Transcript of interview with Charlene Cox Cruze by Claytee D. White and Karen Schank, August 9, 2010

The Las Vegas story of Charlene Cox Cruze begins long before she was born in 1941. Her early ancestors had traveled through the area in the 1850s and her grandparents settled in Las Vegas in 1905, the year of incorporation as a town. She is a registered native American and Daughter of the American Revolution. Char recalls growing up in the valley when it had: a "forest of mesquite", plenty of water and atomic bomb tests. Her family's first home was a structure built on a flatbed that her father pulled behind a truck wherever he had work. In this narrative Char touches upon the memories of being a youngster playing in the dust to riding a horse across the desert, swimming in the pool at the Flamingo and seeing celebrities like Elvis Presley and Nat King Cole perform. She also offers her thoughts about the transformation of Las Vegas from a small city to the modern corporate era of the Strip.