Transcript of interview with Alma Athella Huffman by R.A. Grau, March 2, 1972

UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman i An Interview with Alma Athella Huffman An Oral History Conducted by R. A. Grau 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 Alma Athella Huffman ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2019 UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 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 Alma Athella Huffman iv Abstract On March 2, 1972, collector R. A. Grau interviewed former Justice of the Peace, Alma Athella Huffman (born May 2nd, 1909 in Bunkerville, Nevada) in her daughter’s home in Las Vegas, Nevada. This interview covers the history of Southern Nevada. Alma also offers an in-depth description of early life in Bunkerville, Nevada. UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 1 (Audio starts midsentence)—of Nevada. Alma? I believe, is that correct Alma? Alma Athella. That’s the (unintelligible) name. That’s the reason I—(Laughs) Athella. Okay. Athella. We’re talking on the history of Nevada. Alma has lived here a total of about forty years. And we’re sitting in her living room and just doing a little conversation between ourselves. Alma tell us about how things were when you first went to school here? I think that’s a good point to start. Well, I’ll tell you—now this is not my home. Mm-hmm. I’m sorry. That’s— I didn’t mean to give you— Quite alright. This is my daughter’s home. I’m here due to cancer. Right. I live in Bunkerville, Nevada. Mm-hmm. Where I was born and raised. We came back there after living in California. And at that time they didn’t—they had a grade school. Uh-huh. Built of rock. People got together and built a rock grade school. And they got together, the teachers for that school. Course it was outside toilets and there was nothing—no conveniences of UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 2 any kinds that they have nowadays. Then they went to work eventually, and bonded themselves, the people did, to get money to build a high school. They got the frame up and then a hurricane, a very, very strong wind came one night and blew the frame down. So anyway, they put it back again, and they went to work. And in order to have enough students to have this high school, they paid two girls from Mesquite, Nevada to come over to Bunkerville to go to school—the town did. They lived in my father’s house. We lived across the street in the school house. They lived in my home. And anyway, then they got the state to take it over, pay for the teachers and assume their bonds and what have you, I don’t know the—the rigamarole. Mm-hmm. They had to go through the technicalities, but nevertheless, they—it was taken over by the state then. And we had a high school. But to me was, I look back now, it really was a joy to grow up in that kind of a small town environment. No, we didn’t know what the word crime was. We didn’t know what it meant. (Laughs) Never heard of such thing. And now—you have to ask me questions because I— Okay. My grandfather Levitt, Orange. His name was Orange. Orange Decatur Levitt was on the school board. A Bunker and an Earl, I think was on the school board at that time. And they worked real hard to get this school going, so that they would have an education. Because we believed very strongly in education. And in—also in the social graces, or the—graces, the, that is in the—in plays and what’s the word that I want to use? I’ve been sick lately so (Laughs) Yes. So my words don’t come like they should. Amenities? Is that what you are looking for? UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 3 Beg you pardon? Amenities? Yes. But there’s also something they call cover, the arts. Mm. Well, anyway, the arts. Okay. The dancing and the music and— Right. And my mother was a pianist. And she taught a lot of piano lessons and her children—some of her children—I didn’t—I wasn’t that fortunate and lucky enough to learn. Mm-hmm. Became—could play the piano. But nevertheless, that was one of the principal things, that we wanted our—they wanted their young folks or their children to grow up with social graces and the things that’s important. Mm-hmm. Those kinds of things were important to us. Now the reason they went there, come down at that valley, was to plant cotton. They had a cotton gin up at the—up at the upper end of the little town of Bunkerville. On a ditch—the water came out of the canal that they built to irrigate the farms with. Now these were the Mormon people? These were the Mormon people. Mm-hmm. They were all Mormons. UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 4 Mm-hmm. And the water went on and turned the mechanism (Laughs) the wheels that run the mechanism that— Mm-hmm. (Unintelligible) the cotton. Then the cotton was taken up to a building up in—up at Washington. The old building is still there at Washington, Utah. Just a few miles north of Saint George. It still stands. And it’s—and it was used up there. Anyway, that was the principal reason for them going down there. And when they went down there, they had to dig canals from the river. The canal is three or four miles long. And at first, of course, that was just with teams and horses. All teams and horses. (Laughs) Teams over— Teams and Fresno’s is what I meant to say. (Laughs) Mm-hmm. Fresno is similar, it’s a scraper, it’s similar to a bulldozer, only it’s on a small scale and it’s used with horses. Instead of big machinery. Mm-hmm. And in the summertime, those storms had come down, the rain would come. (Laughs) Fill up the ditch, canal, and it had to be cleaned out. And it was continuous effort and work on their part all the time—to keep this ditch clean, in order to irrigate these crops. They planted besides their cotton, they planted hay and grain. And of course, fruits and vegetables of all kinds were planted because they had to. There was no place to get them if they didn’t have—grown their own, they didn’t have anything. They just—the nearest railroad by wagon was thirty, thirty-five, forty miles away. UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 5 Mm-hmm. Moapa—this was the railroad station. And had to be freighted by team from the railroad station over, so we couldn’t have fresh vegetables, we just had to grow them. Anyway, they did have lots of fruits and vegetables at that time. Now they don’t have much. It’s been condensed now to where there’s about three or four big dairies in that valley. They take up all this farmland. We use all the farmland that was previously used by the small farmers or by people with their homes and families. Have you seen many changes compared to what they’re doing up there today? Compared to what you saw and what you heard from your parents? Well, really, the little town itself, we had a store when I was a child there. Fact is they had two when I graduated. Now they don’t have any. Mm-hmm. There’s—the town of Mesquite has two stores. They didn’t have any at that time when I was a child. The highway left the town of Bunkerville and then eventually they took the high school away. And that’s always griping me. That makes me mad every time I think about it (Laughs) And I don’t care if this does go on tape (Laughs) (Laughs) Because—for the simple reason that the people did work so hard to get that school. Mm-hmm. And then, it was taken to Mesquite. And it was politics that did it. They—Mesquite grew as they—because the highway brought in business. Mm-hmm. UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 6 Well, any—anyway, the town of Bunkerville kind of went downhill for a while. Now there’s quite a lot of people moving back, building homes, because it is quiet. Because it is peaceful and because, well, it’s just like a little quiet town now. Mm-hmm. Okay. Can you tell me much about the house you lived in? Describe it if you can. Yes, I— And what conveniences you had and how you—? I paint. How you lived? I painted a picture. My sister owns that picture. She stayed with me till she—I sold it to her. But it was a two-story affair. Build adobe. The rooms were large rooms. Fireplace. Huge kitchen. What type of stove and things of this—? Oh, we had a wood stove. The house that I was born in—and I’ll go back a little ways. The house I was born in was a little rock house. A big, well, a living room. Our living room was our bed—bedroom, too. Mm-hmm. And then a (unintelligible) built on behind, for the kitchen. And then, out to the side of that, they had what they called a shed. This was our shade or our porch. And there was a fig tree that grew with the limb going right up to the edge of this pole that supported part of the shade, shed. And now, I was real tiny. Because I know when they moved away from there and when my next sister was born and she wasn’t born there. She was born quite a while later. So I was about two, two and a half years old. Well, anyway, I climbed up that fig tree limb, took a hold and hung from that pole and was swinging and my mother come out and saw me and she screeched and UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 7 screamed, nearly scared me to death. Wonder I didn’t fall but—that’s how come I can remember that. Mm-hmm. Is because she frightened me at the time. And so, that was the kind of shade we had then. Porches. And this was made—this little house was made of rock. I think I have already stated that. Another time I heard my father come home. He had eight horses and three wagons altogether and I could hear the jingle of the chains of the harness. And I remember running to the window, and jumping up and down how excited I was ‘cause my father was coming home. And another incident—you might want to erase all of this stuff, but nevertheless, I was telling about it here a while back and we were all laughing, went across the street, we used to borrow our pay with sugar for a little yeast, from the neighbors. Mm-hmm. And there would be one person that would make a lot of yeast in a big crock jar with honey and some hops and potato water. And then, people would take a little sugar in the bottom of the container and go there and the sugar was a trade for the yeast. And we’d take the yeast back. Well, my mother sent me across the street. And an old man there, lived across the street and sent the sugar in the bottom. This little one pound lard bucket, for some yeast. Well, he give it to me. I went started back across the street and I picked it up and taste it. (Laughs) That taste good. (Laughs) I drank it all. (Laughs) And when I got home, my mother says, “Where’s the yeast?” I said, “I drank it.” (Laughs) And of course, she thought that was kind of—she—she giggled and laughed about it. But she washed it out and wiped it out good and put some sugar and sent me back for some more. And he growled. Now that is why I remember that incident. (Laughs) ‘Cause the old man growled at me, otherwise, at that age, I couldn’t have remembered. UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 8 Mm-hmm. Then there was one other incident that I remember. Now in those days, anybody that had a post card, or a talcum powder can, really had something. That was choice—something choice to play with. And I had a little friend over there—that lived over the fence. She was one year older than I was. My mother would ask her what I was saying most times. ‘Cause she could understand me, and I couldn’t—my mother couldn’t. And she had some talcum powder cans and we were playing one day, and she wanted me to do something or play—such in some way that I didn’t want to. And she says, “I will take my talcum powder cans and I will go home!” (Laughs) “If you don’t.” Well, evidently, one of her older sisters heard that, and they told it and laughed. And for years and years, that expression, “I will take my talcum powdered cans and go home!” (Laughs) (Laughs) Anyway, that was—that was a choice morsel, or remark, among people. Mm-hmm. And it—but it was just something to show that we didn’t have a lot of toys to play with. We played with what we had. We used to take little ends of limbs sticks, twigs, a little end of a plant like that that would be a girl, with a pretty skirt. Mm-hmm. And then a stick for a boy. And we’d make our houses, play houses. Little dirt ridges round, and we’d make it a little ridge for a bed, a little ridge for—and that was our playhouse for our— Did you have air-conditioning and this type of thing? Or what did you do to alleviate the heat? UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 9 Oh no, they didn’t have air-conditioning for—it was long after I was married before they ever had air-conditioning and I was married in 1928, so it was long after that they had electricity. Mm-hmm. They had no electricity when I—and I’ll tell you, in the summertime, we went for mountains. My father had cattle and we went up the mountains. He rode for his cattle. And a quite a number of them did that. And they’d stay till the flower and baking powder and salt and sugar ran out and then they’d come back. Because it was pretty hot. But no, there was no air-conditioning. We were lucky if we got ice to go in some root beer on the Fourth of July, and make some ice cream (unintelligible) on the Fourth of July. No, there was no ice. There was no air-conditioning. (Laughs) Your modes of transportation then at that time? Was horses and buggy, wagon. Our hay was thrown in the wagons and our provisions. And we made our trips to the mountain in the wagon. And—or at any other place. Now the closest doctor was fifty miles or so away up at Saint George and that was by wagon. So my mother had—my grandmother Levitt had gone up to—and taken a course as midwife and as a doctor, to Delta, Utah. And she was the only one for years and years, she was like I said, when I was a little girl she was a midwife. Mm-hmm. And doctor. And she still was after some of my children was born, when she was quite old. ‘Cause it was so far and they had no transportation. Did you do much travelling with the family? Or did you—was it a (unintelligible) type of life? Did you stay basically in one place or did the family, oh, come down to Vegas or? UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 10 Well, we went to Moapa on the—my father worked down here at one time. Or Las Vegas. He worked down here, on a number of times, with his teams. Fact is, my father was one of the men that helped level the ground for the railroad. First railroad, the buildings that went in, he helped level the ground for that. Mm-hmm. And so he worked down here quite a bit and the one time, we came down on the train from Moapa, we went by train to Moapa. And he didn’t like the looks of it, after we got down there, he felt like it was too bad an environment for us. (Laughs) And so we went back home. But on—too move around very much, no. We went to, also to, what they called Glendale. That one time that was a—mining for clay, for lime, not lime. New speaker, possibly Alma’s daughter: It was to get (unintelligible) I’m sorry I’ve got cancer. (Laughs) Want to stop for—? (Audio cuts out) Alright. At this particular time when I was in grade school, I think I was about in third grade, and I just have to tell you—this little thing, because it was kind of funny, and it shows what kind of buildings that they had to get by with. It was a rock building but the principal had his office up in the attic. And I picked some flowers one day. I’ve always been crazy about flowers. And he caught me picking them. So he told me to go up to his office and he’d be up there in a few minutes. I went up there and of course, there was just a little path of boards across the joints, ceiling joints, floor joints, floor joints for up there. Mm-hmm. UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 11 To his desk. That was his office. And I looked, course I looked in every which direction to see if I could find a place to hide but I couldn’t find anything, there was just these—(Laughs)—just these boards for a path to his desk. Well, anyway, this building caught on fire and burned during the night and we had to go to Mesquite then to—for grade school for our classes. And this about the time, I don’t know whether it was just before or just after, close to the time that they were finishing up for the high school. But anyway, we went to Mesquite for grade school for a while. And our bus was just an open truck with planks put on each side of the truck. And we sat there and it was cold sometimes—(Laughs)—very, very cold. And we (unintelligible) that way to school. About how far was that? About five miles, in the frost. Yes. And then they put us into an old chapel church and it had—it had a huge high vaulted ceiling. And in order to keep the heat down and not have to heat such a big area, they put in a Mussolini—we called it factory, Mussolini ceiling. Mm-hmm. And every morning, the teacher, well, the older grades, up to the eighth grade would come in first and for an hour the teacher would read them a story. And we were having—we was listening to a story. And I heard this awful roar. Now, we had—hadn’t seen but one or two cars in our lives up to that time. I’ll tell for incident just a (unintelligible) of a first car. And so we could hear this roaring and we thought maybe it was a car, and we started to stand up and look out the window. The windows were built high, too. And just as—and the teacher says, “If you don’t sit down, I’ll stop reading.” And we went to sit down and up above my head was a ball of fire. And UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 12 I was the one that yelled, it was, it was on fire. The teacher and a girlfriend had to get me out. I don’t know how I got out. Only, they told us afterwards they had to take me out. But then, nevertheless, so the second building burned down. So we had a series of—well, I was gonna tell you about the first car. And I think it was a little yellow Stanley Steamer. Anyway, it was—let’s see, I was about six years old. And I heard this racket coming down the street and I heard kids yelling and a lot of excitement. And course, I (unintelligible) run to see what the excitement was. And here this, “Chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug.” Well, that wasn’t really the way it sounded. (Laughs) (Laughs) It was more chugs than that. (Laughs) (Laughs) And here’s this funny looking little car. Course that’s just very wonderful. Hm. First one we’d ever seen. And the kids thought it was going slow But the kids could run behind it. Well, I wanted my mother to let me follow her. (Laughs) That was quite a thing. ‘Course she wouldn’t do that. She was afraid I’d get hurt. But nevertheless, that was our first—first time we saw a car and it—it was so slow, I guess with the kids could follow behind it without— Without a lot of really running. (Laughs) Without— (Laughs) Without overdoing it, let’s say. But it was quite a thrill. And—and that’s what I think it was, was a yellow, yes, it was a Stanley Steamer. I’ve seen the little yellow Stanley Steamers since then and that’s what it looks like. UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 13 You got married approximately when? Beg your pardon? You got married approximately when? 1928. You were telling me earlier, you left Nevada, at that time? Uh-huh. Yes. Oh. But we was married here, two, three, days and we left and went to Hollywood. And he got a job there. And he had worked, he’d come up and work for the Key West Mine. There was a mine up about twelve, thirteen miles south of Bunkerville. Mm-hmm. And my husband’s friend, boyfriend, they worked together at the bank, California Bank in Santa Monica. And his boyfriend’s father was a mine—let’s see, what’s the word I want? Producer, no. Director? Or mine superintendent? No. He was one that promotes. Oh. A promoter. Okay. And so they thought that would be a big adventure. A big lark, walk up in the wilderness. (Laughs) And they come down—they came down first time I saw him, was at junior prom and this I’ll have to tell, I don’t care if it does sound funny. He had one pair of pants because he hadn’t brought his clothes all up from California yet. (Laughs) Mm. UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 14 (Laughs) His pants was broke in the back, and the seams had broke. Mm-hmm. And he and his friend and another friend got it together and they found the safety pin to pin that up and he came to that junior prom. (Laughs) I didn’t know it, though. Nevertheless, that’s when I met him. And course I fell—fell for him then. That wasn’t any (unintelligible) or anything. Mm-hmm. I mean I— You told me you were gone, approximately— We went to California and we stayed there until—after thanksgiving was—we come back up here. Because he hadn’t been paid all the money that was due him when he left. The mine closed down, for lack of funds, in September, just four weeks married. Do you remember what mine that was? Key West Mine. Key West? Mm-hmm. Big company and back east had control of its (unintelligible) Mm. And they went ahead, anyway, so we stopped and so we got married and went to California. And then he, when we heard that they were starting up again, we came back ‘cause we still had a hundred and fifty dollars, and back then that was a lot of money. And (Laughs) we went back up there and went back to work and worked there till the end of March and then we went to Mexico. His family lived in New Mexico. And we stayed there till in July and I got awful homesick. That’s when, oh, that was a long ways off. You know those cars only went thirty-five to fifty UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 15 miles an hour. And I took the wheel one time and was coming down the hill and I let, let it go and it scared him to death. (Laughs) He decided to drive from then on. (Laughs) (Laughs) But anyway, it was just dirt roads. And you didn’t see a car, hour after hour, you’d go with—without seeing a car. And it wasn’t even a good gravel road. It was just a dirt road between Las Vegas and Roswell, New Mexico. So we got to watching, the licenses. Mm-hmm. To see where the different cars came from. And we could easily do it then, ‘cause there wasn’t many. Then we lived there for a while and we came back (unintelligible) in July, and we come back to Las Vegas. And we lived in Las Vegas. He worked here and then we went back to California and he went back to work at the bank again. And that’s where he worked before. The reason we left California, my husband wanted to farm. That’s all he could think about. He wanted to farm. And we moved up to Overton and bought a farm. Course now the land there is worth a fortune, just for homes. Then it wasn’t worth anything, ‘cause it was alkaline, not what we had (unintelligible) and eventually my father traded us a ranch over on the Virgin River, next to Bunkerville, for this property we had in Overton. (Unintelligible) Well, anyway, so then we—we lived there, for quite a while. And our house burned down. We were gone one day—we went to Overton of the Valley, to buy some caves. We broke down out on the Mesa (Laughs) and I could see smoke but very often the cattlemen would go down the river and their cattle, the stock that they were chasing. Mm-hmm. Would run in the brush and they couldn’t get ‘em out. So they set the brush on fire with a (unintelligible) and that happened a lot and I thought well, that’s probably just the cattlemen UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 16 burning some brush. But nevertheless, I was nervous. Well, that—eventually, my son-in-law found us. And I—we didn’t have a home anymore. Hm. We didn’t have it insured either. We’d had it insured, they’d a said we burned it. Because it went so quick after we left there. We think—I think it was set on fire. Well, anyway (Laughs) beside the point, point is, all of our important papers and everything went with it. And before we knew that it happened, the people in Bunkerville had moved us in from the house we’re living in now. It belonged to the church. Mm-hmm. And they just moved us into that. And, ‘course we didn’t want to be charity cases, and—I don’t know whether it was one year or two years, about one year later, we bought it from the church. And we paid ‘em so much down, so much a month till we paid them. But—so that’s how come we happen to be back in Bunkerville again. We—he wanted to farm and— You told me you were a judge. (Laughs) What type of a judge were you? I was a Justice of the Peace, JP. Was that in Bunkerville? Yes. In Bunkerville. Wait just a second. Not—I will show you something this got me. I got a card that got a side of Mexico, one day, they—Kelly are you there? (Unintelligible) didn’t last very long, and (Laughs) the JP job was coming up. And someone suggested, “Why don’t you run for JP?” Oh, I said, I wouldn’t get it. And they said, “Try it, you won’t know if you don’t try it.” UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 17 Well, I took—I took it, got it, and I was Justice of the JP, then, for two years. And then, someone else stepped in and took it. We only got fifty dollars a month then. (Laughs) What was that from—? From when to when? Can you remember? No. Maybe this will tell. I don’t know. This came in the—I got this when— (Tape one ends) That was—? My sisters and I was in Mexico and we come through on the bus and then we had a lot of Pesos. We decided to go up back into Mexico and cash ‘em in at the bank. And (Laughs) when we started to come back through, ah, they questioned every card we took out. Driver’s license and all these cards. Not mine. My brother-in-law and sisters, was ahead of me and my brother-in-law had them. He says, “These don’t mean a thing. Driver’s license and all these things, anybody could have them. And I was going through mine and I just took that and I didn’t say a word. I just held it out to him like this. Mm-hmm. And he says, “What’s that?” And I still didn’t say anything ‘cause I didn’t know whether, (Laughs) whether, I was afraid maybe he’d think I was stupid or something and he looked at it, and immediately, he says, “Okay, you guys go on through.” So we got through. Mm-hmm. Well, we didn’t get it on tape, but you did tell me that, that was, you said, about 1960? This says, July the 31st, 1973, which would have been—I think my first was about 1968. And I had two years and then I lost out to someone else by just two to three (unintelligible) some man, and then he died and then they—commissioners down here put me in. Because I was so close to UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 18 having won before, that they—and they knew I had been in it before so they put me in. So then I had four years. Now this was in Bunkerville? This is in Bunkerville. Mm-hmm. And it’s a good town. I didn’t have much trouble. I married, I think five couples is all. It’s off the highway. Mm-hmm. Mesquite gets quite a few more and they get quite a lot more of everything else. Mm-hmm. And I only had one or two cases of, oh, accidents, things like that. Not a whole lot. So. The change from the law of when you were here in Nevada as a youngster and when you were a judge, wa did you see a lot of differences and a lot of different ways of handling the law? Well, we didn’t have—we didn’t know what—I never ever heard of anything about the law before, when I was a kid. (Laughs) Because we had no occasion for it. There was no—yes. I’ll take it back. My father come down on juries to Las Vegas. Now that’s the only thing that we knew anything about law, was here in Las Vegas when he’d come on jury. Then we’d hear his stories about what had happen down here and that was real exciting. But as far as anything in Bunkerville, we never—we didn’t have anything. Mm-hmm. Like I said, it was the—one of the best times for a child to grow up. One of the best little towns because there was no crime, there was no—oh, well, kids stole some watermelons. (Laughs) UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 19 I don’t know what to say about that. (Laughs) (Laughs) And chickens. (Laughs) I helped a boy take some chickens over to his father’s chicken coup fence, one night. (Laughs) And I let the chicken’s squawk on his porch. His father went all over town trying to find out who was having a chicken roast that night. (Laughs) And it was his son and myself. (Laughs) (Laughs) So, aside from that, that’s all the crime we had. Mm-hmm. When you came back to Bunkerville—I’m not, myself to familiar with the area here in Las Vegas. Bunkerville is approximately how far from Las Vegas? It’s eighty—I was eighty miles from Las Vegas, depends on where you’re at. Mm-hmm. Mesquite is a little closer because we turn, well, three miles. After you go in to Mesquite you go three miles from the turn in Mesquite down to my house. Depends on where you take off at. Oh I see. Did you—when you were back and a married woman, did you come to Vegas very frequently with your husband, just to—? Oh, we had to come home about once a year anyway to visit. Oh. That was a have to but— Oh, I’m speaking, when you were living in Bunkerville, did you come into Vegas very often? Not unless you worked here. He—eventually, in the form. We didn’t have any money to start operating, so—and you have to have money to start operating, to operate with. First we had the small dairy and we weren’t big enough to justify all the equipment and stuff that we had to have, UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 20 which was state law and what have you. And so he had to go to work for wages on the side. My daughters and I we tried to run the dairy and keep the cows going, and (Laughs) give them an extra pan full of mashed (unintelligible) give two quarts more a meal. And I had a daughter that did that, to (unintelligible) Hm. Anyway, he came here and worked here in Vegas, as a carpenter quite often, and then he worked out Mercury, in 1951, off and on most of the time from then on till he died. And do you remember any of the things about the Strip, the—I realize today it’s a large growing organization. How much do you remember? That hurts me from you say that. ‘Cause we could have bought the place where the Thunderbird is for the price of a well, water well that was out there then. And I was the one that said—and I, ever since then, I’ve been the one that’s wanted to buy land. And I said, “Well, honey, that’s not good soil.” See, they hauled all their soil in with all these flowers and stuff. Mm-hmm. But we could have got the forty acres there for the price of the well, artesian water. Mm-hmm. So that’s a sore spot, really. (Laughs) (Laughs) Yes. I remember it all. There was a place out there called the, what was it—Red Rooster, or the Rooster something. That was there for a long time. The only gambling or (unintelligible) I don’t know anything about. (Laughs) Oh. Just to drive by in the distance and see it. That’s all I knew anything about it. UNLV University Libraries Alma Athella Huffman 21 Okay. Well, I thank you for having this interview with us. Well, And appreciate your time. I hope it’s not too— (Tape ends)