Maurine and Fred Wilson and Dr. William S. Park Photograph Albums (PH-00222)

Maurine Hubbard Wilson (1898-1990) was born in Missouri, but moved to Colorado with her parents where she graduated from Colorado Women's College in Denver as a music major. In 1922, she married Fred Holmes Wilson (1898-1958), a native of Cañon City, Colorado who had served in the Naval Geologic Services during World War I. In 1925 the couple moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where Fred worked for the Post Office and Maurine taught music and served as the organist for the First Methodist Church.

Dr. William B. S. Park (1879-1946), son of John S. and Nancy Park, was born in Kentucky but raised in California. He received his degree in dentistry in 1900. In 1907, William followed his father to the new town of Las Vegas, Nevada, and worked alongside his father at the First State Bank until 1912, when he established his dental practice. William S. Park became interested in archaeology and worked with Dr. Mark R. Harrington on the excavations of the Lost City site in 1924, and Gypsum Cave site in the early 1930s. Park's interest continued after the excavations and alongside Richard "Chick" Perkins, he developed an extensive collection of pre-ancestral Puebloan pottery, points, and other artifacts from the Lost City area. The artifacts would form the basis of the Lost City Museum in Overton, Nevada.

Soon after their arrival in Las Vegas, the Wilsons met and became close friends with the Parks. They shared a deep interest in the history, archaeology, and geology of southern Nevada, and the two families made many trips throughout the southwest and California. In 1929, Fred Wilson and William S. Park began to assemble a photographic and film history of early Las Vegas, documenting everything from baseball games to the first air mail delivery to Las Vegas. Their efforts were cut short when Fred Wilson's health began to decline in 1940. After that, Wilson devoted his time to historical research and Park turned to rock collection, lapidary, and occasional expeditions to document petroglyph sites in southern Nevada until his death in 1946.

Maurine Hubbard Wilson preserved the legacies of her husband and William S. Park, donating the bulk of the photographic and document collection the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives over the course of the 1970s and 1980s. She died in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1990.

Source:

"The Lost City," National Park Service, accessed April 18 2019, https://www.nps.gov/lake/learn/the-lost-city.htm

Hopkins, A. D., "A Heritage in Home Movies," Nevadan, March 16, 1980, pp.30-31J.

Philips, Marjory, "Maurine Hubbard Wilson: a salute to the people who are building our Southern Nevada community," Nevada Manuscripts Program for the Bicentennial, 1976.