Transcript of interview with Adele Baratz by Steve McClenachan, March 3-4, 1979

AN INTERVIEW WITH ADELE BARATZ An Oral History Conducted by Steve McClenachan March 3-4, 1979 The Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas i ?Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV - University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers: Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White Editors and Project Assistants: Maggie Lopes, Stefani Evans ii The recorded Interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes 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. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews transcribed under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iii [1979 interview conducted by a male student] ?Adele Baratz. She works at Sunrise Hospital. And she's been a resident of Nevada since when? Nineteen twenty-eight. Nineteen twenty-eight, okay. Why don't you tell me something about your early life in Las Vegas, such as the growth in population? Well, when we first came here, there were between three and five thousand people. And Fremont Street was only paved down to as far as Fifth Street, which is now Las Vegas Boulevard. In some areas as you went out, there was nothing paved really. And anything beyond Las Vegas Boulevard was desert and that was about it; everything was above Las Vegas Boulevard, really. When we lived on North Ninth Street, there was a little bit there, but the streets weren't paved. The buildings...there weren't any high-rises back then. Oh, no, huh-uh. They were all one-or two-story buildings. I think the Beckley Building was up. That's where the Pioneer Club is now. There used to be a men's furnishing store there. In fact, in the paper there's a whole thing now about them moving the Beckley house that's been downtown on South Fourth Street and that's being moved out to the museum and they're going to preserve it. How about your family, were they from the West? No, no, my family were not. I was born in New Jersey and we moved to California when I was about six months old. And then from there, when they signed the bill to build, well, we call it Boulder Dam, but it's Hoover Dam; that's when the family came here was back in those years. So my memories of real early is really not too vivid. 1 How about your parents? What did your dad do? Well, my father came here...he was going to sell real estate, but instead he went to work for a man that sold bootlegger supplies. That was a very thriving business in those days. Bootlegger supplies being? Bootlegger being mash and barley because there was still Prohibition. So that's what the... And your mom? When we first came here my mother sewed for people and she cooked for people. How many in your family? Just my brother and myself and my mother and father. That's nice. How about early education, elementary schooling? Well, in those days they only had one elementary school. There was an elementary school over on the Westside, which in those days was the black section of town. That's the only place that the black people lived. They didn't live on the other side of town because Las Vegas had quite a strong color barrier in the early days. It was really quite a thing here. In fact, when I was young I went to New York in 1942 with my mother. I'll never forget. I couldn't believe it when I saw black people sitting in the restaurant with white people because of being raised here where there was such a strong color line. The black people had to sit in one place in the theaters and everything. And you saw that out west here, too, like in Nevada? Yeah, because we're Southern Nevada and it was very strong here. But as far as the schools were concerned, the schools were not segregated or anything. Where I went to school is where the federal building is now. That was where the school was in those days. In nineteen?what was it??it must have been 1933 or '34, the school burned down and the new school was built. 2 And the new school is where the county buildings are over there next to the federal building. Now, I was fortunate; I didn't have to go to school in tents. But my brother, who is four years older than I do (sic), did have to go to school in tents. It was very hot. Was it year-round school? No, huh-uh. But we would go to school from the beginning of September until the end of May because they didn't have air-conditioning in schools in those days. Now all the schools are air-conditioned, but in those days they didn't have air-conditioning in the schools. They couldn't keep you in much after May because it was just too hot. So after elementary education, was there high school? Yeah, there was high school. I went to Las Vegas High, which is still standing today. That was the only high school that they had then. From about the sixth grade on up, it was in the Fifth Street School. They didn't have junior high schools in those days, either. It was just elementary and then high school. So what years would that be? I graduated high school in 1944. During the war. Yeah, it was one of the smallest classes they ever had, only fifty people in the class, yeah, because of the war; it was right in the middle of the war. And then I went away to school in Maryland and then I came back. With school...even in April or May here, temperatures must have been around a hundred. Yes, they were. What kind of ventilation? Were there fans? Well, we had fans and the swamp coolers came in. Now, you still see some swamp coolers 3 around Las Vegas. You especially see them in big warehouses or you notice them in the dealership where they do the repairs, the automobile repairs where they service your cars because it's open. Well, on the top they have these...they look like boxes. What they are is excelsior with a fan. And the excelsior is kept wet and then the fan blows. That's what they were in those days. A lot of people, what they used to do in those days is they would build them themselves and they'd go to the lumberyard and get the wood and the excelsior with the chicken wire. And then they'd put a fan in front of it and that would blow the air in. For years we lived here as kids and we didn't have one because my dad wouldn't have one. But we lived in a house, which is not there?it was over on what's now Casino Center?and we had a big sleeping porch there. So the whole side of the house was like screened in. When it was a hundred and twenty, a hundred and fifteen...? Well, it would get up to that high, but you survived because you didn't have humidity. Sure. It's dry heat out here, sure. Yeah, it was much drier. Now the humidity is really very bad compared to what it was then. Since the lake and more people live here, the vegetation, the humidity is much higher. But in, let's say, your home where Casino Center was, in the summertime for three months?did you work when you were younger or were there many? Well, during the war I worked. I worked out at what's now Nellis Air Force Base. I worked in the summertime out there. How about when you were in school, like summers in school or during school, did you just go to school or did you work and go to school? No, I just went to school when I went to high school and elementary school here. But in the summertime I worked. But during school time I didn't work. 4 How about during World War II, what was Las Vegas like? Was there a lot of gas rationing, food shortages? Well, there was the same type of gas rationing here that there was every place else in the United States and food was the same. They used to have blackouts here, though. When the war first started, they had blackouts. And it was so funny because people would come out at night and they'd light up a cigarette and here there was this blackout and they weren't supposed to be doing that. Things like that. The blackouts were for a Japanese attack? Yeah, because we were so close to the coast. This was when it first started. And the dam...you had to have all your windows up and all the cars were escorted across the dam. There probably wasn't much of a Japanese population here, but do you remember anything about any Japanese that had to be deported? Yeah, we had Japanese families that lived here, but they were not interned or anything. They weren't? Huh-uh. They were able to live here and to have their farms and everything because we were far enough away from the coast. It wasn't like being right on the... You were saying before, you graduated in 1944? Uh-huh. And you went to school in Maryland? Yeah, I went to school in Maryland when I graduated from high school. When did you graduate from Maryland? In Maryland, 1947. Then you came back out here? 5 Yeah, I came back out here. And what kind of job did you...? Well, at first I didn't do anything because my father got sick and subsequently passed away and I didn't feel like doing much of anything. And then one of the nurses at Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital?which at that time it was either Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital or the old Las Vegas Hospital, which is over on North Eighth Street now, which I believe is used as a rehabilitation center for drug abuse or alcohol; I don't know, one of the two, were the only two hospitals in town. In those days, of course, Las Vegas Hospital was a private hospital and private doctors ran it. In fact, Dr. Woodbury, who was in the school district, that was his hospital; he ran that hospital. When you were at Maryland, what was your major? Was it nursing? No, because I went to a nursing school. It wasn't like now the way they have it that you go to college and do all those great things that's supposed to make you really great. Spend four years of your time. Four years of your time and learn nothing about actually taking care of patients. I am very opposed to two-year and four-year schools. In my day they had what they called the five-year school and that was the best school because you had three years of your actual nursing work and two years of your college work. You got a degree after five years. Were there any good schools here in Nevada? No, there were no schools in Nevada. The only university in those days was in Reno. UNLV wasn't here. UNLV started, I think, around...in the fifties. Yeah, fifties; that's when UNLV started. 6 So everyone who wanted to go to college basically either had to go upper state or leave the state. That's right. That's right. You couldn't go to school here because they didn't have any higher education here. So from a nursing school in Maryland, you were speaking of Southern Nevada? Yeah, I came back here. Yeah, I went to work at Southern Nevada. I worked there for about a year and I worked on postoperative surgical floor. Usually on the weekends their emergency room wasn't too well staffed. So a lot of times if you worked on the postoperative surgical floor, if they got any patients in the emergency room, you'd have to go in. It was nothing like what they have today. It wasn't as well equipped or anything. You had to be a lot more diversified, then, covering different fields. Yeah, because they did not have what you would call intensive care, either. A patient became back from surgery and that was it; you took care of him. Of course, they didn't have all the equipment that we have today, either, because so much of the equipment that we have today in hospitals is outgrowth of the space program. A lot of it has come from that. How's that? Because of the research that was done during with nuclear medicine. We didn't have nuclear medicine in my day when I was young. They had just regular X rays and things like that. But they didn't do all the tests that they're doing today. Don't forget this was in 1948 and '49. Since vegas was isolated, were they up with the times? Fairly well up with the times. But they didn't have all the things that they have today here. Regular surgeries and things like that they could do. But if it was anything very serious or complicated, you usually went to Los Angeles because Los Angeles was the big center. 7 So let's say around 1950?gambling had been here since the thirties, right? Yeah, gambling came in before Prohibition was repealed. It was about '34 or something, wasn't it? No. Gambling actually was here before that. It was, but I think they actually brought them into legal framework? No, it was legal framework before Prohibition was repealed. Yeah, they had gambling here. Before you could drink, you could gamble. What do you remember as being the first casino or place to go? The place to go...I can't really remember too much. But it seems to me?well, they were all downtown. There was no Strip. The Strip did not come into being until about 1942 when they built the El Rancho. But the Strip did not?it was all downtown gambling. The El Rancho would be what today or what would be there? There's nothing there. It's vacant. It's across the street from the Sahara. It's that big area across the street from the Sahara. (13:45)What was it going there? That was the El Rancho Vegas and it burned down and it's never been rebuilt. Was that building standing about five years ago? Probably some of it was standing. Was it like a pink color? Yes. Because I think I remember seeing something like that. Yeah. It was standing then. But that was the first hotel. Where the Sahara is now was what they called the Club Bingo. It was just a little club. 8 When that burned down that was the only one in town, right? No, because when it burned down there were others because after it there was the Last Frontier and after Last Frontier was the Flamingo. And it had a lot of notoriety, the Flamingo, because of Bugsy Siegel's involvement with that. I can't remember if the Sahara or the DI came first. The DI they started build and then it was idle for a long time because they ran out of money. (14:34)The one that stood by itself? It just stood?well, see, it's not like the Desert Inn is now with the high-rise because everything was only two stories, one or two. Well, the hotel part were like little bungalow-type things, just one or two stories high and that was it. Like if you notice the Sahara, there's a part there that there's no high-rise; it's just two stories. Well, that's how they used to build them all was just two stories, no high-rise. (14:58/Inaudible) Yeah. Or the Sands, the back part of the Sands. There's a high-rise in the front, but the back part of the Sands is where the hotel used to be until they put the high-rise up. So when did the high-rises first start building? I can't remember when the high-rises first came in. Which was the first hotel? I'm trying to think which one was the first one to have a high-rise. I don't know if it was the Sahara or the Riviera. But they all started just as two-story places. It's hard to remember. Do you remember when you were living back in, let's say, the forties and fifties, you probably would be working, like taxes and stuff like that? When you talk, say, from Maryland or California, were there tax breaks like they are right now compared to other states? Well, we didn't have any taxes in those days. There was no sales tax. And the only taxes that 9 there were, were federal taxes. That was it? There wasn't that much taxes as far as tax breakwise, property taxes and stuff like that. Even the property tax wasn't that bad. That's why people used to buy so much property and they used to hold it because your ad valorem property taxes were so low. It's only been in recent years that they've really raised them and they've gone way up. But for years?well, we've owned a lot of property here. Every time we sell it we still pay the same amount of taxes because they keep raising the taxes on the property. So that you sell, but then you're still paying same...basically you're paying the same amount of taxes every year. So had you foreseen the move to Las Vegas, you could be a very rich person. Well, my father bought property here. Everybody used to say he was really wise because he bought all this property up. We used to own the property the Tropicana Golf Course is on today. But we sold it many, many years ago to the Tropicana for the golf course. I remember I got into trouble with the government one year because when I got married my mother had given me a piece of property for a wedding present, and so I had to file my income tax. The property was sold and I had to declare a base value. And I couldn't declare a base value. How do you declare a base on a dollar a quarter acre? I mean it was practically nothing. I'll tell you an interesting, story, though, something that will interest you. This was about 1935. We didn't have a car. My dad decided to buy a car. I think it was '35; I don't know for sure. He couldn't afford to pay the down payment for the car. So the dealer said, well, he could give him a few acres. So my dad gave him a few acres of property for this car. The property was on what is now Tropicana. Those days it was called Bond Road. That car must have been the most expensive Plymouth there ever was in the world because I think the guy made over 10 twenty-five thousand dollars on that piece of property. But here my father gave it to him for a down payment; it was a seven-hundred-dollar car. So that's how property values have jumped so high here. We owned some property that?my father was able to get that was state land, and that too...you can't get those things anymore. But in those days, if you knew people, through politics you used to be able to get stuff. I don't know if you know anything about this, but right now something in Nevada 85 percent is still federal? Yes. Most of the land here is owned by the federal government. Has it opened up? Do you remember them giving more land? No. In fact, the senators are fighting for that now in the congress, fighting to get more land. But it's practically all owned by the federal government, the land here. The state owns some, but most of it is owned by the government. Hoover Dam, the way it looks now, is it still about the same? Yeah, that's the same. Well, the dam is the dam. I mean it was built that way and they haven't changed it. It looks so modern. Yeah, but that's the way it was. It was built that way and it hasn't changed. The only thing they've done is they've put a few concessions in a few more places for people to look. I've taken a tour a couple of times. Well, when I was kid when they were building it, you know that one place where they take you over that big intake, the water that goes through the dam, where the river goes through the diversion? 11 Yeah. Okay. When they were building the dam the workmen were allowed to take you through the dam. Of course, my father knew the workmen and they took us through the dam and we cat-walked those things and we were in the main control tower; those things. This was when it was first being built. So I've really been all over inside of that dam. Going out there when you were younger for recreation, did you do that? Well, we didn't have the recreation like you have today. Don't forget until the dam was finished?I guess it was dedicated around 1935?then the lake started to form. What was there before? I always wondered. It's so high. Like you look at the Hoover Dam and see where? It was a canyon. It was nothing. It was just a canyon. It was just a Grand Canyon-type thing? Yeah, a black canyon. What kind of water, how wide? With the Colorado River. You see the river below dam? Sure. That's it. That's the Colorado River. That's what it was, was the Colorado River. Do you remember any boating there before it was a lake? No, not really. That didn't come in?really, big boating and big recreation didn't come in until after the war; that's when all that stuff came in. Staying with recreation, what would you do? Well, of course, people didn't have swimming pools then like they have today. They had a couple of swimming pools. The old ranch had a swimming pool, which is down around where 12 the Elks Club is now. We used to go down there to go swimming. Then Ladd's had one and that was around Eighth and where Maryland Parkway?someplace around where Maryland Parkway is now. I can't remember if it was further up around Eighth Street or where it was. But it was on the north side of Fremont. There was a pool there. Then there's the Mermaid Pool, which was downtown, which was where most of the people went. And then where Lorenzi Park is now; that was there. In fact, that's where I learned how to swim was at Lorenzi Park, which then was called Lorenzi's because they still owned it. It was so funny. Everything that he didn't want you to do, he used to put a sign up that said, state law, you can't do this, and state law, you can't do that. So we used to call him Mr. State Law because there were so many things you couldn't do. But when I went to school, at the end of the year every class used to have big class picnics and they were always held out there. But as far as what to do...you went to the movies and you had a party. Were there drive-ins? No, no. They didn't have that in those days. Well, they didn't even have drive-ins in those days when I was a kid. They had two movies. They had the El Portal and then they had The Palace. The Palace is no longer there. It was on Casino Center Boulevard at about the three hundred block and that wasn't too far where I lived because I used live on Casino Center. So we could walk up to that one very easily. And many, many, many years ago, I guess it was around...in the thirties they had like an open-air theater on South First Street. My dad owned a bar on South First Street and it was across the alley from where the Review-Journal used to be. Because this was when it was a real small town. And there was an open-air theater there. Then after that went down they put up...I think it was called the Big Six Club and it was on South First Street, but like across the street from where my dad's bar was, kitty corner. And then the 13 Review-Journal was there. And on election night the Review-Journal used to have a big screen up there and everybody would go down to watch it on the screen. Of course, my dad's bar was right there. So people would go in and get beer and bring it out to watch. And then North First Street, the two hundred block on North First Street was what they called Block Sixteen. That used to be where the prostitutes were. And that was a prostitute section. So when we were kids that was another recreation, to get on your bike and ride as fast as you could through Block Sixteen. The red light district. Was there red lights and that kind of stuff? Oh, gee, it's hard for me to remember. But all I know is it was called Block Sixteen and you were forbidden to go to that area of town. So that was the recreation, huh? That was...when you're kids. But other than just being with your friends...I guess one of the first pools in town was across the street from where Las Vegas High School is. It's still there and Gumanz built that and a girlfriend of mine's aunt lived next door to him. So occasionally, we were lucky and we could go swimming there. Brought up in the East when I was a kid, with the way the weather is, there were a lot of things you could do. You could skate in the winter and a lot of things. Out here it seemed like it would be kind of rigid unless you went to Mount Charleston if you had transportation. Well, I tell you what we used to do at Mount Charleston in the summertime. Now, I told you that we didn't have air-conditioning for many years. And because my dad owned a bar and he had to be awake at night a lot and it was too hot to sleep during the day, we used to go up to Mount Charleston three times a week in the summertime and my mother would take dinner up 14 there and she'd cook it because they had all the open camp areas and my dad would sleep. Then we'd just hike up and down around the mountains. I knew Mount Charleston backwards and forwards. In fact, I go there now, I can't recognize the place because it was built originally in the days of the three C's. They used to have the CCC camps and they had one up there. And they still use the original CCC camp as something; it was a ranger station, I think. What's CCC? Civilian Conservation Corps and that's an outgrowth of the Depression. A lot of the national parks were fixed by these kids, these boys, and they'd live in these camps. They'd clear roads and they'd make campsites and they'd build these places where they put the stoves and everything for people to go up and have recreation. And that's what they did up at Mount Charleston because they had Mount Charleston and Deer Creek and Lee's Canyon. But the most developed one was Mount Charleston. It was far more developed. Like that road that you see? have you ever been up to Mount Charleston? Certainly. Okay. You see the road...you go up to Mount Charleston and then there's that road that goes alongside the mountain that goes to Deer Creek and takes you over to Lee's Canyon? Sure. Well, that was just an old dirt road and that was a rough road to go on. Now it's a beautiful road to cross over from Lee Canyon's to... It's still pretty steep, though. Was there much skiing up there? Was there any kind of skiing? No, no, no, there was no skiing up there. They decided to put a ski jump in there, but it was never much of anything. That was at Charleston because Lee Canyon's wasn't too much. Of 15 course, now Lee's Canyon is used more, I think than... What about Lee's Canyon? Was that just very recent? Oh, gee, that was more after the war and more recent, in more recent times. Skiing has become such an in type of sport and things like that they started to develop that. Did Vegas feel?I'm jumping from recreation to, let's say, the Depression. Did Vegas feel much of the Depression? Oh, sure. The whole world felt the Depression. Now, usually when there's a recession, Las Vegas doesn't feel it as quick because people are coming here trying to make a fast buck. So they don't feel it as much. I know like everyone felt the Depression. But being in an isolated place?because about three hundred miles around here, there's not that much. That's right. Jobs would be? But, of course, they had the dam. The dam was being built here. And that was during the Depression that the dam was built. So that made more employment here. But like people used to say, "How come you came to Las Vegas and stayed?" And I said, "Well, by the time my family got there, they were broke; they couldn't go anyplace." They couldn't go anyplace else; they had to stay. So you kind of get stuck sometimes in a place because you just can't afford to move on. Of course, kids today don't know anything about that because they don't know what a depression means or anything. Everybody's always got a buck around and that's the way it is. One thing that's got me down is the gas prices. Whereas in Vegas gas would be probably a little bit higher. Aren't gas prices higher? Yeah, it was always higher here than it was in California. It was always higher because it had to 16 be shipped in. Everything had to be shipped in. Including food and everything else. Yeah, everything was higher. The cost of living is higher here. But see, in California the cost of living is higher, too. Whereas you go to Arizona, like to Phoenix, the cost of living is not as high as it is here. But I understand now they have problems with gasoline in Phoenix that so far we don't have here. With like travel and all, how about traveling, let's say, up to Reno or to California, what kind of roads? Well, the road from here to Reno is pretty much the same as what it was. It's just a two-way highway. But to Los Angeles it used to be an old rickety road. It wasn't too much of a road at all. But now, of course, they have the freeway. And this place out at Stateline...they used to say that the guy that owned the restaurant and stuff out there at Stateline used to throw tacks on the highway so people would get a flat tire so they'd have to stop at his place. These are just the old stories that they tell about the places. You went to L.A. once in a while with your family, certainly. Yeah. How long would that take? About six to eight hours, depending. That's not bad. No. Of course, don't forget they didn't have a speed limit then, either. In Nevada it was only since they put it on with the gasoline shortage, a fifty-five mile an hour speed limit. Nevada never had a speed limit. Only in designated areas, but as far as the wide open spaces, there was never a speed limit. 17 I remember that?I was here in '74?I remember that a little bit. Something about coming across from California, there wasn't really a set speed limit out there in the open space. In California the freeway speed limit was seventy miles an hour, but once you got in Nevada you could go as fast as you wanted. Of course, you only had forty miles, right, once you hit Nevada? Yeah, about fifty miles. With the travel between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, what was a tourist to you, coming in from Los Angeles, for the gambling? Mostly Californians coming in the old days? Yeah. Well, always the major influx of tourists have always been from Southern California. If they ever legalize gambling in California we're dead because most of the gambling?the regular bread and butter portion of it is?because in those days they didn't have junkets like they have today that come in with people with package deals and stuff like that. People would want to come in...that's what they used to do. It used to be years ago?well, it's still like that. But like I lived in California for a few years, too. And if I wanted to come home, like if I wanted to fly home on a weekend, I had to make my reservation months in advance because otherwise you couldn't get a flight into Las Vegas on a Friday or back out on a Sunday because it was very difficult. I notice right now the percentage of Californians, as you say, is something like 75 percent. Most of this in Nevada is 75 percent of Californians. Yeah, most of the people come in from California. It's always been that way. Do you see Atlantic City as being any kind of problem for us? Well, the thing with Atlantic City is?I think eventually it will be all right?but they don't have the weather. Listen, I've lived in the East and I know what Atlantic City can be like in the 18 wintertime. It's terrible there with the storms and you get the snow and you get the rain and you get all that stuff in Atlantic City, all that bad weather. Of course, if somebody wants to go to gamble, they'll really go to gamble. But I think there are certain people that want to come to Las Vegas and they'll come to Las Vegas. In the summertime it's hot there. Of course, it's hot here, but it's that hot humid stuff. With the gambling, do you remember going to a casino when you were, let's say, a teenager? Well, in the first place you weren't allowed to go into casinos; that's number one, because it's illegal unless you're twenty-one. You can't go in unless you're twenty-one. When you live here, so what? So you didn't go in? It's no big deal. That's right. But when you, let's say, did get to go in there at some time, gambling odds like for blackjack, do you remember it being a nickel a hand? Yeah, it used to be cheap