Audio recording clip of interview with D. D. Cotton by Claytee D. White, February 14, 1997

Oh, I don't know. It wasn't very long, maybe. It had something to do with the city law. They made all the women stop doing anything in the gambling industry and that included the Westside. They didn't have that many women working but they had a few ladies dealing blackjack on the Westside. The lady I mentioned earlier, Catherine Joseph who has been here forever, I think she's now the director for the EOB in school. Another lady that owns a store here, they were all dealers. Even Sarann [Preddy] Knight, the lady that owned the Moulin Rouge, she was a dealer. They all worked on the Westside. But something happened during that time period. They changed the law and women weren't allowed to deal anymore. That means deal cards, write Keno or anything. That's what happened. That's why I stopped doing that. I just can't remember the date but it had to be maybe 1959. Then I went to working as a cocktail waitress. Bob Bailey had a place here in town and I worked for him for awhile. And then I went to the El Morocco to work. The Carver House opened up right after, and I had Eric. I went over to the Carver [House], and I went in that show. So now after being a cocktail waitress for a while, then you went back to dancing? Right. Because they opened the show in the Carver House. They built this small hotel and they had this revue [with] the Treniers. They had a small line and Billy Ward and his Dominoes worked in [the revue]. It didn't last too long but they had [a line] of girls. It was going to be a big thing, but the line wasn't that big. I think there was only about six girls in there, because the stage wasn't that big. Then after that went down, I went back to the El Morocco because that was the only place you could work around in this area. I went back to the El Morocco and I worked in the change booth. Then I went back to the Carver House, because they took the shows out and a cocktail lounge was all he had in there. He did have somebody that was singing. It was a good job because whites still wanted to mix in the black neighborhood and it was a nice spot. They didn't keep the shows open or the gambling but they took the area where the gambling had been and they put tables out there. They had a bar in there and it was a nice place to go to have a drink. Why did they take gambling out of the Carver House? I don't know. They claimed at the time that people stole the money or they weren't making enough money to bankroll the gambling. Another guy took it over, rented it out, and I imagine he leased where the gambling was and a cocktail lounge because there was a bar in there. I worked for him for awhile. Then I believe I went to work for Reuben's, [owned by] Reuben Book. He's been here a long time. I think he was bom here. He had a nice place called Reuben's. And from what I can understand he had been one of the first bartenders to work a bar on the Strip. I think he worked the El Rancho Vegas [Hotel & Casino], Now whether he worked the front bar I don't know, or worked the service bar, I don't know that. But I do know that he was one of the first [black] bartenders that worked on the Strip. That was way before I got here. He was like the premier bartender on the Westside. I guess he knew how to make all the drinks. He opened up his own place and I went to work for him. That's how I met the guy, Harry Brown, and that's how I got the job in Caesar's. When Reuben opened [Reuben's] he sort of brought the life back to the Westside. There was a lot of mixture of black and white again because it was a piano bar and they served a little food in there. It was like an after-hours spot. After everybody did everything on the Strip, this was where they came to hang out. At that time the Strip was wide open and downtown, integration had set in. You could go to other places and when you got through doing all that, then you'd want to just sort of hang out with youself, I guess. So they would just congregate in Reuben's and Reuben's would just be the place to be.