Transcript of interview with Betty Joyce Clark by Steven Knowles, February 16, 1978

UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark i An Interview with Betty Joyce Clark An Oral History Conducted by Steven H. Knowles 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 Betty Clark ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2018 UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 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 Betty Clark iv Abstract On February 16, 1978, Steven Knowles interviewed Betty Joyce Clark (born 1940 in Cartersville, Georgia) about her experiences living in Las Vegas, Nevada. Clark first talks about her early places of residence, the schools she attended, and some of the businesses she remembered from the time. She also discusses bus transportation, the first hospitals in town, and the early development of the Las Vegas Strip. Additional topics include the development of utility services for homes, early railroad activity, the development of North Las Vegas, and the first airport and airline services. The latter part of the interview includes discussion of the first department stores, the tourist population, the racial makeup of the city, the police department, and the extent of crime in Las Vegas. The interview finalizes with Clark’s thoughts on the growth of Las Vegas. UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 1 Narrator is Betty Clark. The date is February 16th, 1978, four p.m. The place is 3662 Maria Street in the living room of Betty Clark in Las Vegas. The project is a local history project, History 117, oral interview, a life of an early Las Vegas person. Betty, when’d you move to Las Vegas? In September 1947. How old were you then? Seven years old. Where was the first place that you lived in Las Vegas? When I first came to Las Vegas, there were no places to rent or buy, so we ended up back in Henderson, which was a very ghastly place—not a blade of grass or a tree or anything. And we had to live there six months until a house was built to Sixteenth and Bonanza, which was on the edge of town—nothing but desert from Bonanza on, and below Bruce Street was nothing but desert. What was Henderson like? Were there trailers up here, did they have houses or what? They were federal housing projects, which were cinderblock, four units to a building, two to three-room apartments, and they were very—to my knowledge, they were very horrible and cold. And like I said, we came from a very green place, lots of trees and everything, and when we had to go back out there and live, it was very heartbreaking. There were the big plants out there and a lot of chemicals—a very hot, hot place with no trees and void of any vegetation at all. Was the titanium plant out there at that time? I believe so. I’m not aware of what plants were there and which ones weren’t, but there were a lot. It was right after the war, a couple years after the war, and they were still producing at the time. UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 2 And so you moved from there to Sixteenth and Bonanza Street? You said (unintelligible)? Uh-huh, below Bruce Street was all desert then from Bonanza on. In fact, Bonanza was a dirt road, and all the streets down in there were dirt roads. What was transportation like? Was it hard getting into town? How far was it into town? We walked. I imagine it was a mile or so up the Food Land market, it was called something else, and I can’t recall, but that was Fifteenth and Fremont, and we would walk there, and then a town was seven or eight more blocks from there. Which way, toward west? Yes, going toward Fifth Street. What was the main street in town? Fremont and Fifth Street, which is now Las Vegas Boulevard. All the businesses were right around Fremont and Fifth Street? Mm-hmm. What kind of businesses did they have? From about Third Street to Sixth Street were mostly general stores: Penney’s, Sears, drugstores, dress shops. I remember banks and drugstores being where there are many casinos now, like at Third Street was a bank. And the casinos were kind of kept to the first two blocks. There were trees on Fremont Street, and at the end was a park with a circle drive going around, and everybody went up Fremont Street and around the circle and back down. That was a big Saturday night. You had to pay for the Golden Nugget, go get an ice cream cone. It was a big Saturday night for a kid. Now, you were born in Cartersville, Georgia? Yes. UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 3 And all your family’s from Georgia? Yes. When were you born? April 24th, 1940. And your family background and nationality was? Irish, Indian, English, a little bit of everything. How long did you live in Georgia? Seven years. From the time you were born till? I was seven, till we moved here. And you lived in Georgia (unintelligible) Las Vegas then? Right. What kind of occupations have you had since you came to Las Vegas? Hairdresser, grocery checker, and a secretary bookkeeper. And most of my life, housewife. Most of your life? When did you get married? June, 1959. What was your maiden name? Bearden. After you got to Las Vegas and you moved into your house at Sixteenth and Bonanza, you were already in school at that time? Yes, I was in second grade. What school did you go to? UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 4 I went to the North Ninth Street School, which was up the Bonanza Hill, and Bonanza Hill, at that time, was so steep that it was almost impassable by a car. It was gravel, and you would go up the hill, and the hills would spin, and you’d slide back down. And so, most of the time, we had to walk, and it was a big thing to walk up that hill every morning, and I remember when it snowed in 1947. And that turned into the biggest playground in the city. Could the cars get up and—? Not during the snow, it couldn’t. They could hardly make it up when it wasn’t snowing. But they improved that; they cut the hill down after a while and leveled it out. It’s still quite steep, it’s about Thirteenth and Bonanza, somewhere in there. What grades did you go to school at Ninth and Bonanza? Second through fourth, the old Ninth Street School. Is there a new Ninth Street School there now, or? I believe it’s used as the lunch center now, I’m not real sure. It’s not used as a school anymore. Is that all the grades they had in that school at the time? No, they had kindergarten through fourth grade; then when you reached fourth grade, you switched over to the Fifth Street School, which was—I went from fifth to eighth grade there, but the Fifth Street School had from kindergarten to the eighth grade. What was the Fifth Street School like? It was an old, old building, two-story and a basement, which they had added from time to time, building on it. It was right downtown; in fact, we had to walk through town to get to school. You walked to school every day? Yes. You didn’t have any transportation? UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 5 Only if it rained the parents would take us to school, but most of the time we walked back and forth. There was no school bus system? Not to my knowledge at that time, there wasn’t. In fact, when we went to school, there wasn’t any air conditioning or swamp coolers or anything. Well, for some reason, as kids, we didn’t seem to mind it. How’d you stand it if there were no swamp coolers or cooling of any kind? At that time, the town didn’t seem to be as hot as it is now. It could have been because there wasn’t as much vegetation then, or it could’ve been because, as kids, we just didn’t notice the heat. It never seemed to be a problem for you in class, then, on hot days? We would open the windows and the doors up, and there seemed to be a breeze. I believe school got out earlier then than it does now. How many hours a days did you spend in school? Oh, nine to three, usually, nine to two, nine to three. How many days a week? Five, Monday through Friday. Was the school different, do you think, then than it is today? No. In fact, I think some of the same teachers are teaching. Do you know of any in particular that are still teaching? In high school, some high school teachers, I do. Mrs. Willy and a Mrs. Newton—a Mr. Knapp is teaching my daughter now, and he taught me when I was in high school. In fact, I just ran into him not too long ago, and he said it made him feel terribly old. UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 6 What kind of studies did he teach when he taught you? Social studies. And I believe he still teaches social studies. That was at Vegas High he taught me, and he’s teaching her at Chaparral now. Okay. Were there any construction going on at the Fifth Street School, or did it stay the same the whole time you were there? Did they add on to it, or? It stayed the same while I was there. What was around there at that time? Lots of trees, I remember a lot of grass. There were some old rental homes, motels, private residences, and businesses across the street on Fifth Street. What kind of businesses were across the street. There was an ice cream parlor where all the high school kids and the grammar school kids hung out, it was called the White Bunny. There were motels and a wedding chapel on the corner. Any big businesses at all? No, just smaller—mainly motels across the street. Were the roads paved, were they dirt roads, or? No, they were all paved. How far—Fifth Street faced what is now the Strip, didn’t it? It ran out to the Strip. And how far did Las Vegas Boulevard go south at that time, towards what is now the Strip? Main Street and Las Vegas Boulevard merged at St. Louis Street. Was that the end of the pavement? UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 7 No. When I first came here, it was like a highway that ran through town and turned into Las Vegas Boulevard. Sahara was a dirt road, and there was a place called the Club Bingo, which later on became the hotel, Sahara. And it was called the Club Bingo? Yes. Was it the same place where the Sahara is now? Yes. It was a different building; I believe they tore the building down when they built the hotel. What was across the street from it? The El Rancho, and there were cottages all the way around the EL Rancho Vegas. You went to Fifth Street School through the eighth grade? Right. And where’d you go to school then? Las Vegas High School. What was that like? That, too, was an old building with lots of pretty trees around it. It had a lot of tradition to it. It was a two-story building with oil floors and they kept adding new buildings to it, too. It was the only high school here at that time. When I was a freshman, they divided us up, and all the people that were going to Rancho went back to the old Fifth Street School and started their freshman year at the Fifth Street School, but that was the first student body of Rancho. And in the middle of the year, they completed my freshman year, which was 1953, ’54, they completed the Rancho High School building. And the freshman class moved down into the new building, which was on Owens Street, which was the city limits for Las Vegas, and North Las Vegas started at Owens. I don’t know if it still the city limits or now. UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 8 Then just a freshman class of old Las Vegas High School went into Rancho? There was a sophomore class, too, that was already going to Vegas High, and the two classes were split, and half of the student body went to Rancho and half went to Vegas High. Was there any school transportation at that time, or did everybody have to provide their own transportation? For the outlying areas such as kids that went to Blue Diamond and kids that lived in Paradise Valley, and I am not sure about any other areas. I know there was a bus provided for those two areas. Was it just one bus, or? Paradise Valley had one bus, and I don’t even know if they used—yes, there was a Blue Diamond bus that brought the kids in, so there must’ve been maybe two school buses at that time. And those were the only two high schools in Las Vegas? Yes. What year was this? 1957, ’58. What year did you graduate from high school? 1958—I’m wrong about that year. That was 1953, ’54 that Rancho started, and I graduated in 1958. What grade were you in when Rancho started? I was a freshman. And that was the ninth grade? Yes. UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 9 And Rancho started with classes in ’53? ’53, ’54. Okay, but you completed your schooling at Las Vegas High School? Yes. What about the people you went to school with? Were there any people that you went to school with that are well-known people in Las Vegas now? Yes, Jim Bilbray and Ron Laurie, who’s mayor pro tem and county commissioner. And Roy Parish is the fire chief. What does Jim Bilbray do in town now? Jim is a lawyer now. He was a city commissioner for a while. What was he like in high school? He was a very brilliant boy. He was a history buff, and he was quite active and a leader in school. What kind of things did he—you said he was a leader in the school—did he belong to certain clubs or organizations? Yes, he held offices in different clubs and a student body officer. Was he ever student body president? I don’t recall if he was a student body president or not? What was Ron Laurie like? I remember Ron grew very rapidly at the end of his sophomore year—it seemed like he grew about two feet—and he played football the last two years and was quite active in school. Was he a good football player? To my knowledge, he was. UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 10 Did he stay in Vegas after high school? I am not sure if he went on to college or not. I imagine he did, because he came back and managed a business. He must’ve had some college. What kind of business was it? He was general manager of Wonder World; he still is, I believe, when he’s not mayor. Do you know what year that was, approximately? Through the sixties, he managed one or the other Wonder Worlds. What about Roy Parish? Roy was behind me, and I don’t recall a great deal about him. Were you still living at Sixteenth and Bonanza when you were going to high school? No, by this time we had moved out into the, what they then called the Hyde Park area, which was beyond the Memorial Hospital. You’re talking about Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital? Yes, it was to the west. How far west? I imagine it was about five miles from town; it seemed like it was way out in the boondocks at that time. There wasn’t much between the underpass; there were ranch estates. And from the hospital on, when I first moved out there, was a dirt road, where West Charleston is now. Later on, they paved it. The Tonopah Highway veered off of it, and they built a big community called Hyde Park and another shopping area—Panorama Market sprung up. And there was bus service out there; the school provided us with school passes to ride on the city buses for the kids that lived out in that area. I then transferred to the West Charleston Grammar School, and it was, like, out among these ranches, and it was more like going to a ranch than it was going to school. UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 11 Where was the school located? On Palomino Lane right off of Rancho Road. And lots of days, we’d get out about noon, and we would walk to Twin Lakes, which was a local swimming recreation place at that time, and instead of classes, if it was extremely hot, we’d just all go swimming—teacher and everything. You mean, you wouldn’t go to class, the teacher would probably go swimming? She’d decide it was terribly hot, and to my knowledge, we didn’t have air conditioners—we might’ve had swamp coolers that didn’t work too well, but when you got into May, later part of May, we spent most of our afternoons over at Twin Lakes swimming. Did the houses that you live in have swamp coolers? Yes, they did. They were swamp coolers, and then everybody gradually changed over to air conditioning. It was expensive to change over. What kind of ranches did they have out there around the school? People that had horses and big sprawling homes; they were few and far between. There was a lot of desert all around. They were big ranches, fairly well to do people? Yes. Did they raise livestock? Yes, all around the school were chickens, and peacocks would wander into the schoolyard. The surroundings were very pleasant to go to school. We’d open all the windows and the doors and lots of times have class outside. It was very informal. Did the peacocks have any significance? Were they being raised, or they just happened to be? UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 12 They were being raised by the people that owned the ranches. And these little birds—I’m not—pheasants, I guess they talk behind their mama in a row—they were wild and they were all over. There was a lot of live—what would you call it—wildlife. Wildlife? Yes, out that way. And you were in what grade then? I was in the eighth grade. And the next year, you transferred to Las Vegas High? Yes, that was the only place to go. The house you moved into in the Hyde Park area, was it a tract home, or did you have it specially built? The house we moved in was a tract home, but it was not part of the Hyde Park. It was called the Wesley Edition, and it wasn’t at large. It’s across from the water company there on Charleston. It was down the hill, and it was separate from the Hyde Park. I remember when we moved out there, there was one phone in the model home for the whole area. And I imagine several thousand people lived out there, and this one phone was used—you had to stand in line to use this one payphone. Phone service was very hard to get at that time. Did they have dial phones, or? No, we had numbers, you know, like 5-1-6-7-M, with an operator that came on the line and said, “Number, please?” So, everybody went through the operator when they made a call? Mm-hmm. Were the phones expensive to have in the houses here? UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 13 Not paying the phone bills, I don’t remember—I don’t believe you had put a deposit down to get one. I don’t remember what the rates were. Did you have any trouble getting a phone when you moved into your house? Yes. There was a year’s wait, and fortunately we had a highway patrolman living next door, and he got one immediately, and we asked if we could be on his party line, and he said yes. So, I think it was about a six months’ wait for that phone with him having priority as being a highway patrolman. Did they give priority to police? Yes, police and doctors and people that needed to be gotten in contact with immediately. Do you have any idea where the phone company was located in? Yes, I had two aunts that worked as operators, and it was on Bridger Street near Fifth Street in a small building, and there were about twenty operators on duty per shift. Did you have much trouble with the service of the phone company? There were a lotta lines, got crossed, and a lotta numbers that you didn’t call that you got. And there were four to six on a party line. Did you have trouble getting your call through because of the other people talking? Yes, lots of times you had to wait. What were the other utilities like in the homes, like electricity, water, sewage? In 1947 when we had the house at Sixteenth and Bonanza, we had a septic tank in the backyard. And in later years, they connected on to city sewage disposal. And electricity was fine, gas lines were fine, and I don’t recall too much other about the utilities. Did you have any (unintelligible) to get it hooked up, like the gas or electricity? UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 14 No, not at that time. We moved into the West Charleston area in 1953, and it just was starting to boom then; they started building quite a bit. Did they have paved roads out that way? Yes. Once they build the Hyde Park community, the road were paved, and all the tracts, I imagine it was a city recommendation that they had to have paved streets and streetlights. Do you remember anything about Southern Nevada in those days—hospital? Oh, Southern Nevada Hospital? I believe it was built during the war because it looked like that war prefab look that, when they built things—and it was a long, they kept building onto it. It had a lot of temporary annexes to it, and I don’t know if they still have those original buildings there or not. Did you ever have to go to the hospital, or your family, or? As a child, I didn’t. I had two of my children there. As a child, I went to a hospital on Eighth Street called the Las Vegas Hospital, which had about eight doctors—it was a private hospital. It’s not a rest home, I believe. Was that the main hospital for Las Vegas at that time? It was kind of a tossup between Memorial and Las Vegas Hospital. Most local people used the Las Vegas Hospital. Better service there? Well, it had that small town atmosphere where you could call the doctor anytime, day or night, and they made house calls then, too. They did? Yes. Do you remember any doctors in particular? UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 15 Yes, baby doctor, pediatrician, was Dr. Lun, and Dr. Sivane was our family doctor, and Dr. Woodbury. Dr. Sivane is still alive today, and I believe Dr. Lun is, too. Were they relatively young at that time? Yes. What about the other two, have they died since then? I believe Dr. Woodbury has died, but Dr. Lun and Dr. Sivane are still alive. Dr. Hardy was another doctor, and he has died since then. They stayed in Las Vegas—they died in Las Vegas? Yes. Were there any other hospitals or medical facilities at that time? Rose de Lima was in Henderson, but Sunrise was later; Sunrise must have been built in the sixties sometime. Women’s Hospital—I had one of my children there in 1969, and that was a relatively new hospital at that time. The Strip and Casino Center both must have just been building back in the early fifties. What do you remember about that? There wasn’t really a lot to the Strip. It was way out. The Flamingo seemed a long way out. There was an Old Frontier Village at the Last Frontier Hotel, and it consisted of an old Western town and museums and had a merry-go-round amusement area. The Sahara Hotel was a newer hotel. The El Rancho Vegas, the Flamingo Hotel, and the Last Frontier were the original hotels that I remember as a kid that were there when I came to Las Vegas. Do you remember anything about the El Rancho Vegas? It was a very Western atmosphere there. They had a lot of promotions with cowboys and cowgirls, and very, very Western. The Helldorado Days that we had, the hotels entered huge UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 16 floats, and the beauty parade that was held on Sunday would be three or four hours long, and the whole town would turn out. It was something everybody waited for every year to happen, and the whole town celebrated it. My dad as an Elk, and they had what they call kangaroo court, and you had to buy a badge or they’d throw you in kangaroo court. And they would go out to the Strip and drag people off the showroom floors and drag them downtown and put them in the kangaroo court. They still have it, but it’s not anything like it used to be, because the town used to turn out to watch all this go on. This was at the El Rancho Vegas? They would go to the three hotels—the kangaroo court was usually held downtown. When did most of the building of the Strip start? Is there a particular time that you can remember when they really started building a lot of hotels, one after the other or at the same time? Through the fifties and into the sixties, I would say from ’53 on, there seemed to be a building boom all over town. At one point, they overbuilt, and there were many houses standing still. They stopped building, and the houses were vacant. It seemed like there were two or three building booms; one building boom was through the early sixties. Right after I got married, they had overbuilt homes, and there were many standing vacant. What year was that? ’62, ’63. The building industry stopped building then, waited for those homes to get sold? Yes. I don’t believe the government would release any more loans until the houses were sold. What was Casino Center like at that time, early fifties? UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 17 It’s very different than it is now. I think now, it has a very carnival effect. And then the Golden Nugget, the Pioneer Club—the Horseshoe Club was called something else, it wasn’t called the Horseshoe Club. The Westerner, which is no longer there, was a very local spot. The El Cortez was a local gathering place. And it was much friendlier. You could go in the Downtown area and always see someone you knew. In fact, it was a socializing place at that time. Was gambling still a real big thing at that time? Oh, yes. And the bright lights were there. Even at that time? Yes. On the Strip, too, or just Casino Center? Well, at the time, the hotels were so far apart, you didn’t notice the bright lights out there. You say out there, was that? It was out in the desert. The Flamingo was way out, it seemed like. Were there paved roads going to it? Yes, the L.A. Highway ran through. L.A. Highway, is that (unintelligible) the Strip now? Yes. What about Sahara Avenue? Sahara Avenue used to be called Francisco or San Francisco Avenue, and it was a dirt road for a long time. When I was in high school, we had—going to the edge of town, which was Maryland Parkway and Sahara, and we had a big bonfire out in the desert, which I think there’s a Terrible Herbst station there now, and that was way out in the boondocks. We had to out there and pile tires up and have a big snake dance around it. UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 18 During the building boom, when you said the Strip started building up, were there many high-rise buildings built for businesses Downtown? No. I don’t recall the high-rise buildings coming in till the late sixties sometime—I may be wrong on that. You said the Strip area? Strip area, Casino Center area. I don’t recall anything over six stories tall for a long time. What kind of buildings were six stories tall? Probably the Sahara had a six-story tall hotel. Was there anything on Casino Center that was a multiple-story? Whatever the Horseshoe Club’s name was, they had three stories there. There was an Overland Hotel—no, that was at the top of Fremont Street. There was an old hotel where the Horseshoe Club is, and it had two or three stories. The Sal Sagev had two or three stories. What was Main Street like at that time? Main Street was mostly feed stores and the old ice house was there, and mostly industrial, it was an industrial street. Did they have trains coming through Vegas at that time? Oh yes, passenger trains, too. When my kids were little, we used to go down on Saturday night and watch the trains. We did that for a long time, and a lot of the town did. That was entertainment to go down and watch the passenger trains come in. Were there a lot of them? I don’t know how many—there was one every evening, and there always seemed like a train and people getting off the trains. How early a time date-wise can you remember train traffic coming through Vegas? UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 19 In 1947 when I first came here. Was that a big part of the transportation into town? I believe it was at that time. Do you know which railroads were operating at that time? Union Pacific is the only one that I ever recall being mentioned. Where were the railroad yards located at that time? Where they are now, at Main Street, Fremont, at the head of Fremont Street and Main Street. You said it was kind of like a social gathering place to watch the trains come in? Mm-hmm. When it was a hot night—there was a park right in front of the railroad depot, and it was parking area, and you go down and watch the train come in. That park, were there natural springs around the park or something? No, it was a circle park at the head of Fremont Street, and I remember there were always a lot of bums sleeping there, it seemed they used to get off the train and slept in the park. The natural springs were at where the Elks Club is now on North Las Vegas Boulevard going toward Las Vegas, where the Old Fort is. There used to be a swimming pool there, and it was called the Old Ranch. It was a natural swimming pool; somebody had dug it out and lined it with rocks that they had gotten out of the fields. And when I was a kid, we would go over there—it was like a hot springs, and we would go over there, swimming free. And later on, they charged; they enclosed it in a fence and charged. This was around Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue? Yes. What is today Boulevard and Washington. Was there a fishing area around there somewhere? UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 20 There was a creek or what they call a Las Vegas Wash, Las Vegas Creek, ran down through there. I don’t know about fishing; I don’t ever recall fish. Were there houses around there, or was that also out of town? It was like a big meadow. I believe the Mormon Church farmed some of that land down through there. There was alfalfa there at one time, below where the fort is. Really? Yeah, I believe the Elks Club owns a lot of that land down there in the city. It’s a big park now. Were there many farm in the Vegas Valley at all at that time? Not to my knowledge. There was an LDS farm below Sunrise Mountain, but farming, I don’t recall. What kind of things did they farm? At the LDS ranch? Yes. They had a dairy out there and they had alfalfa. Did they produce milk and things for the Valley or just for themselves? I’m not sure whether it was just for the LDS Church, it was cooperative, or what. What was North Las Vegas like back in those days? In late forties, it was like an old part of the town. The business part of North Las Vegas was sort of a slum, as I remembered as a child, was slum-like. And then as the years grew, it became quite a city down there, with their own city government and everything. I don’t believe it was incorporated at the time. Was it called North Las Vegas in the forties? North Town, or North Las Vegas. UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 21 You said that it mainly consisted of what you would consider slum dwellers? Not necessarily slum dwellers—I just recall a lot of older houses and older buildings down in—I’d say lower income. How big was North Las Vegas? Well, the late forties, it was very small, and then it began to grow. It built enough that they had to build a high school for the area. And that was Rancho High School? Yes. And they began putting housing tracts all around it—College Park housing tract began to be built at that time and grew. Do you remember when they incorporated or became North Las Vegas with their own government, were you—? No, I don’t. Do you have any idea about? No, I sure don’t. Was there any ever problem between North Las Vegas people and Las Vegas people? Through the years, there seemed to be some rivalry. I think North Las Vegas people tried to intill some pride in their community, and as they did, they built some rivalry up. Was it a friendly-type rivalry, or were there—? Not always. (Laughs) Not always? Not always. Were there any businesses in North Las Vegas at that time? UNLV University Libraries Betty Clark 22 I recall motels, used car lots, pawn shops, some gambling—very few gambling casinos, mostly bars that serviced the Nellis men, Air Force Base. Were there