Transcript of interview with Lyla Joy Ford by Anne Cope, March 12, 1975

UNLV University Libraries Lyla Joy Ford i An Interview with Lyla Joy Ford An Oral History Conducted by Anne Cope 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 Lyla Joy Ford ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2017 UNLV University Libraries Lyla Joy Ford 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 Lyla Joy Ford iv Abstract On March 12, 1975, Anne Cope interviewed Tropicana Hotel decorator, Lyla Joy Ford (born December 12, 1928 in Las Vegas, Nevada) in her home in Las Vegas. During the interview, Ford discusses social life in Las Vegas in the early days. She mentions the Palace Theatre, which became the Guild and the El Portal Theatre. She recalls Sammy Davis Jr. performing at the El Rancho but states that people of color were not allowed in the audience. She remembers the Helldorado Parade as a big western celebration. Her family used to own the Old Ranch, also known as the Stewart Ranch. She states that the railroad, Hoover Dam, and the Basic Magnesium Plant brought money into Las Vegas. She also recalls the atomic tests and witnessing the city’s gradual transformation from a small farming town to a major gambling city. UNLV University Libraries Lyla Joy Ford 1 [Tape starts midsentence] Okay and she was born in Nevada, and she’s gonna tell us about her childhood now and what she can remember about Nevada. I was born in 1928, and I was born in the hospital on Second Street, that is now a parking lot for the Fremont Hotel. The first year of my life we spent, I spent with my parents at the Old Ranch. It’s called the Stewarts Ranch. It was belonging to my family for quite a few years before I was born. They had come from Alamo. The first things that I remember at the Old ranch was as a child, there was picnics in the fun time, to go visit my grandparents; also my father had built the first dressings rooms there, out of wood, and it was a rough wood and we had to be careful or we’d get slivers. And behind, which would be more south, was a lot of picnic areas, where the families always got together. We didn’t have a lot of air conditioning at the time, and so this was our good recreation. We loved to play in the stream, more so than the swimming pool. Because I was so young, I didn’t swim, and it was fun to go wading. The swimming pool had a—no, not the swimming pool, but the stream came from behind Bunker Brothers and the road that wound around from Main Street over to Las Vegas Boulevard South, which we used to call Fifth Street, was the stream. And it was very densely populated at the time and was very green. And because of the desert area, we all enjoyed that much greenery. I suppose the next things that I remembered were the Grammar School on Las Vegas Boulevard South. It was the only grammar school and we had a teacher named Ms. Hancock that was quite famous in Las Vegas. She did something for all her students at Christmastime. She had us make our little hands in clay and all the mothers had a clay plaque, with their child’s hand in, and it was really quite a heritage. And everybody usually had Ms. Hancock for kindergarten, so we really loved her. The town was small. We were—it was always very safe growing up going to the two movies that we had, which was the Palace Theatre, which is now the Guild and the El Portal Theatre, which was, is, UNLV University Libraries Lyla Joy Ford 2 still the El Portal. And we could always go from any place in town and walk to the theatre and home on a Saturday afternoon and feel very safe, or in the evening, and feel very safe. We had a lot of church activities. My family was Mormon. The most fun time that we had was our Helldorado time. Everybody grew beards. Everybody dressed in old fashion western, not modern. But with the long full skirts—and we had the parades, and everybody came to the parade and everybody participated. It was just a great big huge happy family, growing up. Who was—what was Helldorado? Helldorado was a western celebration. Our biggest parade was usually on a Thursday. But—and it was the bigger parade than the main beauty on the Sunday. And we had a lot of stagecoaches that some were very beautiful replicas of what was in the olden days, and covered wagons and old ladies, marching, Utah Pioneers. And then, pretty soon it was daughters of the Utah Pioneers (Laughs) (Laughs) And—just a lot of fun things. My father worked on the dam and all those years that he worked, whenever we kissed him goodbye, we kissed him very, very, final. Because there was quite a few that died while working on the dam. He was on a particular dangerous area and he lost many friends that were buried right in the cement and we had—the very first cooler that was built in Las Vegas. It was really a monstrosity and we used to have everybody all over town come looking at it. It was a small cooler idea but it was seven feet tall and four feet wide and it was almost as big as the bedroom that we were in. And my father built it and had a huge fan installed and always if you stood very close to it, you’d be a—you’d have a fine spray of water hit you in the face (Laughs). But it was so nice. We really felt hotsy-topsy. When was that built? UNLV University Libraries Lyla Joy Ford 3 When I was a little girl—just very, very, little. There on South Seventh Street. 701 South Seventh Street. Mm-hm. It was only half the house that it is now. Two bedrooms and a bathroom, and the living room and the kitchen. But it was big for then. There was just the two—my sister and myself and my mother and father, that live there, until later, then we built on, which is, the location is two blocks south of the high school. A few years later we built a basement, which was always cool in the summer and nice and comfortable in the winter. There weren’t too many basements built at the time because of the water level. It was very high and—which it is much lower now, in the valley here. But—we certainly did enjoy it and then the house was built over the top. I attended grammar school at—the only grammar school, and it was located over on Fifth Street, South Fifth Street. Then, I went to high school for the four years. We didn’t have any junior high school at all. But it was the same high school that is existing now, Las Vegas High School, there on South Seventh Street. It was close to my home and my church was close to my home, which is—was located on South Ninth Street, was the first ward of the Mormon Church—and still is called the first ward. Well, what’d you guys do for Friday night excitement, Friday, Saturday night excitement? Well, we had just usually games, like you have at high school. But we had a lot of dances and a lot of private parties. We didn’t have any race problems and we didn’t have any dope problems at all. I never heard of anything through my whole four years in high school. There were few cans of beers but just for showoffs. It was really like the Happy Days that was on the TV. We had the nightclubs to go to and when we were, they’d let all of the schoolchildren in. It was just a matter of whether your partner could afford it and that’s where we went after a junior prom or UNLV University Libraries Lyla Joy Ford 4 senior ball or a special evening. As the hotels along the Strip developed, each one, everyone in the town would say, “Well, that will never make it. Because it’s too far out. That people just won’t come. They just won’t go out there that far.” And many people who had a lot of property around the outskirts of town didn’t even bother paying their taxes on it. As they just thought, “Well, who would ever want to live in that desert?” Which is now lovely (Laughs) Paradise Valley. Another thing, our Fremont Street was dirt for many years and we have seen an awful lot of progress now, especially as we look at the old pictures and see all art in freeways and the million dollar roads that have been built in my lifetime, here in Las Vegas; I’ve seen an awful lot in forty-six years. (Laughs) Yes. During the war years, we had a very active USO. If any of the servicemen went out on the Strip they were always given the best seats and were treated very, very, well. My father was working for the dairy at the time and he didn’t go into the service. There was four of us children during the war years, at home. But he was very, very active in the first USO here in Las Vegas. He worked with—he started out, just on the committee for the Elks Lodge. But he would work so hard for them that he was able to get them free meals on Sunday, down at the USO and always the boys would be well entertained when they came there, with a lot of courteous ladies to listen to them and to be companionable in a very wholesome like manner. There was always plenty of chaperones there. Later on as the war progressed, you will remember, we had the atom bomb tests out here. The ones that I saw—evidently, we were always notified when they would be. So that we would be prepared, if we wanted to see or if we wanted to listen. We almost had to listen. They were usually very, very early in the morning, just ah, as I remember it was just before sun up, five o’clock, maybe six, as near as I can remember. But we would go out in our front yard UNLV University Libraries Lyla Joy Ford 5 and when it came time we would hear the sound and we would also see the mushroom cloud and the light in the sky. It—it wasn’t at all a fun thing. It was something that you wish you hadn’t really even seen. It was so eerie and so unnatural. It wasn’t a pretty sight. And we knew what it was and how bad it was and it really left us a little sad in our hearts, that seeing it. Okay. What changes have you noticed in Southern Nevada, you know, with the economics of Las Vegas? Well, when I was little, I was born in 1928. Then we had the Depression. Las Vegas felt it but not as hard as many other areas. Because of us being a farming community, we grew our own food, anyway, in the area. But there was still the bread lines. It was pretty much like the Waltons on TV. They—we had to be thrifty. But we were fortunate, living there at the Old Ranch, and— Did the food grow easily? Yes. Because there was a lot of—the water was close to the service, and the well, you didn’t have to dig too, too deep to get to the water, it was a better level—and then too, people were programmed to be farmers. They weren’t—when the gambling came in there was a lot more money. The dam—the builders of the dam brought a lot of money. The railroad brought a lot of money. And while we’ve never really had too much industry, there was a lot brought in from Henderson. But that was pretty much during the war, all of the, you know, Basic Magnesium, that town just popped up overnight. Oh, yes. And that brought money into the area, and that is—we were like the TV movie, Happy Days, is just exactly like I was growing up as a teenager. We wore the same clothes and had the same ideas for entertainment and everything. I’ve never been one much to go gambling on the Strip. But I did thoroughly enjoy the shows. We always went and it was that we were able to go as a UNLV University Libraries Lyla Joy Ford 6 family. There wasn’t much topless nudity and there wasn’t much that children couldn’t see, if your family were, well, was in a financial position to take you. And it was always expected that we would probably see a movie star there, either beside you at ring side or any place. It was very common. It would be uncommon to go out and not see a star. Because they frequented the clubs, always. We didn’t have colored people in the audience. They didn’t allow them in the olden days here, in Las Vegas. I remember Sammy Davis, Jr. was so marvelous there at the El Rancho. But they had a trailer back in the back area for him and it never seemed, you know, quite right, and a lot of people didn’t really understand it. But just took it for granted that, I suppose, that that was the way it was supposed to be. When you’re young and, teenager and younger, you don’t question adult people. But economically, as more people came in and more hotels built up, we were all in a much better financial status. Did it just take a drastic change from farming to gambling or what? No. Just gradually? It was just very, very, gradual. In fact, there are a lot of areas in this town that were once farm area. One right where I live right now was a farm area and where the farms were, you don’t have to bring in top soil in area. You can usually be able to—you’re usually able to plant a lawn without a lot of alkaline—that white film that will appear in the desert after a rain. But you don’t have that where there has been farms. That’s one of the easy ways of finding out, you know, if you do have a farm area. Yes. But the economics has certainly taken a big change. Okay, and what social changes have you noticed since you first lived here? UNLV University Libraries Lyla Joy Ford 7 Well, I can go downtown now and shop all day in various shops and stores and never see anybody I know. Whereas, many, many, years ago, Vegas High School years, you would almost know everybody, or at least, the majority of the people, you would be able to say, “Hello,” to, and know them by their first names. But the town’s just gotten so big that, as far as knowing people, it’s really changed. We have a lot more culture now than we had many years ago. My sister is living in Germany now in (Unintelligible) Munich, and, but, she had helped young audiences when she was here and she also had been very active in the Community Concert Association in which my family still are. We enjoy all the, ah, nice things that can be brought to town through them. So I really see many, many, changes. We are just fast becoming a large city in many ways. Was there a lot of TVs here when, you know, like—did everybody have commonplace things, like refrigerators, washers, dryers? Yes. We’ve always had a high economy. That was one nice things about our city. It was easier to make money because of the gambling. You could turn over a dollar faster and work was easier to find and generally speaking, we were just more well-off than many of the states around us, towns, communities, or what have you. We were really, a little bit more high standard of living, as far as financial things go, you know, two cars and this type of thing. We were more apt to have it than the surrounding, ah, areas. All of our lives were touched by gambling. Yes. Even the milkman’s (Laughs) daddy says, “He delivers to the people who work in there.” And he used to say, that was our industry. I remember him telling us, “I know that the people don’t like to think of it this way, but the most important thing, if you work in a hotel, is getting the players to the tables.” UNLV University Libraries Lyla Joy Ford 8 (Tape ends)