Audio clip from interview with Max Goot by Charles Collins, March 22, 1976

Okay, Mr. Goot. Were you born in Southern Nevada? No. I was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Saint Paul, Minnesota. Why did you or your family come here? Why did my family come here? Yeah, uh huh. My brother Albert was here at the time. And I just had gotten out of the army in 1944, in the latter part of '44, and I couldn't get anything in my particular mind like if it came to all metal goods, which was commercial stationery. My brother Albert asked me to come here to Las Vegas from New York City. At the time I lived in New York City. I got on the train?I didn't fly at the time?and got as far as Chicago and turned around and went back to New York. He flew out three days later to New York and got on a train with me and I came back here to Las Vegas with him. That's the reason I'm in Las Vegas as of today. What year was that? Nineteen forty five. It was on April the third of 1945. Were you educated in Southern Nevada? No, I was not educated here. I was educated in Crown Point, Indiana. What was your occupation when you came out here? At the time I came out here, I didn't have a thing in mind. But I did purchase Stoney's Jewelry at the time I got here; that's what I went into at the time I got here in 1945. Is that the business you have right now? No. That was the business I had until 1951. That's what I did when I got here until '51. Then I sold Stoney's Jewelry and went into the Eldorado Club, which is now Benny Binion's Horseshoe Club, for six months and four days. The place didn't last after that and I went out of there. At that time I happened to be walking by Tinch Furniture Store and I had heard from my wife that Tinch Furniture was quite a quaint place and whereby they had all these old antiques and things, old furniture in there. I walked inside and as I walked by her office, I heard her say that her husband had been very ill and she was going to try and sell the place. So I waited until she got off the telephone. When she got off the phone, I asked her what she wanted to do about the place and she said she wanted to sell it. I more or less made the transaction that same afternoon and purchased the place in 1951. Were you married when you came out here? Oh, yes. I had married a long time ago. I was married when I went in the army. When were you married, when and where? In New York City in 1942. Is or was church activity and important part of your life? Yes. Yes, it was. What church do you belong to? That was the Jewish community center or the Jewish temple, I should say, and I belonged to it here in Las Vegas. I belonged to it since I've been here, for the past thirty one years.