Wilma Cooper interview, February 27, 1977: transcript

UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 1 An Interview with Wilma Cooper An Oral History Conducted by Sara Finklea 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 Wilma Cooper 2 © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2019 UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 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 Wilma Cooper 4 Abstract On February 27, 1977, collector Sara Finklea interviewed housekeeper, Wilma Cooper (born December 19th, 1913 in Rock Springs, South Wyoming) in her home in Boulder City, Nevada. This interview covers Boulder City and Henderson. UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 5 (Tape begins midsentence)—(Unintelligible) and I was living with my brother on H Street. And we lived in what they called the Henderson one room houses. And all they were was just a shell. There was no lining on the inside of the house at all. We didn’t have a bathtub, but we did have a shower that was raw cement, never had been painted. There was no laboratory in the bathroom. There was no cupboards in the kitchen. We slept in screened on porches. And when it got so hot and we couldn’t stand that, we pulled our twin beds out in the middle of the lawn, five or six (unintelligible) of grass, you know. And we turned the sprinkler system between us and let the wind blow the sprinkler unto us. And if there wasn’t any wind, we’d just wrapped up in a wet sheet and slept on our cot out in the middle of the (unintelligible) yard. And at the time when I got here there was only two trees in Boulder City and there was very little grass. There was very little grass. Most of it was weeds. Then I was married in February of 1937. And at the time that I moved into this house at that time. And when I stepped out my back door, there wasn’t one thing to stop me, until I reached the backdoor of the lady across the street. But the blow sand, which was something to (unintelligible) to your ankles (unintelligible) there was no alley, there was no garages. There was nothing and there was no grass, there was absolutely nothing. It was just plain blow sand. You try walking out in the summer months— Mm-hmm. You didn’t make very many trips outside. But we went down here in this section of town, down here is where they had had a bunch of houses during the construction days. And they had torn them out. So that was about four blocks below, around here—New Mexico Street here. They tore those houses out and there was some Bermuda grass growing down there. And my husband and I in the evening would go for a walk and we’d find a string of Bermuda grass, eight and ten twelve inches long, and we’d bring it up here and we’d stick it into the sand with a hole, we’d make a UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 6 hole with the hose, you know stick that water down there in the sand. And that’s where I got my grass. My grass has never been seeded. (Laughs) But I have a lawn that, in the summer months, if the kids play on it, they can’t hurt or do anything else. But there’s where I got my grass. When I bought this house, I paid a hundred and thirty-five dollars for it. And it consisted of one tiny bathroom, a kitchen with no cupboards, a living room with not even a chimney for a stove, and a screened in porch that was exactly the width of a double bed. You couldn’t even put the bedding down at the side of the double bed. So all of those porches were screened and the sand blew incessantly. There was no grass or no water either to deaden or to stop the sand from blowing. So there’ll warn me that one—if you slept on your back you’ll always cocked over and turned your head down before you opened your eyes in the morning. (Laughs) Or you were going to get sand in your eyes. (Laughs) (Laughs) Which was probably true. (Laughs) Uh-huh. Anyway, I put up with that about so long. And then, I went out to the dump. And I got (unintelligible) board boxes and come in and lined that screened in porch. And then, we had the screen and the canvass and the (unintelligible) board boxes flopping in the breeze all the time here. (Laughs) UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 7 And the wind blew incessantly. It was a noisy place to sleep. And I kept encouraging my husband to move that partition between that screened in porch and my front room. ‘Cause it was just moving in two feet, at least I could walk around my bed. But he was always busy doing something. He was a hobbyist and he always had something going on. So I got mad one morning and after he went to work I tore that partition out and moved it back in. Had it all back in by the time he got home at four o’clock and he come in dumbfounded. He doesn’t know how I even know how to use a hammer. (Laughs) Uh-huh. But I also had to build a clothes closet that I had never had in this house. So in my—our a hundred and thirty dollar house, we didn’t have an alarm clock but we didn’t need one because where the ceilings came down to meet the wall, they didn’t meet. And when the sun shone in it hit our face. (Laughs) Because our bed was in the front room and when the sun hit our face we knew it was time we get up. (Laughs) (Laughs) And the floors were I suppose you’d call ‘em three inch high. And I don’t know what they were, they were some kind of wood floors. And the wind had blown out all of the sand around our house, until we were up on stilts here. And when I had so much sinus trouble and that sand would just puff up through everything. So finally my husband said, “Well, we’ll get a piece of linoleum to put over it.” So we put linoleum over it. And then, the wind would blow and the linoleum would slide over that way, and it would slide this way, and then it would slide this way, and so—we got tired chasing the linoleum around the living room. So we finally thought, well, UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 8 we’d anchor it down with metal tape around the edge. So we put down the metal tape and then it was like slow motion. (Laughs) (Laughs) Every time we took the (unintelligible) out of all sides of that little rug that was in there. (Laughs) It was really lonesome. I can tell you. But anyway, we lived that way then for I don’t know quite a few years. And then finally get my (unintelligible) enclosed. And then, let’s see, what year was it? Well, during the war—during World War II, we had a terrible housing shortage here. And we had—let’s see there was three—seven, there was eight, or, five ones. Thirteen, and my husband and I, there was thirteen. I’m sure there was at least fifteen people living in the house with one bedroom. (Laughs) A little tiny bath. One living room and a kitchen. Mm-hmm. And you can guess where we slept. Just anywhere you can find a place to lean up against the wall. (Laughs) But there were no places for anybody to sleep. So they brought in houses for Vancouver, Washington (unintelligible) do you know anything about that? A flood over Vancouver, Washington where there was so many people who were killed. They had a big flood down there. Mm. Yes. UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 9 And there was so many of these houses that were washed away. And then they just banned it, the use of these houses. So that the houses just sat there. So the government here went up and cut the houses in panels and put ‘em on flat cars and set ‘em down here. And then, they reconstructed these houses down here. But we lived—that was 1942. And the people lived in these houses then until we got enough permanent housing built to where they can move into better homes. And after there was housing enough for everybody. They gave the people the privilege of living in those houses or they were going to be sold. But if they lived in them they had to bring them up to code. Because their plumbing wasn’t up to code. And the structure of the house was not up to code. And the light—the electrical fixtures certainly were not up to code. Well, there was a quite a few empty houses that nobody bid on. So mine was—we bought one for a hundred and twenty-five dollars, and another one for a hundred and thirty-five dollars. And then, I went to work. Sends the kids to school in the morning and my husband to work and I’d go down and tear off wallboard and tear of shingles and tear off siding and stack windows, and take off doors. And I don’t know how many barrels of nails I pulled because we couldn’t leave even a nail on the ground. We had to have it— Yes. You know, absolutely clear. We had six weeks to do this in. And then we moved all—when the men would get home at night, they would come down with trucks and bring all the (unintelligible) of the materials. And we would (unintelligible) that material on this house and those two houses that we tore down were—they were exactly alike. But they had more floor space in ‘em, then the house that we—we had been living in all this time. So we used every bit of that lumber and (unintelligible) in this house here. So now I have a basement that I dug all by UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 10 myself. And two bathrooms and two bedrooms downstairs, living room, kitchen, (unintelligible) room, and upstairs. And if anybody wants to feel my muscles, I’ll gladly display them. (Laughs) (Laughs) I got me a taskmaster and a large crew to work and a carpentry work and setting tile and you name it. We never went in debt one red cent on this place. When we ran out of money we just did something else until we had another paycheck. Mm-hmm. But we never owed anything on it. And when I tell people now that I bought this house for a hundred and thirty-five dollars, they all want to know where could they get one. (Laughs) (Unidentified speaker) Yes. (Laughs) So that’s the history of my house. And the history of my family—I married a man that had two daughter’s by a previous marriage. And then I had two children of my own. Where did you get the names? Well, two stepdaughters were—you want the last names? Mm-hmm. Ethel Price in Henderson and Ruth Knox from Houston, Texas. And then my own daughters name is Eileen Wells from Houston, Texas. And my son is Tom Cooper, who is now the mayor of Boulder City. He lives right across the street in front of me here. Okay. So those are my four kids. And I got eight—thirteen grandchildren. And two, five, six great-grandchildren. Mm. UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 11 We’re quite a family when we’re all together. Right. (Laughs) Then to make things a little bit more interesting I took in a grandson to raise. And a niece—two nieces and a nephew who—the baby was (unintelligible) and I raised him till he was school aged. Then with my own kids, by the time our oldest daughter started school, she started the first class in Boulder City, and by the time our last one had graduated we would have had kids in the school for thirty-four years. Mm. Besides all the extras that I had took on to raise. Barbara can tell you about that. Mm-hmm. She was here during part of that time. So we had a very busy—very busy life. Very profitable and very happy one. My husband was a hobbyist, he cut rocks and he made jewelry and he (unintelligible) leather and there just wasn’t anything that he couldn’t do. I always said that if anything ever happened to him, I hope it didn’t happen to his hands, because his hands were never idle. Mm-hmm. He always had to use his hands, and so help me, when he was (unintelligible) that was the sad part of it. Had it have been his hearing or his eye sight he could have got along fine ‘cause he (unintelligible) his hands. Things didn’t work out that way. And then, let’s see, what else can I tell you. Oh, I did lots of things but I—like I said, I promised Barbara I’d try to keep it clean. (Laughs) Well, that’s alright. It doesn’t make any difference. (Laughs) ‘Cause you didn’t need to promise Barbara that. (Laughs) UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 12 You’ve got to edit everything I say anyway. That’s right. (Laughs) (Laughs) Okay. Apparently (unintelligible) Well. (Unintelligible) (Laughs) Well, I’ll tell you Barbara’s husband was one of the kids that I raised. Mm-hmm. Because— That’s (unintelligible) His folks lived across the street where Thomas lives now. Mm-hmm. And Richard was—oh, I don’t believe—I think he was school aged, maybe five or six. And his mother worked nights, and there was no place for him to play while she slept daytime. ‘Cause he was the same age as our Ruthie, so of course over here. And Richard has just grown up under my feet. He just one more of my kids. Yes. One of many. But it was—it was real rough around here. Our first fence, I remember we went down along the power line road. And these insulators had been dropped (unintelligible) along the power line road. They’d just leave these, these lumber there. And we’d go up and gather that lumber and bring it up here and fasten it together with (unintelligible) or it was a two by four and stick it into the ground, and pray the wind didn’t blow it over before we could get it anchored on UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 13 the other end. And we were trying so hard to keep our fifteen or twenty (unintelligible) of grass (unintelligible) and one time—we got (unintelligible) we had a terrible dust storm. (Laughs) (Laughs) Went out there and it was just like a snow grid. That way across our lawn here. And we didn’t have a shovel. We didn’t have anything to do with it. So my brother was here visiting me and—and I took pie tins and paper sacks and loaded the sand on the, pie, you know, pie tin, put it in paper sacks and hauled it out to the alley. (Laughs) That way the leaves could blow in somebody else’s yard. (Laughs) (Laughs) Though we saved our grass. (Laughs) (Laughs) I’ll tell you, grass was very precious at that time. But during the early days here, they used to have some—the first house I lived in—my husband and I were married—was what they call the Olympic houses. (Unintelligible) here? Oh, probably twelve to fourteenth of width all in there. And they were little tiny bathroom again about four foot square, and the outside of the building was made of selatex. Mm-hmm. The inside was framed up with two by fours. There was no lining on the inside of it. And we had a bedroom and living room, kitchen combination at the front. There was only two rooms and the bathroom. We didn’t even have a porch then. And my husband went to work one day—well, to begin with, we had to work on the cupboards so we’d take in some apple crates and he’d nail UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 14 them up across the wall and went out (unintelligible) and found some more lumber to build us a work table, countertop, and then I went out to the dump and found some—a piece of linoleum that somebody’d thrown away. So I brought that home, put that on the top of it. So I’d have a decent countertop. And then this apple crate that we had leaning against the wall, it was just leaned back against the selatex. When my husband went to work one day, while he was gone, it began to rain, and it rained, and it rained, and it rained, when he came home that night, he said—I had to always—I didn’t have enough space up there and I had to have my plates out. In order to have room for my cups and stuff, in front. So I would put my—leave my plates up against the back of this cupboard and everything. So when he came home why he said, “You better take your plates down.” And I said, “Why?” And he said, “Well, come outside and look.” Went outside and you could see the outline of each plate on that— (Laughs) All sizes. (Laughs) (Laughs) So I had to go in real quick like and take my plates down for fear I was gonna have a hole where one of those plates had been. (Laughs) Yes. Mm-hmm. Well, it was really, real nice around here and we had—for heat they had the little potbellied stove. Oh, I suppose, it probably, might have been, twelve inches around that biggest part. Stood up about, oh maybe three feet high. And everybody was in the same position. We all was recoiling church mice. We always come in during the—this was during the Depression, and nobody had anything. So it was—we weren’t any different than anybody else. And we’d go out across the desert and we’d pick up dead cactus and paper plates and paper cups or an old sack or UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 15 dead twigs or whatever we could get and bring ‘em in and start a fire in that potbellied stove. To heat water enough so we’d have a cup of coffee. And that stove would—just sat there and jiggled. (Laughs) (Laughs) Get red hot and you’d be sure you’re going to burn the house down. It didn’t last long enough, wasn’t two minutes time since the fire went out, why, there wasn’t anything for coals, so of course it just cooled off right away. It was sure fun. But the elite in Boulder City were out there doing the same thing. And if you really want to have a good convention just go to the dump. (Laughs) Everybody in Boulder City lived out at the dump. Mm-hmm. But everybody else would throw away, it was somebody else’s jewel. Yes. So everybody went out there including Director Car, went out there one morning and then Director Car and his wife were out there scrounging through the dump and (Unintelligible) and I were out there scrounging through the dump, and we all sat down. (Laughs) (Laughs) About of old (unintelligible) spent the whole four hours sitting out there, hashing over old times here in Boulder City. (Laughs) (Laughs) Lots of good things. But we did have some nice things, too. And we’ll know and—Boulder City is kind of unique in lots of different ways, and one of them that I’ve always been real proud of—this was before we had air-conditioning in any of the churches or anything like that. And a lot of UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 16 the churches weren’t even built at that time. But they were having meetings in various homes or where they can get together. And some months they’d meet on lawns sometimes. So during the real hot part of the summer, up here on the government lawn, they would have just a big church service and one church would open with a prayer, and another one, their choir would sing. And another one their minister—another churches minister would give the speech. And each church had a part in it. Until it would take—oh, sometimes it would last two hours long. And sing my (unintelligible) everybody in town was up there. You couldn’t find a standing room on the lawn. Everybody sang and it was beautiful. Then the next Sunday night they would just shuffle things around. Who was at the tail end of the line down here was the head of the line up here for the next Sunday. Mm-hmm. And this went on for quite a few years here. And the churches have always worked together as a result of that. Now our churches now. Anyone in church puts on anything, everybody in town patronizes it. And if any of the church outs on something else, everybody in town patronizes that. And it all goes back to that early times, years ago. Mm-hmm. We’re all just in the same boat together. And we can’t forget those hard times. So I’ve always thought that was a real good part of Boulder City. Oh, let’s see what else. My husband came in here with Frank Crowe, he was a—he had been on five different jobs with Frank Crowe and Frank sent him down here to scout this project out here before they decided to bid on it. And he pitched the first half of Boulder City where the airport is now. Had to pick his way out from Las Vegas, was no road, just a trail. And well, he sent word to Frank Crowe to come on down here, and bid on this dam, and he did. And he was one—one of the main (unintelligible) on building UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 17 this dam. ‘Cause for years and years, every Friday night he thought—my husband thought he’d get laid off. But Friday night he’d get a pink slip. And we had a suitcase packed for I know at least three years, (unintelligible) on Friday night he’s gonna get laid off. But he never did. He always stayed on till he retired. Quite a few years here. Where did they come from? Frank (unintelligible) and your husband? I think they came from Wenatchee, Washington down here. Washington? Mm-hmm. Ruthie was born in Wenatchee. And Ruthie was about two and a half when they got here, so I’m sure they came down here from Wenatchee. But he had been on five different projects with his friend before that. And (unintelligible) friends of (unintelligible) and they always called him fixer because if there was anything that nobody else could do, they’d say, “Well, put it in on Fixer’s desk.” Uh-huh. He can learn how to do it and when they were working with Monel metal down here at the dam, nobody knew how to weld or solder Monel. Mm-hmm. And Gordy said it had to have been done. And if it couldn’t—if it had been done before it could be done again, and he just experimented until he come up with the right mixture to— Mm-hmm. Weld that Monel in. He got to where he welded the Monel, so. He left his mark down there at the dam. He was a pipe fitter and plumber down there. And it got pretty bad down there and it was hot and it was terribly hot. So Frank told him that he thought that with his age and everything UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 18 he’d be better off if he came uptown and it would—it’d be cooler. Not particularly better working conditions but it would be cooler up here than down in that canyon. Mm-hmm. So they put him uptown here, as a pipefitter. And he laid most of the pipe here and he had no car because there were no roads. He had no car and the boys would come along and dig the ditch and he’d hold the pipe on his shoulders. This great big pipes, that big around (unintelligible) and land in Maryland and solder the road together, (unintelligible) whatever you do to ‘em. And we worked at that till he retired practically. And all of the plumbing all through Boulder City. And what was your husband’s name? Cortez. Cortez? Cortez Thomas. (Laughs) Yes. Cortez Thomas Cooper. That’s where Tommy gets his name. But it was pretty rough I tell you, walking in this hot sand. Mm-hmm. And dragging that hot pipe. And down in the ditch. And doing the soldering and the pipe work they had to do. We’d come home at night and his feet were just absolutely blistered just walking in that hot sand. That was before they had to blow it—before they had—well, to begin with, where my brother’s house is up here at the corner of F Street that was a hill. And this was a ravine. So they brought all of the dirt from up there and pushed it down here. So I’m sitting on blow sand. He’s sitting on red rock up there. (Laughs) UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 19 So now all of his dirt is down here. Mm-hmm. Under my house. (Laughs) And that’s the way that it had to levels us all out. Well you can imagine how rough it was— Mm-hmm. Walking through that stuff. And there were—like I said, there were no roads and their certainly weren’t blacktopped, the few that they had. The only other thing I can think of was the fact that we had so few real bad storms here. And in 1948, we had a real bad snowstorm here and I had to—we had to—we had to (unintelligible) snow off of our house before the roof would cave in. It was the real wet snow. I got a picture of them doing that. But we’ve never had anything too bad happen to us or along that line. We were real fortunate, at least (unintelligible) that we were. (Unintelligible) And I can’t think of anything else (unintelligible) but there are a lot of other people that I can refer you to that can give you a lot more information and more data, if that’s what you want. Mm-hmm. Definitely. (Laughs) Okay. One would be Elton Garrett. E-L-T-O-N. Double t? Mm-hmm. G-A-R-R-E-T-T. And Tom Godbey. B-E-Y. And Morgan Sweeney. Mm-hmm. I think so. Mm-hmm. UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 20 And Lloyd Hudlow, Ketch Wilson, Albert Edwards, those people have been here—I don’t know if they all have been here as long as I have. Some of ‘em have been here longer. But they are—Elton Garrett has been really (unintelligible) on the history of this and he kept a lot of old newspapers, got lots of clippings, lots of pictures. And another thing you might want to bring into your story here is about our Thirty-Oner’s Club. Mm-hmm. Now when we started out with our Thirty-Oner’s Club they only allowed people who came here in 1931. My husband was one of the first. Well, there was so many that either past away or moved away. It got down to where there was so few of us, just wasn’t hardly worthwhile having it. And there was so many others who had lived here for thirty-one years that wanted to join, that finally they opened it up to anybody who has been here thirty-one years or longer. And now we have a crowd. Mm-hmm. People come for one—they take their vacation to be here to meet with all of their old friends that they knew during the construction days. And we were do have a good time with at that Thirty-Oner’s Club. Really is nice. So I’m real proud of that organization. Historically, that is probably the most historical— Organization we have here. (Unintelligible) Now Mrs. Luke Waylon is another one. This lady here. Mm-hmm. Lillian Waylon. She had a pretty good sized family here and they all went to school here and graduated from school here. She still lives here in Laurel. Mrs. Mannix, if you get a chance to UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 21 talk with here, she lives in Las Vegas with her daughter and I don’t know if you could get a hold of her or not. I came out here to be with my brother. (Unintelligible) for years. And they even named the new substation after him, which I thought was quite (unintelligible) after he’d retired of being the substation man. Mm-hmm. (Unintelligible) or named it after him. So we was left a little mark in Boulder City. I guess. (Laughs) Oh let’s see. So you want to tell me about some of the people? (Unintelligible) Well, (unintelligible) your version and I’ll get theirs. (Laughs) Well, I can tell you one thing that when I came out here in 1936, there was a big scare on about them having a spinal meningitis epidemic here. And if my memory serves me right, there was only one case of spinal meningitis. And at that time we had what they called a pest house that was down around I Street. (Tape one ends) (Tape begins midsentence)—my memory serves me right, it was David Dena—was the only one that died. Hmm. Of spinal meningitis. But it was all over—when I came from South Dakota out here. And it hit through headlines and everything else about us having such a terrible epidemic out here, and there was only one case. (Laughs) UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 22 And then you’ll hear stories about all these crosses down here at the dam that indicates where somebody had been buried in new cement. There never was a man buried in the cement down there. So that’s—and those crosses are for surveyor stakes and stuff like that. Elevation and so forth. So there aren’t any men buried in that dam down there but—‘cause people they get all kinds of stories around here. Just like my husband went down to the dam one time. The elevator was just filled with people. And Larky Hardy was the tour guide. And of course, he and my husband had known each other for years. And they got to talking about the terrible time they had floating that dam down the canyon and— (Laughs) (Unintelligible) (Laughs) That— Yes? (Laughs) They go down there and about halfway down the elevator, why, Gordy said to (Unintelligible), he said, “Larky, did you ever get that cable fixed on this elevator?” And Larky said, “Well, no it’s stilling hanging.” And about that time, there were about three people who hit the floor (unintelligible) (Laughs) (Laughs) Gordy was working down in the (unintelligible) did they call that. (Unintelligible) the spillway on the Arizona side. He was underneath there buttoning up some pipes. And Larky came by with the tour. And he was telling the tour (unintelligible) so he would say something and Gordy would repeat it. And he’d say something else and Gordy would repeat it. And they kept it up for—oh, everybody thought that was just wonderful. Such a wonderful re-echo in that one particular spot. (Laughs) UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 23 So finally, Larky said, “Who am I?” And Gordy said, “How the hell do I know?” (Laughs) (Laughs) So that broke that myth right there. (Laughs) They had a lot of fun together. But the first year I was out here, my brother (Unintelligible) was working down at the dam at that time. And he spent his time going—sliding up and down the walls, putting the electrical wiring in between the towers over the—hang out over the wall, and the top of the transformers, down on the base at the floor of the dam. My husband was swinging on a (unintelligible) chair, plugging—(Laughs) (Laughs) The water pipes, either on the uphill side or the downhill side of that dam. It was then when—my hair was gray. (Laughs) It used to be black. But I—put up with that for a few years. (Laughs) And then the darn (unintelligible) turns gray. And it scared me half to death, damn near. Well, now, to talk about the people—there are a lot of old old-timers here. Now Bill McCullers is another old-timer. And he’s an interesting man and he ca give you lots of information. And Mrs. Waylon and Tom Godbey. And they love to talk about it because they—it was hard times. I can tell you. It was hard times here. Ketch Wilson can tell you about it ‘cause she ran a business up here for years and years and years. And she came in here when there just wasn’t absolutely anything, but you could get an awful lot of information from them. She’s lost her whole family with cancer, for one thing. Father, mother, brothers, and everything else here. And she’s had a UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 24 hard, hard life. But she’s still got a lot on the brain and she can tell you all of the information about—she can give you more information about the business district. Mm-hmm. Because she was a business woman. Bob Jorgensen is a—he ran the men store here for years. He sold out just last year. But he will be able to give you a lot of information. Because they had the first men’s store here in Boulder City. Mm-hmm. There aren’t too many people who were in business during construction days who are still in business now. In fact, I can’t—right off hand, I can’t think of anybody. But these people were in business during the construction days. And were real hard to work here. Yes. I can’t believe one thing more than that any more than to say that we had the first post office box that was—went into Boulder City. And we still have that. We had the first spring water in Boulder City in our house. We had the first two holed toilet. (Laughs) (Laughs) Now that you can scratch. Oh okay. (Laughs) (Laughs) But, oh my husband, if he was here, he could tell you so many things. He used to—when they first came here they lived in tents for a while. And then later they went—they got into dormitories down here. And it was so terribly hot. They had to haul our water out from Las Vegas in metal tanks, you know. UNLV University Libraries Wilma Cooper 25 Hm. And set out there and have boiling hot water. It was just so darn hot to—couldn’t hardly take a shower under it. But they’d haul water down and throw it unto the bed in the dormitory to cool our mattress down, and it was rough. We had the first air-condition—you couldn’t call