Abstract
The Bill Beam Papers document the career of miner and poetry enthusiast Bill (William) Beam from 1955 to 2004. The papers contain mining materials, photographs, and poetry from mines Beam worked in around the Southwestern United States. Also included are two albums of photographs from the Nevada Test Site.
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Scope and Contents Note
The Bill Beam Papers contain materials from the career of miner and poetry enthusiast Bill Beam from 1955 to 2004. The papers contain mine training materials, newspaper articles, correspondence, photographs, and poetry from mines Beam worked in around Nevada and the Southwest. Also included are two albums of photographs from the Nevada Test Site. The papers also include two books of cowboy poetry, including a a book of poetry by Beam.
Access Note
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
Materials in this collection may be protected by copyrights and other rights. See Reproductions and Use on the UNLV Special Collections website for more information about reproductions and permissions to publish.
Arrangement
Materials are arranged alphabetically.
Biographical / Historical Note
Miner and poetry enthusiast William "Bill" Beam was born in 1930 in Bisbee, Arizona. After graduating from high school, Beam worked as a mucker at mines in Ajo, Arizona and in Bisbee, Arizona. In the late 1950s Beam worked for the Union Carbide Corporation in Arizona and participated in their safety training program, which allowed him to work as a safety inspector in other mines around the Southwest. His experience as a safety engineer attracted attention from J. D. Hill, the Director of Safety for Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). In 1967 Beam moved to Las Vegas, Nevada and began working at the NTS.
Beam wrote a book of original poems about living and working in the Southwest titled "Southwestern Cowboy Poetry." He retired from the Nevada Test Site in 1993, the same year he published his poetry.
William "Bill" Beam passed away in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 5, 2012.
Sources:
William "Bill" Beam, interview by Mary Palevsky, January 20, 2005, UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project, http://digital.library.unlv.edu/api/1/objects/nts/1261/bitstream
Preferred Citation
Bill Beam Papers, 1955-2004. MS-00531. Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Acquisition Note
Materials were donated in 2007 by Bill Beam; accession number 2007-014.
Processing Note
The collection is completely processed. In 2014, Lindsay Oden wrote the collection description and subsequently entered the data into ArchivesSpace. Joyce Moore completed the processing in 2016.