unless the red light area was closed. So that was the end of what we—they were known as the, having legal prostitution in those days. That was one change, of course, that happened. Not that everybody could be a hundred percent perfect or honorable or UNLV University Libraries Lucille Down 8 what have you but, really, it was very rare to hear of any sort of crime in Las Vegas proper in the early twenties. Would you be willing to participate in a longer interview if requested? No. Well, thank you very much for helping me on this project in the interest of the history of Southern Nevada.