Transcript of interview with Henry Clay Davis by Wendy Christian, March 5, 1978

UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 1 An Interview with Henry Clay Davis An Oral History Conducted by Wendy Christian 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 Henry Clay Davis 2 © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2018 UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 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 Henry Clay Davis 4 Abstract On March 5, 1978, collector Wendy Christian interviewed truck driver Henry Clay Davis (born April 19, 1900 in Irondale, Virginia) in his home in Las Vegas, Nevada. This interview covers Henry Clay Davis’s personal life history as a resident of Las Vegas, which includes hunting and fishing. He also discusses employment, the railroad, old hotels, the Davis Dam, and Lake Mead. Additionally, he offers a detailed description of the Helldorado. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 5 Narrator is Henry Clay Davis. The date is March 5th, 1978 at four p.m. The place is 1317 East Bridger, Las Vegas, Nevada. The interviewer is Wendy Christian, 4039 Shadow Wood, Las Vegas. The Project is Local History Project Oral Interview, Life of a Las Vegas Old Timer. Mr. Davis, can I call you Hank? Mm-hmm. Yes, ma’am. Okay. We’d like to know where you were born and what year? Irondale, Virginia. April of 19th, 1900. Okay. And your parents, they were of what nationality, that you know of? My father was English and my mother was Scotch. Okay. And could you tell us about where all the places that you’ve lived? Yes. We moved from Virginia to Connecticut in 1916, I think it was, and then, right after World War I, I left—left home and went to Washington, D.C. for a while. And then, from there to Akron, Ohio, and from Akron, Ohio to Miami. Mm-hmm. And I was in Miami from 1919 until 1936. And then, I went from there to Boston. Mm-hmm. In ’44 in August and left Massachusetts and went to Los Angeles. And in ’45 in April I came to Las Vegas and I’ve been here since. Okay. And how long have you lived in Las Vegas? About thirty-three years. Uh-huh. Okay. And what made you decide to come to Las Vegas? Well, I was working in the shipyard at the time back there and I got pneumonia. And the whole story was that they couldn’t have (unintelligible) and I couldn’t leave on my own, see. So there UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 6 was a man from the shipyard there in Los Angeles came out looking for supervisors. And I talked to him for a while. So, then I had to go get a doctor saying that I had to go to a warmer climate. Mm-hmm. Oh. Yes. So that’s how I had to come out there. And who came with you out here? Oh. Were you married? My wife. Uh-huh. Just my wife. And where were—where were you married and in what year? In Boston, 1937. Mm-hmm. And so then you and your wife came out to Las Vegas and which way—you came through Kingman, then? We came through Kingman, and we seen the sign, Hoover Dam. Uh-huh. And then decide we come out through there and see what the dam looked like. Course I think that that time it was Hoover Dam, I mean Boulder Dam, but later on it was changed to Hoover Dam. Mm-hmm. So, when we crossed the dam there was a big sign as we’re coming into Nevada, the state without taxes. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 7 (Laughs) And I said to ‘em right then, well, that’s (unintelligible) that’s where I’m gonna live.” (Laughs) So we went to Los Angeles, get our things and come back out here, then. And been here since. And then, you took up residency in Las Vegas and you started—what was your first job in Las Vegas? Well, my first job was refrigeration. And that was where? That was here in Las Vegas. Okay. Mm-hmm. And where did you—? What—what did you for a company? Or—the, what was the name of that company? Oh, that was—let’s see, what was the name of it? (Unintelligible) anyway— Are they still in, going? No. They’re not. The same firm? No. They’re not in business now. Uh-huh. But the firm was down there (unintelligible) the company, down there. Uh-huh. And then, after that why I went to work for Rupert Plumbing Company. Mm-hmm. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 8 And when I started there it was in the Flamingo Hotel. Oh. And what year—can you remember what year that was? That was in—I think it was in the fall in forty— ’46. Were jobs hard to come by when you came out here? Were they—? Well, they were, there wasn’t too many in the local, at the time. Uh-huh. And of course when I came out here, I had to reinstate them, in the local. Oh. Not— ‘Cause I had dropped out through the war, why, you couldn’t get a job. So, I just dropped out of the local and when we come out here, why, I had to reinstate again. I see. And what did you earn? What was your pay scale when you first started? Out here, or? Yes. Well, when I first joined the local was in Miami. And through the boom down there was three dollars an hour. Yes, that isn’t too bad for— No. In that. Then after the ’26 hurricane, they, well, there wasn’t any work here at all, or so, the scale dropped down to seventy-five cents an hour. Oh my. Mm-hmm. And when I came out here, first came out here and started at, let’s see, I think it was eighty-five. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 9 Mm-hmm. And then, of course it’s one (unintelligible). Yes. And those rates went up. And after I had worked here for four or five months, then I got foreman’s pay. Oh. All the time. We were—(unintelligible) working for me to (unintelligible). Well, that’s real good. Foreman’s pay. And your first job was at the Flamingo Hotel? Well, no. The first job was at—probably a diner. And I do not know—no, it wasn’t United Foreman. I can’t, don’t know if I can think of the name of it now. Mm-hmm. But anyway, the first job that I did in refrigeration, it was in Apache Hotel. Mm. That’s where the Horseshoe is now. Oh. And from then, from there, why I went with Rupert. Mm-hmm. And down there I did a little plumbing and refrigeration. Uh-huh. And a little steam-putting and about everything else (Laughs) that come along. And about everything. Okay. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 10 And then, later on, why, things just dropped off here to practically nothing. And I think we had—at the time when I first came here I think there was only about sixty members in the local. Oh really? And it got down to fifteen and I was one of the fifteen that stayed on. Gee. Because I could do refrigeration. Yes. You— And (unintelligible), steam-putting, and plumbing. And that—that kind of helped me out a little bit. Right. Yes. It sure did. What year did you work at the Apache Hotel? Well, that was in ’65. Right after I came out here. Oh I see. So that was in—what year did you say? 1945? Mm-hmm. It was right after you came out. Okay. And then, when you worked on the Flamingo Hotel this character Bugsy Siegel— Bugsy Siegel, Siegel, yes, he was the owner. He— He was the owner. He owned it. Yes. Mm-hmm. Did you ever see him or? Oh yes. He was around an awful lot. They—him and his girlfriend. Uh-huh. And he was around yelling and hollering all the time. (Laughs) UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 11 And they—bunch of (unintelligible) you know, and he’d go by yelling at them, that they wasn’t doing their work or anything. They had this bucket that was filled (Laughs) up with plaster. And as he walked by they just dumped it on top of his head. (Laughs) (Laughs) Oh. Bet he— And after that he never walked through that hotel again. He’d walk around the outside, you know, and holler in through the windows. (Laughs) Oh my. Okay. And where did you first live when you came out here? What area? In South Third Street. Mile Fifteen South Third Street. Was it an apartment or a—? No. Rooming house? It was just a— Or? It was just a small house in the back with a house in the front, and it sat to one side, you know. I see. And at that time, why, there wasn’t too many houses around there, and rents was hard to find. And practically all that whole neighborhood over there belonged to, at one time, to the railroad. And they—outside of that there wasn’t too many houses around. I see. Do you have any idea what the population was? That you can remember. It wasn’t—it wasn’t too much I don’t think they had—I don’t think they had a hundred thousand people in the whole county. Oh. Gee. The railroad now, did they have a lot of passenger trains coming out during the day? UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 12 Oh yes. Yes. They had three or four passenger trains going through every day. Oh. And that was when they had this thing locomotives, you know. And after they changed it over, then railroad just went to pieces because they didn’t use the same amount of men, you know. And the railroad station was where? It’s where the Plaza Hotel is now. That’s right. And then the yards in there, you know, and they was shifting cars all night long. They were banging, you could hear ‘em all the way across town. Oh my gosh. And they—course they had a lot of, a lot of freight business, too, at that time, through here because we didn’t have any trucks to speak of, you know. Oh. And practically everything was railroad. And of course after that I did start in this trucking business and one thing or another and that not the railroads, too. Mm-hmm. And finally people get to buying cars and one thing or another, so there was no one traveling with passenger trains, so we cut the train. Uh-huh. The passenger trains out. I don’t think, as far as I know right now, I don’t think there’s a passenger train that goes through here now. No. I don’t think so. They did have one that run up from Los Angeles just to Las Vegas for the gamblers, you know. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 13 Oh they did? Yes. That didn’t last for very long. Huh. It didn’t pay. Oh it didn’t? Mm-mm. Gee. See, when you get in Las Vegas and you come up by train, why then you, you have to travel by taxi, you know, to get anywhere. And it’s a few buses running but (unintelligible) one of them was off of (unintelligible). You could (unintelligible) anywhere on the bus. Yes. Or did they have an airport at that time? At that time, my—well, when the war broke out, McCarran Field was out to Nellis. And when the war broke out, they, the government took that over. And then they built, McCarran Field, let’s see, yes, that’s way down on the other side of the Flamingo Hotel. Mm-hmm. Of course the land is still there. And they built the other part. The new part of it over in from the old field there. Howard Hughes uses that now. That Hughes’s airport. Mm-hmm. And of course we didn’t have any jet planes. (Laughs) At that time either, you know. All propeller. Now and also, thee, where did the people stay when they came to gamble? UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 14 Well, some of them slept in the cars. Couldn’t get into hotels. Of course there was a very few of them. I think there was only three hotels uptown then. Mm. One of them was the Apache and the other one was Sal Sagev. That’s where the, let’s see, what do they call it? Oh, the Golden—the Golden Gate now. And right across from that was the Overland, Overland Hotel. Uh-huh. And that was just a two-story place. And now it’s Las Vegas Casino Hotel. Mm-hmm. So everything has been changed. And the people slept in their cars and just—? In the cars and on the courtyard. Anywhere they could. Anywhere they could get. In fact, I had some people sleeping in my backyard down on Sixteenth Street. Really? Mm-hmm. And of course, the crime rate wasn’t what it was. Oh no. No. We didn’t have any crimes here to speak of at all. Uh-huh. As I said before, you could go out, leave your door open, and think nothing of it. Now if you, if you just walk around the block, you better have your door locked. Yes. Yes. That’s—okay. What about churches? Were there—? There were some churches, I assume. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 15 Well, there was a Catholic church that was up on First Street at Bridger, I think it is. I think it was. Mm-hmm. And then there was a Methodist church. That was up Third or Fourth Street up in that neighborhood on Carson. Mm-hmm. And then later on the Baptist church was built up here. But when we came out here there was very few Protestant churches. The Catholics and the Mormons, they—they just about took the place over. Oh yes. (Laughs) And now, now it’s mostly the, mostly Mormons. Course we had a lot of Catholic people but there was twice as many Mormons. Mm-hmm. Then there was Catholics. Now this apartment, when was it built? Do you remember? I worked on this apartment and I think—I think it was in ’49, because right after Christmas in ’49 I went to Davis Dam and I was down there until June ’51. ‘Kay. What work did you do at Davis Dam? Mostly, most the (unintelligible). When I was foreman I didn’t have to—didn’t have to do any work then I had a bunch of men working for me. And where did, was that town, did it have places for you to stay? Or where did you stay there? UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 16 Well, to start with, they—that was Utah Construction Company. I did the construction work on the dam that they built. Uh-huh. And then after the dam was finished that’s when we went in. Course we went out and did just fabricating before the Utah Construction moved out. And they had a camp down there but they wouldn’t (unintelligible). Oh really? Oh gosh. They didn’t get the engineering part of it. Oh. So, I lived in Bullhead City. Mm-hmm. Moved down there for about eighteen months. Oh really. Did they have gambling in that town, too, at that time? Oh no. That was in Arizona. Okay. But those—the two casinos that are there, they weren’t there before? You could take a ferry? No. No. They—they had a bridge, just below Davis Dam, which crossed over from Arizona over in Nevada side. Mm-hmm. Course over in Nevada side they had a little gambling place there. Mm-hmm. And a few stores and of course they had bars down there, too. But you—but you had to be, you couldn’t, they couldn’t build or have a bar within three miles of the dam. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 17 Ah. See, it’s got more property. Mm. Course in the bars down in Bullhead City. But then they closed its Saturday night club (unintelligible) and Sunday afternoon at one o’clock they opened. Mm. But we could always manage to get a little drink if we wanted it. (Laughs) See they—the guy in the (unintelligible) you know he was cleaning up in their Sunday morning and he’d let us sneak in the back— (Laughs) Back door, you know. (Laughs) (Laughs) Did you do much exploring while at staying at Bullhead City? I did a lot of fishing. Did you? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Course we didn’t have—we didn’t have much time to—we worked in there six days a week. So we didn’t have much time to do any traveling to speak of. Yes. Course we’d run back up here and Friday nights it was union meetings. Uh-huh. How was the fishing? Did—was it pretty good or—? Oh. It was good, yes. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 18 Was it better then, than it is now? Oh. I should say, yes. Lake Mead, I could come out here, and leave, I left home at five o’clock and come out here at Boulder Dam and those two little islands out there. I know, by the time I’d run around the two islands, I had my limit. (Unintelligible) Really? And good ones too, anywhere from five to six, seven pounds. Very seldom you caught anything under four pounds. Gee. And then I think there’s (unintelligible), and (unintelligible) boats they’d advertise it all over the country, you know. Mm. Mm-hmm. (Unintelligible) many boats coming in there. And then, they put striped bass in there. And they eat up just about everything you can get a hold of. The fish don’t get large enough to swim before he’s gone, you know. Oh. That’s the worst thing they could have done is put those striped bass in there. That’s too bad. That’s why the fishing is no good anymore. Huh. So when you came the lake was just practically—it was just for fishermen then. Yes. Mm-hmm. And it (unintelligible)? And they had a—they had one dock that was down at Boulder Dam. That’s when you turned off to go down by the lake on—before you get to, down to the dam. There was one, once you go UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 19 down the foot of the hill there’s one dock down in there, and that was the only one there. And then there was another one up at Overton. Then over there it’s over at Temple Bar. There was one over there. Mm-hmm. And that was about all the fishing docks (unintelligible). Course people had boats, you know, that they’d tow out. Yes. And course you’d bring ‘em back at night. Yes. And there wasn’t too many fisherman around at that time. (Unintelligible) Did you do any other exploring at Bullhead City or any around the area? Did—have you, on your travels around the area here? Oh yes. We run down—they had a slew of (unintelligible) before that Davis Dam, before you get to Needles. Mm-hmm. And that was spread out all over the country in there. Going down there catfishing and (unintelligible) we had quite the times. Yes. Catfishing down there. We could catfish in it sometimes fifteen pounds. Oh man. But we’d run out, and there’s little (unintelligible) that you could go out and go through. A game warden, he’d travel around through there sometimes at night, you know. We’d drag our boats UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 20 across the (unintelligible) of water, just about enough to go over your shoes, you know. Till we got over to the next place. Then we’d get over (unintelligible) (Laughs) Oh. (Laughs) That’s where we—that’s how we got our fish. (Laughs) Oh. But you couldn’t use the line for regular fishing (unintelligible) in there. Because there was a lot of trees and logs and stumps in there, you know. And then as you hook a fish you’d wrap around one of them (unintelligible) top line, why, he couldn’t go anywhere. (Laughs) Uh-huh. See, so we’d get some good ones. And then there was a lot of bullfrogs in there, too. Let’s see. Okay. Any other places in Clark County or around the area that you went to—explored in the area? Oh yes. I went around practically all these old mines, you know. Oh. Uh-huh. And drove around through all of them, or just run around and see some of the places, you know. Yes. The Las Vegas Wash, now, what was, there was water in there? Well, I’ll tell you, Las Vegas Wash when I first came here, they you see this, any of these hotels, they didn’t have (unintelligible) they had their own sewer plants, you know. Mm-hmm. And (unintelligible) their wells for water. So, but the only sewers that they had was just up around town and they, the sewer plant was down at—down at Bonanza and Twenty-Fifth Street. Mm-hmm. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 21 And then the water from that, that run from there all the way down—all the way down to the dam but through the desert out there. And if you went out in that part of the country out there, you better have a mask. (Laughs) Oh. It was awful. Yes. Yes. And the mining around the area. It was going pretty good back then? Well, not, not around here. But up around Pioche and that part of the country up through there it was still good. Mm-hmm. And they’re still doing little mining up around Pioche? Yes. Did you—you say that you explored some of the mines, then, or? Mm-hmm. Yes. Were on the—in the canyons and? In the canyons. Uh-huh. Most of the time in El Dorado Canyon, yes. I had a pickup truck and I’d go out there. In lots of places were the rain had washed through, you know, gutted in there. Throw some rocks and a little dirt in there to cross over to get up to another place, you know. (Laughs) Uh-huh. Just you know, to go around and see what they looked like. Did you find any silver? Oh no. I didn’t do anything at the mine. (Laughs) UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 22 That was—of course down at El Dorado Canyon that was—that was quite a place. And you know they had railroads running down there. And boats running—running all the way up the—from Kingman, all the way up to Overton, Overton Knox. Oh. In the (unintelligible) you know. Oh. Mm-hmm. And then finally they built a railroad into well, it was just above Bullhead City in the Catherine’s Mines. And that mine went down in and under the river. They did? Mm-hmm. And they, they had trains running up around (Unintelligible), Bullhead City. And then, they switched over all through the country at a different mine. They even had a railroad from here up through Tonopah. Mm. Gee. I don’t know how many, how many hundreds of railroads that it was from (unintelligible) to state here. Right. This was a switching—? Well, never mind, you know, that (unintelligible) run railroads in to. What happened to all the railroads that went from the Tonopah to—? Well, when the mines closed the railroads went away. Let’s see here. All the ghost towns. Wherever, whenever I’d hear about a ghost town, why, I’d take the run out— Really? To see what it looked like. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 23 So, where did you go to these ghost towns? Could you tell—tell me where some of them were? Well. There’s ghost towns all over the place. Tonopah, you might as well, say is a ghost town. (Laughs) And that was a big deal. And then, just to the side of Tonopah. Mm-hmm. That was plenty (unintelligible). I’ve been through these places a hundred times and doggone it, I can’t think of ‘em. Did you ever find any worthwhile objects that were left over in the ghost towns? Oh. There’s a lot of old machinery, still in there. Was there? Yes. But I never really found anything. In fact, I just wanted to go see what they looked like. Uh-huh. And some of the old buildings was still standing there. Oh. You know, the—built back in the 1860s. The fronts, just the fronts of them in there. Bet that was— That was—that was worth seeing. Uh-huh. Oh. Doggone it—Goldfield! Goldfield, that’s what I was trying to think of. Okay. You know it. (Laughs) After a while it’ll come to me. But that—that was a—? UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 24 Oh. That was a big mine through there. And then, well, you see some of the old locomotives and it gives you the year that they were built, you know, but I was traveling in there. And these trains—these railroads they went to all these ghost towns and all over at one time. All—all the mines. All the mines. All around Nevada. Uh-huh. Of course they’d get in a wreck once in a while, too. (Laughs) Yes. Have you ever—what were some of the—have you ever met any people that—what were some of the people that—who were some of the people that you’ve met? Any railroad engineers? Or anybody that worked on the railroad? Oh yes. Or anybody that worked on the railroad? Mm-hmm. One lives right next door here. Pat (Unintelligible). He was, he was an engineer for I don’t know how long. He’s retired now. Oh really. Yes. I knew a lot of the railroad people. Uh-huh. And course it’s hard to remember the names of them. Yes. Oh, (unintelligible) the Boulder Club uptown, and they—I went through one of the main clubs in Las Vegas at the time. And you’d go up there on Saturday nights you could meet everybody in town and then half the people in the county. Really? Mm-hmm. That one spot up there. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 25 That must’ve been a good old place? Mm-hmm. And then in ’47, they built a (unintelligible) in the Flamingo Hotel. They built the Golden Nugget. (Tape one ends) (Tape starts midsentence) The Nugget, that was just a small club, too, when they finished it. But the club right across from the Boulder Club that was the Frontier, The Frontier Club. Was this Boulder Club now, was that a casino? Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. Okay. And, and in ’47 a fellow by the name of Maccabee came here and he built the Golden Nugget. And now this taking a little spot on the corner, that whole doggone block belongs to the Golden Nugget. Mm-hmm. And right in back of the Golden Nugget was a Safeway store. And eventually that moved over from Charleston where the Fantastic (Unintelligible) is over there. Mm-hmm. And then they moved from there up where they are now. Were there many grocery stores when you came here? What this—? No. Well, they, the Safeway, see that was the first out of town store built here. Was it? Mm-hmm. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 26 Mm-hmm. But there’s supposed to be several smaller ones around. Now (unintelligible) the Apache Hotel, which is the Horseshoe now. That was right on the corner of Second Street and then down on the next corner on First Street, there was a Bank of Nevada. That was just a little small one. Well, between the Apache Hotel, next was the Boulder Club and oh, by the way, the police station, you had to go through the Boulder Club to get into the police station, there was just an alley in the back over there. Uh-huh. And that was called the Blue Room at the time. (Laughs) Oh really? Yes. Well, why, why did they have it built like that? Or was there any—? Well, it was—at the time that was built I imagine, I don’t think there’s anything in back of that. Mm-hmm. ‘Cause the post office that was the only—that was the only building, main building up on— Was the name of it Fremont? Mm-hmm. (Laughs) No. Three blocks up from Fremont. Oh my goodness. Did you know any of the—did you ever visit the Old Ranch or, know anything about the place called—the first ranch that was here? Yes. I’ve seen it down there. Mm-hmm. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 27 Of course we had a few ranches scattered all around—all around through there and quite a few down the valley and scattered around different places around Las Vegas. Mm-hmm. But the largest ranches around them was up in—up in Overton. Oh, I was gonna tell you about the—about the Golden Nugget. Oh yes. Now after that was built, and oh, I told you about the Safeway right, the back of it? Mm. And then there was a couple other stores on that side of the street. Oh, and, I started out to tell you about the Apache Hotel and then the Boulder Club. Next there was a little barrow that sold beer and (unintelligible) store, more or less. Mm-hmm. Then there was a store on the block and then next was the Bank of Nevada. Then the Review-Journal, that was down in the alley on First Street right in back of where the Golden Nugget is now. Was that the only paper in this town at that time? Mm-hmm. That was the only paper. And that was just a small—small paper at the time. Okay. The Mormon Ranch, did you ever see the old original Mormon (unintelligible)? Mormon Ranch, yes that was down the valley. And then, of course they didn’t do so good down there because they couldn’t get to water, you know. Uh-huh. And then, after the moved the sewer plant out here next to the dump, city dump, well, then, they bought all that land in there, then. So they get the water from the disposal plant. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 28 Oh. For the—for the place there. Uh-huh. And then, oh, let’s see, there’s something else I was going to say about that, too. Okay. While I’m talking I think about something and then after I get through then I forget it. (Laughs) You’ll probably remember. Mm-hmm. I know, did—now, you belonged to the union when you first came out here and did you, were you a member of any other organization or any other activity of any kind? No. No. Because I didn’t have time. We worked a lot of overtime. Oh, did you? And then that changed around from different places, you know. Yes. See we worked on the (unintelligible). We wasn’t allowed to go out and fish for our own job. When we’d finish a job and report to local, then they would send us out to other jobs. Now what other hotels did you work on? Well, I worked on the Stardust. And when was that built, that you can remember? Oh, that was—that was built back in the ‘50s. Mm-hmm. Late ‘50s. When you came—? UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 29 Yes. It was in the ‘50s when that was built. When you came to Nevada or Las Vegas, did you—what was on the Strip when you came? What was here? The Last Frontier Hotel. The Last Frontier. Mm-hmm. And that was on the right hand side. And then, there was another, a couple lit bits of motels about, oh, I guess about two or three or four rooms, you know, down through there. Mm-hmm. Before you got to the Flamingo. Was it all desert, then? All desert. Here. When I say that it’s Fremont Street, from about Fifth Street, all the way out to Henderson, there was just a few little tracts down through here then. And then there was Charleston, that run through to where it comes in to Fremont Street down here now and that was—and the thing on the other side of that was dirt roads and a few little shacks out in there. And when they—I don’t know if you remember the Green Shack down there or not. Well, the Green Shack, that was built and then there was a little liquor store next to it and from there to Whitney, there wasn’t anything. Whitney? Yes. That’s East Las Vegas now. Oh. And right along the road, there’s two or three little shacks and a couple of beer bards there. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 30 Oh, my gosh. And they the ones that built the power plants there. I worked on those two power plants there when they built those. And they, it was all desert. Mm-hmm. I mean take Fifteenth Street. Mm-hmm. That was—that’s as far down as paved roads go. And they, Fifteenth, that run over as far as Oakey. Anything the other side of Oakey was nothing but desert and sand domes, was not a thing over in there, not a thing, except maybe a ranch or two, here and there. Did you like it when you came out here first? I mean did you fall in love with it? Oh yes. I liked it because it was good fishing and it was good hunting. What did you hunt? What—? Mostly deer. Mm-hmm. (Unintelligible) and doves, deer, and rabbits, quail. How’s the—? I (unintelligible) out here, just in back of the Showboat, go down there for a couple hours and get my limit of quail. Really? And where the Showboat is now, when it would rain, that was—everything in there was flooded. Even after they built the thing, they had the storm there, over a foot of water in the dining room. Mm. One time course, you didn’t have any drainage at that time, you know. UNLV University Libraries Henry Clay Davis 31 Where did you hunt deer and rabbit? Oh, mostly up around Pioche and— Is it—? Up around Cedar City and Utah and on up Wells, Nevada. And that’s right up near the Idaho line. Was the hunting better then, than it is now? Oh yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You didn’t have any jeeps or anything in them. Mm. And they had—some people bring the horses in there, you know. But after they started to bring in the jeeps in by time you get up in the morning they was up on top of the mountain and the deer was running up on the highest peaks that you could think (unintelligible) could find you. So. Yes. That just—just ruined the deer hunting. Same with the boats and the fish that they brought in out in (unintelligible). Yes. What do you think of Las Vegas now? Is it—? Do you like the increase in p