Transcript of interview with Lamar Foremaster by Gregory Hall, February 14, 1979

UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster i An Interview with Lamar Foremaster An Oral History Conducted by Gregory M. Hall 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 LaMar Foremaster ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2017 UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 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 LaMar Foremaster iv Abstract On February 14, 1979, Gregory M. Hall interviewed his coworker, LaMar Foremaster (born May 9th, 1907 in Alamo, Nevada) at his place of business, Anderson Dairy, in Las Vegas, Nevada. This interview covers the changes, growth, and development of Southern Nevada from 1907 to 1979. During the interview LaMar discusses the Old Ranch, Boulder Dam, Hoover Dam, Fremont Street and the Strip. He also talks about his religious ties to the Mormon Church and his political activities in Las Vegas. UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 1 Tonight I’m interviewing LaMar Foremaster. It’s the 14th of February, 1979. The time is seven p.m. The interview is being held at Anderson Dairy, 801 Searles Avenue, Las Vegas Boulevard North. I’m Gregory Hall, I live at 4073 Arrowood Drive, here in Las Vegas, and this is the history project, The Oral Interview. Where were you born, anyway? I should give you my name. My name is Joseph LaMar Foremaster and I was born in Alamo, Nevada, May the 9th, 1907. About how long did you live there, LaMar? Well, I lived in Alamo until 1921, and at that time we moved to Caliente. About how long did your family stay in Caliente? We stayed in Caliente until August the 15th, 1923, and at this time we moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. Mm-hm. LaMar, do you remember anything about the, what’s now called the Old Ranch, here in Vegas? Well, that’s the reason that we moved to Las Vegas, was on account of the Old Ranch, we bought a dairy here from a man by the name of Mr. Doolittle, who had lived here for many years, and run a dairy. Oh. And his dairy was one of the first dairies that was established here in Las Vegas. We did buy this lease from Mr. Doolittle and we had a lease on what was known as the Old Ranch for ten years. Now is this before it was known as the Stewart Ranch or—? This was long time before. This was a ten, twelve years before it was ever known as the Stewart Ranch, after we sold out here, along, after we’d been here about eight or nine years, we sold the UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 2 ranch and the lease to a man by the name of Edwin Crew, who was a movie producer, and to his son-in-law, who was a movie star in western pictures. And they had the ranch for a couple of years and then Mr. Crew bought another dairy here and they called, our dairy, which was known as the Las Vegas Dairy, they called this, this dairy and another one that Mr. Crew bought and they put the two dairies together and named it the Rancho Grande Creamery. Now at this particular time, this was along in about 1930, they called the ranch here, changed the ranch from the Old Ranch to Rancho Grande Ranch. And also, the dairy that they run, they called it the Rancho Grande Creamery. And I was made superintendent over Ralph’s over this dairy, which was by far, the largest dairy in town. The other, the only other dairy in town at that time, was the Anderson Dairy, owned by a man by the name of Harry Anderson, and another dairy by the name of Updike Dairy, which later on was sold to a group of fellows, called the Clark Dairy. And then, sold to another group, which is known as the Arden Dairy. So speaking of the Old Ranch going from the name, when it was the Old Ranch, going backwards. It was called the Old Ranch and before that, would be the Stewart Ranch, and before that—? It was first called the Old Ranch, then it was known as Doolittle’s Ranch, Doolittle’s Old Ranch. Yes. And then, from there, it was known as the Foremaster’s Place. But it was just a—the Old Ranch, itself, never changed, it was the Old Ranch. It was just it had different owners that had the lease. They, none of them owned the property. They just had the leases from different periods of time, on what was known as the Old Ranch. So your family had it from 1923 to 19—what ’33? UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 3 Well, we were the, we had it until 1933 but for the two years before our lease was up we sold it to this man Edwin Cruz. You remember how long the Doolittles had it? Well, I wouldn’t know how long Doolittles had it. Because they were here for a long time. Now how many years a long time is, I don’t know. All I remember was that they said they’d been here for a long time. Do you remember who held the lease on (unintelligible)? Union Pacific Railroad owned the property and they were the people that we had to get to the master lease from. We would pick up the auction. When we come here we picked up Doolittle’s lease and then of course negotiated a newer one with the Union Pacific Railroad by a man who was their representative here. His name was Mr. Bracken and he’s the man that we got our lease from, the master lease. You remember the area that the Old Ranch had as according today, like what streets would be bordering it and—? Well, the Old Ranch to start with was the, one of the borders, the north border was Foremaster Lane, at the present time. Mm-hm. Was named Foremaster Lane and the west side of the Old Ranch is Las Vegas Boulevard North and the south side of the Old Ranch was, is down south side is down where the Elks, the other side of the Elks Lodge, and the east side of the Old Ranch was beyond Thirtieth Street. I’m not too sure how far beyond Thirtieth Street but it was in that vicinity. How about any of the old buildings on the ranch, do you remember any of them? And—? UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 4 Well, the Old Ranch when we come here had two homes on it. One of them, we lived in and the first house that we lived in at one time was the first post office and the first store in Las Vegas. But we lived in there for our few years and then we moved on over to the house that was known as the larger house, which was the side, which was across the creek, and it was located on the south, southwest side of the property there, next to Las Vegas Boulevard North. Mm-hm. Now the Old Fort, I well remember it when it was crumbling and pretty well decayed. We used to play in there and we enjoyed lots of picnics, and lots of good times there. The big cottonwood trees that we had. The Old Fort was encircled with an adobe wall, which when we come to town, well, was practically all the way around the Old Fort, some of it had fallen down but most of it was intact. And, as well as the Old Fort part of the Old Fort was, had fallen down but— Do you remember what the Old Fort played, what role it had? Well, the Mormon people were the first people that settled this particular area and this fort was built there to protect them against the Indian. And they lived there for several years before they were called back to Salt Lake. Mm-hm. How about the Old Ranch. Do you remember all the trees or the animals or anything you raised on it? Plants, crops? Well, we used to have, before the Elk got a hold of the property and maybe even before that, there used to be a large orchard. They had an apricot tree that was supposed to be the largest apricot tree in the world, that produced many, many bushels of apricots every year. And in this particular orchard they had the black walnuts, they had the English walnuts, they had almonds, pecans, they had fig trees, apple trees, pear trees, almost any kind of fruit that you would want. UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 5 And they yielded very heavy every year. We had all the fruit we could begin to use and give away a lot of fruit all that was on the orchard there. Well, how about the, oh, the growing season, where the water table limit was much higher and I guess the ground was much better. And, in fact, wasn’t it a swamp at one point? Or? Well, the Old Ranch here, where we got our water, was from the overflow of the artesian wells, which were owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, who owned the water system in Las Vegas. And not only did we receive all of the overflow of these wells but all of the sewage. The entire sewage system, all Las Vegas was all dumped down here on the Old Ranch. Mm-hm. We used to grow—our principal crop here was corn and we used to have to stand on the wagon wheels or get up in the wagon bed in order to pick the corn off of— Some of the stalks? Off the stalk. Because the corn grew so high due to the sewage water dumping here on, and the land was very fertile. How about the time you got married. Did you live on a ranch then or? Well, in 1927 when I married F. E. Coon, who was a Salt Lake girl, we were married in the Salt Lake Temple and we come to Las Vegas and of course I have a—helping my father, here on the ranch, he and I and my other two brothers, Harold and Lloyd, helped run the ranch here. We did the farming, the milking, washing of the milk bottles, and filling the bottles and then we would deliver the milk. In those days, we only, we didn’t have pasteurization, all we had was raw milk. If some customer would want a quart a milk a day, we would give them a pint every morning and then we would deliver a pint of milk that afternoon. So that the milk would— Be fresh? UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 6 Stay sweet and fresh. Mm-hm. The only way that the—the only form of refrigeration that they had in those days, was put a wet cloth around the bottle of milk and set it in the window, with the window open. (Laughs) What little breeze could blow on the bottle and the wet cloth was what would refrigerate. Weird operation, wasn’t it? Yes. Yes. The milk. (Laughs) Keep it sweet for at least a half a day. Mm-hm. So your family had the ranch for approximately ten years. When did they sell it? What did they do at that time? Well. We—we sold it as (unintelligible) the man by the name of Edward Cruz in about— Hey at that time, where’d you go to work at? Did you stay in town or? Well, I, for a while I worked on the Union Pacific Railroad and then I—in 1934, I worked on the dam, when they were building Boulder Dam. Mm-hm. Did you, what’d you do on that? My job there was being the foreman over keys. Did you mix (unintelligible) somewhat or? Well, these keys were built about, every five or six feet apart there’d be a key that would be elevated in the four at about six inches high and about two feet wide. And we would build four or UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 7 five of those keys in each fore and then there would be, the reason for that was to keep the next four from sliding. About how long did they have to sit or dry out or? Well, it would, they would dry out for about ten days to two weeks, something like that and then they would go on to the next four. Or they’d come back and pour another one on top of that one. About how long did you work on the dam? I worked there for approximately eight months, between seven and eight months. I quit the dam because I, the heat was so severe and I couldn’t stand it down there. I’d get sick at night. So I quit there and came to work for the city. On the dam, excuse me, but it was supposed to be a hazardous job and all this and did you ever see any accidents on your reports? Well, I actually saw two deaths on the curb. One night or afternoon when we were going to work we were just getting ready to climb up on the, to the dam, we would climb up on or go up on a skip and a boy, he was an electrician and he stepped in some water and he touched a bare line, electrical line at the same time and was electrocuted right in front of several dozens of people. And then another time, a few months later a boy that I was riding from Las Vegas to the dam with, he was known, his job, his occupation was that of a water boy, and he was through about fifteen to twenty minutes earlier than I was and so he took a skip down the face of the dam, about fifteen, twenty minutes before I was ready to go down. And I heard the yell and I run over and look down the face of the dam and the skip had caught and when it jarred loose, why, it went to the end of the table, and when it stopped it just threw this man off from the skip and he fell about five hundred feet, and I watched him tumble down that, all the way down the face of the dam. They picked him up and took him into Boulder City and about an hour and a half later I had UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 8 come to Las Vegas and got his wife, took her back out there just in time to see him breathe his last. Mm. But there were, there was lots of people killed out on the dam but these were the only two accidents that I actually witnessed. I don’t think I’ve had friends that got hurt and weren’t expected to live, some of them did, some died, but just actually to see people killed I witnessed two deaths while I worked out there. You remember anything about the working conditions? I heard it was awfully hot down there and water supply was somewhat inadequate and you try to get cool all together but— Well, the water was the water that they was using from the dam and they were putting chemicals in it to try to keep people from getting sick but it was so hot down there and you would drink this water and I just couldn’t stand it any longer after about eight months, seven and a half to eight months, I had to quit. Because the water was making me so deathly sick each night seemed like the, it took me about fifteen days to make up my mind that I wasn’t able to work there any longer. ‘Cause I kept getting weaker and sicker all the time and so I just had to quit. LaMar you mentioned you used to commute out to the lake or the dam by the day, wasn’t that sort of uncommon? I thought most people stayed in Boulder City in tents or whatever. Oh. Boulder City was very small. About all they had at that particular time was, buildings were, I don’t know what (unintelligible) Like barracks or something? Yes. They had barracks out there, for, lots of the people were (unintelligible) there but there was hundreds of people that commute or travel from Las Vegas out there and back each night. UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 9 They’d go in groups and there was about eight of us travelled in this pickup truck. There were seats in there and a cover over it. Were there gravel roads going out there or? Just gravel roads. There was no cement roads at all; we just had gravel roads. You remember about how long it’d take? Probably about two hours or so, wouldn’t it? Oh no. No. We’d go out there in about forty minutes and like that there. (Laughs) We could travel oh as fast as they can travel now, was rough. (Unintelligible) But after, I might add this here, after I had quit the dam, my dad had a bus line here and I helped to run this. We had two Lincoln cars and it’d hold about ten people and we would go out to Boulder City and back to Vegas just as fast as we could go. We’d just, soon as we’d get one load of men in here, why, we’d turn right around and take a load out, pick up another load out there and bring ‘em back to town. And we had these two Lincoln Continentals just going all the time, day and night. So you’re shuttling people back and forth between? Yes. What’d you do after the dam? Did you—? Well, after I worked on the dam I come to work for the city. The mayor’s name was Leonard Arnette and he saw to it that I got a job working on a garbage truck. The first time that the city ever took over the collecting of garbage or be it, the first time that we ever had any collecting of garbage in Las Vegas was, the city took this over and I worked on what they called the dry UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 10 garbage truck, which would be the trash and my brother Lloyd, Foremaster on the one that was the pickup of the garbage that they would feed to the pigs. Mm-hm. But I worked on that for about a year and then I went to work for the Anderson Dairy. How about the Anderson Dairy at the time though? I’m sure you know how it originated. Can you tell me a little about it, how it was formed and? Well, a man by the name of Harry Anderson was the one that started the Anderson Dairy in 1905 and he run this dairy up until Kenny Searles and Mr. Hoover bought this dairy from Harry Anderson in about 1936. Mm-hm. And do you remember the original locations? Original location of the Anderson Dairy was between Fifth Street and Sixth Street on Fremont Street, was an old tin structure there. All of our milk was bottled by hand and ice cream was in a just a batch freezer. We’d make ice cream, the batch freezer was just a very small refrigerated walk-in box in those days, we were so close to all of our business that we would take to each one of the wholesale stops that we’ve had, that we’ve had here in town, we’d make maybe five or six deliveries to some of ‘em, that didn’t have refrigeration, if they need the three gallon can then of milk we would deliver that and maybe five minutes after they would call. We’d have milk delivered right to their (unintelligible) How long did they stay at that location off of Fremont? Well, when World War II broke out, on what date that is, I don’t know, we moved to a new location. A building we built, which was 828 South Fifth Street, or which was known now as Las Vegas Boulevard South and we occupied that building. We had, we outgrew the bottom part. We UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 11 put a second story on it. We outgrew that, and then 1956, we moved to our present location, which is 1414 Las Vegas Boulevard North. A dairy right now is on the property originally called the Old Ranch, isn’t it? Yes. It is part of the Old Ranch property. Mm-hm. How about the structure of the ranch, not the ranch, but the dairy itself as far as you and two of your brother-in-laws being in it? That interested me about Glen Coon and E Levitt and how that worked out. Well, I was, first worked on a wholesale route and I started to work for Kenny Searles and Mr. Hoover, January the 15th, 1937. And at that time, I might state that the first day of business that we did amounted to twenty-eight dollars and thirty-five cents, was the first day of business and that was all of the milk that we sold, wholesale, to all of the restaurants and stores in town that was taking milk. And after a few years on the milk route and World War II started, why, our dairy just grew in leaps and bounds and they got to a point where they needed a sales manager so Kenny Searles took me off the milk route and I was sales manager for several years for the dairy and later on we placed my (unintelligible) and I helped. It sucks that I couldn’t ride the trucks any longer. How did Glen (unintelligible)? Well, when I was made sales manager I had the top wholesale route and Kenny Searles asked me if I wouldn’t look around find somebody that would be suitable for the route, somebody who would do a good job of it and all I could think of was my brother-in-law, Glen Coon. Glen was working in the, out at Magna and at the (unintelligible) out there. And he was glad to get out of that. (Laughs) UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 12 And come down here and start to work for the Anderson Dairy, and he worked on the Anderson Dairy on a milk route for seven or eight years and then he was made general manager over the dairy. D Levitt was another brother-in-law of mine and he went to work about the, almost the same time that Glen did. He has worked ever since on a wholesale route and still works for a wholesale route. So you started here in the thirties and Glen and D had been here since early forties? Well, I don’t exactly remember how long but Glen has been here pretty close to thirty years now. Shifting the subject just a little, do you remember any visits from any important people? There’s been a couple of presidents that have been by here and? Well, when President Roosevelt, during the time the dam was being built, why, President Roosevelt comes through here and he took a bus and went on out to the dam and see the dam and then of course, he stood on the platform or the caboose or the passenger train and talked to the town folks for a quite a while and then when the Hoover Dam was dedicated, if I remember right, Mr. Hoover was here for the dedicatory services of the dam. And the dam at one time was called the Hoover Dam and then for some reason or other, why, later on, they had it changed back to Boulder Dam. Mm-hm. How about, oh, another famous person, Clark Gable? Well, to start with, the particular area that I live in, at 701 South Seventh Street, we were— (Tape ends) LaMar let’s start again with your house and where you lived at. Well, in 1928, the wife and I had a home built at 701 South Seventh Street and we pioneered that entire area. We were the, had the first home built south of Fremont Street and east of Las Vegas Boulevard South. We lived there for several years before the area started to build up. But in later UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 13 years there was a home right across the street from us owned by Judge Frank McNamee and there was a famous movie actor by, actress by the name of Rita Gable who come to Las Vegas to get a divorce and she hired Frank McNamee for her attorney and he moved out of his home and she moved into it while she was here for the period of time that it took to get a divorce and she lived right straight across the street from us and our kids would kneel in the Davenport every morning about seven o’clock when she would come home from either gambling or— (Laughs) Out on the town. (Unintelligible) And holler and say, “Momma here comes the movie star. She’s just coming home. She’s been out all night again.” (Laughs) (Laughs) Did you ever have any social contact with her at all? Or just? We met her and she visited, we visited back and forth a little bit and we delivered milk to her. We took her a small amount of milk. We delivered milk to her (unintelligible) I met her when we would collect she’d make a payment, collection on the milk bill. Mm-hm. So I got to know her quite well. She was very friendly. Mm-hm. How was the town then? Do you remember what it looked like when you came here or about how many people there were? UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 14 Well, when we moved to Las Vegas, the town in 1923, the population of the town was approximately thirty-five hundred people. There was no streets or cement sidewalks in those days. All we had was board sidewalks and— Were the streets just dirt or? The streets were, had shallow gravel on ‘em, they didn’t have too much gravel and I remember one time, I was peddling milk in an old Model T Ford and it rained pretty good the night before and I got stuck right in front of what it is now the Golden Nugget. Mm-hm. My dad had to come from the Old Ranch with a team of horses and fill the Model T Ford out of the mud there so I could go on delivering the rest of the milk. (Laughs) So Downtown was really just like wooden boardwalks or whatever and—? That was all and Fifth Street was practically the Boulevard. Fremont and the Boulevard was practically the end of the town. The fact that the, that on Fermont Street beyond the Boulevard or Fifth Street there was only just three or four houses going down there, that was known as a resort by the name of Jim Lads Resort. And there was the hot (unintelligible) and there were just a very, very few houses on the Fremont, you know, on Fifth Street. Now gambling was legalized I believe in the early thirties, remember what hotels sprang out, or were the popular ones around the town? Well, the first hotel that was built, was built by Tom Howell and he built the El Rancho and then from the El Rancho, why, you had the Thunderbird, Frontier, and the Flamingo, were the four first large hotels built on the Strip, which was known as the Strip. Now the El Rancho, that’s— The old, the El Rancho of course has since— UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 15 Burned down. Burned down. Where was that located? Across the street from what is now is the Sahara, isn’t it? Yes. That’s right. It’s right across the street from Sahara, straight west of the Sahara. Mm-hm. How about Downtown, what did it look like, were there a lot of casinos down there then or? Well, at the time that they started to build the El Rancho there was the Boulder Club there and the Northern Club and Las Vegas Club. And of course, there were several small gambling places, sprung up along Fremont Street actually was legalized and of course, before it was legalized, we had gambling in Las Vegas and two or three clubs that had gambling, 21, crap games, poker games, roulette. Okay. Let me go on into the forties, World War II broke out and did that have any effect on Vegas as far as like Nellis being built and eventually the town and test site, and all that stuff, do you remember anything specific? Well, as soon as Nellis was built with of course there was an influx of thousands of people coming to town, the base out there, I’m not familiar with how many thousands of people that there was on the base but it helped the economy here a great deal. Mm-hm. And of course when the test site was built, why, that brought thousands of people here, and of course, the town just grew in leaps and bounds, and then, that hasn’t stopped. For the test site, they had the aboveground nuclear tests then. Do you remember seeing ‘em or feeling ‘em or whatever or? UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 16 Well, the first test that they ever had out there, we, it was very much publicized and the morning that it went off, why, it was around six or seven o’clock in the morning and several of us climbed up on top of the (unintelligible) building, which was on the corner of the Boulevard and Fremont Street and when it went off, why, we could feel even the building shake a little bit. It was like a slight earthquake and we also saw the mushroom as it arose in the sky and the light. The light was just so bright that it almost blind you when you see it. You’re supposed to wear colored glasses, you were told to wear colored glasses when it goes off. How about your church membership? I believe you belong to the Mormon. Yes. I was born and raised in the church and first when I come to Las Vegas all we had was just a branch to start with. It grew from a branch to what is known as a ward and when I was seventeen years old I was called as the first Mormon missionary to ever leave the first ward, that was built here and I went to the southern states. I spent most of my time in North Carolina and Georgia. Mm-hm. You spent two years there? Yes. I was down there for two years. This was back in the mid-twenties? Well, I left here in November the 13th, 1924, and I come back to Las Vegas in December of 1926. You ever a member or participated in any kind of activities or organizations? Well, I was a member of the Elks Lodge and I was an officer in the Elks Lodge for a few years, over committees. I worked on the social and community welfare committee for several years was the chairman of it. Do you support political activities in town? UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 17 Well, I have supported them in the earlier days, when it was, the town was much smaller, why, we used to take politics a lot more serious and campaign for the mayor or the commissioner of our choice and we’d get out and campaign for ‘em and so forth (unintelligible) Well, you mention where you were living in town, what about travel while you were out on a mission of the south? Well, we’ve been to Europe three times, the wife and I have. We’ve been to several countries and in Europe, we have a daughter now living in Munich. Oh. And we go to visit her every two or three years, and when we do we take quite an extended trip. Was there any information of personal interests you’d like to give me more that I haven’t covered yet? Any special interests? Mm-hm. Well, I do have a hobby, which I’ve had ever since I was a young boy, of hunting. Mm-hm. I did a lot of hunting in my life and I used to like to hunt deer and quail and (unintelligible) and pheasant. You lived on the ranch. Did you ever break any, what do you call it, bronco horses, I guess you would call it? Well, when I lived in Alamo we used to go out and catch wild bronco horse and us boys we used to draw straws to see which one would ride which horse and— Would be a wild ride or? I’ve rode a lot of horses till they stopped bucking and I’ve been thrown off of a lot of them. UNLV University Libraries LaMar Foremaster 18 (Laughs) Okay. Well, just in closing is there anything else that you liked to add that I might have missed? (Unintelligible) Well, I can’t think of anything in particular. Oh, I really want to thank you LaMar you’ve been a great informant for this interview and I wish you the best of luck. This is Gregory Hall for the Oral Interview Project for the Nevada History course out of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. (Tape ends)