Transcript of interview with Fred Gibson by Maisie Gibson, March 9, 1975

UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 1 An Interview with Fred Gibson An Oral History Conducted by Maisie Gibson 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 Fred Gibson 2 © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2018 UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 3 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 Fred Gibson 4 Abstract On March 9, 1975, Maisie Gibson interviewed Fred Gibson (born 1927 in Golden, Colorado) about his life in Nevada. Gibson first talks about his family’s background, their move to Nevada, and his education in early Las Vegas schools. He also mentions his service in the U.S. Army, his college education, and his occupation as an engineer at various companies. Gibson then talks about the various locations at which he has lived, his membership in clubs and charitable organizations, and his memories of the first properties on Fremont Street as well as those of the Helldorado Parade. The interview then covers the topics of mining, the atomic testing, economic and environmental changes, and social changes. The interview concludes with a discussion on the growth and development of Henderson, Nevada. UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 5 Informant Fred E. Gibson, Jr. The date is March 9th, 1975 at five o’clock p.m. The place, 4546 Harris Lane, Las Vegas, Nevada. The collector is Maisie L. Gibson, 4546 Harris Lane, Las Vegas, Nevada. The project is Local History, Oral Interview. Mr. Gibson, where were you born? I was born in Golden, Colorado. My parents were both longtime residents of Colorado. My father’s parents had homesteaded in Eastern Colorado close to the turn of the century. My grandmother had come from Missouri with my grandfather in a covered wagon and had lived for a year or two in a tent in the area that they eventually homesteaded. My mother’s parents had come from the eastern part of the United States—grandfather originally from England. My father had gone to the Colorado School of Mines, and I was born shortly after he graduated from college. Well, what exactly brought your family to Nevada? My father was a mining engineer and had worked for American Smelting and Refining Company at various locations in Colorado. A year or so after I was born, he was assigned to a management position in a company at American Smelting and Refining only in Mexico. My parents and my older brother and I moved to Mexico where we lived for some period of time, finally ending the (unintelligible) revolution in Mexico, because many of the Americans were forced to flee that country, including my parents. I moved back to Texas where my parents were living at the time, few months, and my father then took a position with Kennecott Copper in McGill, Nevada. We moved to McGill in 1929 and lived there for a period of five years, at which time my father took a position with the State of Nevada teaching mining and prospecting throughout the state. That was a period of time in Nevada history when mining was the principal industry. There were several thousand people involved in mining throughout the state, many of them uneducated. UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 6 They were very anxious to increase their knowledge of mining and prospecting. There was a rather interesting period of Nevada history, and it’s probably hard for present-day residents to comprehend—vital interest that almost all residents had in mind. I remember very clearly when my father was teaching along with the two others that were similarly occupied throughout the state. The classes in towns like Tonopah would be as large as four or five hundred. Many of these people that took the classes had been involved in mining for most of their adult lives and were very interested in this kind of vocational education. I would guess that it was one of the most successful educational programs that the State of Nevada ever funded, and the benefits of it were very difficult to calculate except that, or beyond the fact that almost everyone, there were some very substantial indirect benefits to the state and its economy. Nowadays, young people, as well as some adults, are interested in the environment and getting outdoors, and looking for rocks and minerals. I suspect that a program which started at the end, like the one that my father was involved in, in the 1930s that had been probably many times more successful that the original programs funded by the State of Nevada. Were you educated in Southern Nevada? I attended grade school, of course, in Miguel in Carson City. I attended the last years of grade school in Southern Nevada, and high school. What schools were in? There was only two grade schools in Las Vegas at that time; one was located in the West Side, and, as I recall, went all the way through the third or fourth grade. All of the other grades were located in the school on South Fifth Street, now called Las Vegas Boulevard South. The high school, of which there was only one, was located on South Seventh Street. It might be of interest to you, but about the time we moved to Las Vegas in 1936, a good part of the grade school had UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 7 burned down. And that first year, all of WPA was building the grade school or rebuilding the grade school. Many of us attended school in tents. What was the attendance at this time? I don’t recall the exact number. There were several hundred students in grade school. By the time I graduated from high school, the attendance was about 800 in Las Vegas High School. Where did you attend college? Shortly after graduating from high school, I went in the Army; this was during World War II. And while in the Army, I was assigned to Yale University in their Army Student Training Program to learn the Japanese language. I spent something more than a year at Yale University, and subsequent to that training, I was accepted in the Counter Intelligence Corps and later assigned to Fort Benning, where I was discharged. After returning home, I applied for admission to Colorado College in Colorado Springs and attended school there for two years, and then transferred to the University of Nevada in Reno where I graduated in 1951 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Metallurgical Engineering. What has been your occupation since you graduated from college? I was educated as an engineer, and my first job was National (unintelligible) and subsequently with their half-owned subsidiary, Titanium Metals Corporation—was as an engineer. After about two years, I took a position with Western Electrochemical Company, located in Henderson, Nevada, and Culver City, California where I worked as an engineer and as a supervisor. Western Electrochemical Company was sold in 1955 to American Potash and Chemical Corporation, and that company’s holdings were later merged with Kerr-McGee Chemical Corporation in 1967. At the time of the sale of Western Electrochemical Company, or shortly thereafter, my father and the majority owners of Western Electrochemical Company founded a new company called UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 8 Pacific Engineering and Production Company, also located in Henderson, which I joined as the first employee in 1956. Since that time, I have been employed by Pacific Engineering in several different positions. I am presently the president and chief executive officer of that company. During all of the period of time since my graduation, I have done engineering work in addition to the other administrative duties that I have since assumed, and presently the owner or part owner of the number of United States patents that resulted from the engineering work that I did or participated in. I would suppose that, even at this stage in life, although I have not been as directly involved in it as I originally hoped to be, I still consider myself to be a metallurgical engineer. Were there any outside factors which influenced your choice of employment? Well, certainly, the fact that my father was a mining engineer and had been involved in mining throughout his adult life had a significant effect on the occupation that I chose. Additionally, the state of Nevada has always been the prime location to mine. It’s part of our heritage from the very beginning of the original formation of Nevada as a state. As you undoubtedly know, the reason that Nevada, with its very limited population, was accepted as a part of the Union was because of the very substantial contribution it made in the 1860s with its precious metals, particularly the (unintelligible) mine in the Virginia City area. So, I have always felt a very close kinship with mining people and mining venture; I did as a very young man, still do. I would suppose that that was the dominant factor that influenced me in the choice of an occupation, even though I was educated as an engineer and still occupy myself to some degree in engineering activity. I’m not untypical of most mining people, particularly those who were instrumental in the development of the state. And I have had, still have, a keen interest in the many community projects, state projects, politics, just the general welfare and progress of the state itself. UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 9 At what addresses have you lived in Southern Nevada? When my family first moved here in 1936, we lived on the corner of Stewart and North Sixth Street. My memory is that the address was 301 North Sixth. At that time, there were no paved streets in that part of Las Vegas, even though it was only two blocks from Fremont Street. The original home that we lived in had been the main home occupied by a family who were farming in that general area. The family owned a number of acres of ground, and of course, all of those acres are now covered with houses or apartments. The man that owned the home that we first lived in had been extremely successful in developing varieties of fruit trees that would survive the very intense summer heat and be productive of various kinds of fruits and nuts. As a consequence, the yard around our first home was surrounded and covered by a very substantial number of different kinds of fruit trees and nut trees. As long as I have lived in Las Vegas since that time, I have never seen, at any other location in the Las Vegas Valley, a home or ranch or farm that had that great variety of very appealing, appetizing fruits and nuts. In 1945, the people that owned the property sold the home in the adjoining unoccupied ground to someone else in the community, and as a consequence, my parents moved to Henderson, Nevada where my father was then employed. And in 1946, they built a home on South Ninth Street. That home occupied a lot that had been a part of the Dutton Ranch, and of course is now almost in the center of town. It’s probably hard for people who have moved to Las Vegas in recent years to comprehend how small Las Vegas was for so many years. When my parents moved to that area of Las Vegas, there were no homes to the south. It, in part, was still being farmed and was very much considered to be out of the country. After college, my wife and I moved to Henderson, Nevada, where I was then employed. In 1955, we moved to a new home in the Twin Lakes area, and in 1964 to our present address. UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 10 Where were you married? I was married in Chicago, 1948, and have, of course, lived in Nevada since that time. Where, then, did you and your wife move after you were married? We lived in Colorado Springs for a year while I was attending college, then lived in Reno for two years while I was in college, and since then we have lived in Henderson and Las Vegas, as I mentioned a moment ago. Do you remember the visits of the presidents or other important people to the Las Vegas area? I remember a lot of them. I would suspect that almost every important presidential candidate and a number of the collective presidents have been to Las Vegas several times. Some occasions, I had the privilege of meeting and listening to them and look forward to similar experiences in the future. Why did President Roosevelt visit Las Vegas, do you remember? Oh, I remember quite well, although I was very young and did not have the chance to attend the dedication. President Roosevelt came to Las Vegas principally because of the construction of Hoover Dam, which at that time or for some limited period of time was known as Boulder Dam. About what time was that, what year? My recollection is that it was about 1935. What do you remember about the 1942 crash of Carole Lombard’s plane? I have a very clear memory of that incident. I was employed at that time, as a young man, by the Review-Journal. The plane crashed one night, if I recall, because of pilot error. You may not remember, but at that particular time in the history of Las Vegas, we actually had two airports, one located at the present site of Nellis Air Force Base and another in Boulder City. As I recall, UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 11 the field in Boulder City was operated by the TWA. The pilot of the plane in which Carole Lombard was a passenger landed at an airport different than the one he would have normally used. After taking off, he apparently set a compass heading that corresponded to the one he would have used had he taken off from the airport he would have normally flown in to. As a consequence, the compass heading that he used took him directly into a mountain south of Las Vegas near Sloan and Goodsprings. What are some of the social clubs, fraternal community, or charitable organizations in which you participate? At present time, I belong to the Hualapai Club, which is a club founded about twenty years ago for men only, now occupy club rooms in the Fremont Hotel. I have been a member of the Free and Accepted Masons since 1954 and a number of the other Masonic bodies that are part of the Masonic Corps. I’ve been a member of the board of directors of the Clark County chapter of the American National Red Cross for twelve years. I have been a member of the Clark County Comprehensive Help Planning Advisory Council since its inception about six years ago. I worked with United Fund and had several minor positions with them. [Audio ends] Mr. Gibson, what kind of offices or positions have you held in these organizations? I’ve had quite a variety of positions. For the American National Red Cross, I was chairman of their personnel committee, treasurer, vice chairman. I was chairman for years, of the chapter. At about that time, I was appointed by the national chairman, Mr. Harriman, as a member of the council for the western area of the United States. And within the past year, I’ve been appointed as a member of the committee on the National Convention Organization; Comprehensive Health Council elected me vice chairman, subsequent to that as chairman for two years. I was appointed UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 12 to the Mountain States Regional Medical Program advisory council a couple of years ago, been actively involved in that organization since that time. Some ten or eleven years ago, I was elected a trustee of the Southern Nevada Industrial Foundation, now known as the Nevada Development Authority. I am presently a member of the executive board of the authority and also a secretary of that group. Do you travel throughout Nevada, and if so, why? I do. And incidentally, that’s been a great pleasure for both myself and my wife. We’ve had the opportunity to see many areas of Nevada that I think every local resident would enjoy seeing or at least should see just to learn something more about the state. Several years ago, I was appointed as a member of the advisory mining board, which consists of seven members appointed by the governor for the specific responsibility to advise him and our congressional delegation as well as the legislature on mining in Nevada. I presently am secretary of the board. It’s rather interesting; in talking to most people in the Las Vegas area, very few know that mining in Nevada is the second or third principal industry in the state. Even today, mining plays a very strong part in the economy and development of Nevada. It’s going to be an even more critical part of our economy as the years pass because of the increasing dependence of the United States on its limited mineral and metal resources. Nevada has contributed, over the years since its beginning, very substantial quantities of silver and gold and copper, as well as many of the other minerals that are common through the construction of homes, principally gypsum and limestone. I suspect that, in time, the mineral industry of the state of Nevada will become, again, as important or perhaps even more important than the tourist and resort industry that we all know about. Do you remember some of the first clubs on Fremont Street? UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 13 I remember some of the first clubs. When we moved to Las Vegas, almost all of the gambling clubs were located on Fremont Street. There were some outlying businesses. As I recall, there was an operation of what was when known as the Meadows, and I believe it’s now known as Four Mile. There were very few hotels in Las Vegas, and those that were worthy of being called a hotel were all on Fremont Street. In those early years, very few of the hotels had gambling; they were principally just rooming houses. I remember very clearly the Boulder Club, Las Vegas Club, the Overland Hotel, the Apache Hotel, and the Sal Sagev Hotel. Later on, the Pioneer Club was built on the corner of First and Fremont, and as I recall, occupied what had originally been the Beckley’s Clothing Store. What are some of your memories of the Helldorado Parade? Did you participate in them? Helldorado was a really big event in Las Vegas. In those early years, there was really a limited communication with the outside world. We did not have a radio station; we had only very limited other ways of entertaining ourselves, so an event like Helldorado occupied the whole community. The schools were very much involved—all of the young people—Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Campfire Girls. All of the adults—we all participated and thoroughly enjoyed it. The parade, at that time, was really a chance to see a lot of people that you knew and maybe didn’t get to see every day but people that you enjoyed knowing—it made it just a lot of fun. The original rodeos were held in an area that is now occupied, as I recall, by the Dulles Center or somewhere close to that. As time passed, Helldorado got to be big business, more and more people participated. So, the Elks Club started to build a new Helldorado Village, a rodeo ground, a new area that’s now occupied by the Elks stadium. Was Cashman Field there at that time? UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 14 Cashman Field was built as a part of this move of the Helldorado Village and things that went with it. Helldorado Village, which of course is now, or has long since been, gone was constructed by volunteer help from all over the community. Boy Scouts, in particular, played a big part in the construction of Helldorado Village. It was made from logs and half-logs, all of the buildings and the fence, I suppose, if you stretched your imagination a little bit, it’d look much like an old fort—probably occupied other parts of the hotels in other parts of the Western United States. But it was a very delightful period of time. I have a memory, in particular, of one man who came to Las Vegas, employed as an accountant who moved here from New York City. When he got off the train, it was just the beginning of the Helldorado Week, and he was surprised but I think extremely pleased to see all these folks that lived far out West looked and dressed just like people out of Western movies. Everyone was in Western clothes, most of the men wore beards, most all of them wore boots or expensive hats, handkerchiefs around the neck. And he was so happy that it was the way he had imagined that one of the first things he did was buy himself some Western clothes, expensive hats—the whole orders—went to work the next day after he had arrived. Everyone at work, even though they were accountants or administrative people, were wearing Western clothes. And it just made him even happier, seemed that life was going to be just like he had hoped it to be. At the end of that week or the beginning of the next week, came to work again, garbed in his Western clothes, he was quite chagrinned and surprised to everyone in normal everyday work clothes, suits, ties, and it took several hours for him to understand that Helldorado was, in fact, only a one- or two-week celebration. Well, how has the Helldorado Parade changed in itself from then till today? Well, I think the principal change is the things that I was talking about. In those early years, everyone on the community participated—everyone. And I think if they didn’t enjoy it, at least UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 15 they knew it was going on. It was a part of everybody’s life, and they were very aware the Helldorado was taking place. Nowadays, the parades, if there are any, are very limited. I would suppose that the majority of the population that are aware that Helldorado is going on do not see any of the parades or have very limited connection with it. What are your memories or knowledge of mining in Southern Nevada? My father moved to Southern Nevada to offer a mining property, which was located about sixty miles up Lake Mead, largely inaccessible by roads. There were a number of other mining operations in the area somewhat northwest of this property. And incidentally, the State of Nevada at that time, I think there was some 3,000 active properties and in 1975 there was probably three or four hundred. My father operated that property who owned this Lakeshore Goldmine Company till about 1940. For a short period of time after that, operated a property in Searchlight, Nevada and owned (unintelligible). And in 1941, the government shut down almost all goldmine operations because the (unintelligible) was not productive for the war effort which required most of the materials or many of the materials that had been historically used in mining. At the very beginning of Las Vegas, there was an operation that has been known since then as the Frenchman’s Mine located in Sunrise Mountain, and a very substantial mining effort in the Goodsprings area. Mormons that had built the Old Fort, which was also known as the Old Ranch, had a contingent that tactically mined lead and other metals near Goodsprings, I think, on or a part of Potosi Mountain. So, mining has been a part of Southern Nevada history from the very beginning. Searchlight, of course, is one of the big mining camps in the early 1900s; Searchlight was a very large community at that time, with a number of properties in active operation. Later on, there were other mines near Riverside or Mesquite or the Gold UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 16 (unintelligible) District. And in the years, I would guess it’s middle 1930s, it’s been a very active mining of nonmetallic minerals, principally at Sloan, Blue Diamond, Apex, and near Overton. How did the atomic testing change the industrial face of Las Vegas after the Atomic Energy Commission set up the Nevada Test Site in January of 1951? That was a rather dramatic and substantial change to the economy as well as the complexion of the community. Many thousands of people were then and have since been involved in the construction and operation of the Test Site. For the first time, Las Vegas enjoyed the presence of a number of scientists and engineers who were trained in occupations different than anything that we had seen in Southern Nevada. What was the reaction of the community concerning the blasting? Was there any reaction at all? Oh, certainly there was a reaction. I think that almost everyone that was here at that time had a great curiosity as to what was going to happen. Businesspeople, a business community, people in real estate, as well as all of the supporting types of services were very pleased that that kind of money was represented by the appropriations by the AEC for the Test Site were coming into this area. The first bombs that were exploded gained national news; along with it, mention was made of Las Vegas and many of the people that had come here to witness the firing of the bomb or bombs stayed in the Strip hotels or the other hotels Downtown and, of course, mentioned Las Vegas. I suspect that Las Vegas enjoyed as much publicity for their tourism as they did for the activities at the Test Site. How has Southern Nevada changed economically since you first arrived? When my family first moved to Las Vegas, principal industry in the area was the railroad. Boulder Dam, or Hoover Dam, was about completed, and the workforce there had been UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 17 substantially reduced from the numbers that they had on the payroll during the height of the construction. The city of Las Vegas had a population of less than 10,000. The town itself was very provincial in nature; everybody knew all of the other people in town. It was a very friendly place, and had to be because of the difficult living, particularly in the summertime. People depended upon each other. During the particularly hot period of time, or hot part of the year, great numbers of people slept on the lawns of the Depot or slept in their yards. I was quite young at the time, so I don’t remember, or perhaps my perspective is somewhat out of gear, but I don’t remember people being particularly worried about being robbed or otherwise hurt by burglars or those kinds of people. Also, concerning environmental changes, have they been for the better or for the worse, in your opinion? I think that the changes that the federal government has insisted upon, that the states have generally accepted in our county in particular have been to the benefit of the area. Unfortunately, the major source of pollution in the Las Vegas Valley is still the automobile, and a substantial number of those automobiles are brought in by the people who stay at the hotel to enjoy the casinos, gambling, accommodations. Isn’t it true that a lot of people still believe, even today, that a lot of the pollution is from the industry out in Henderson? I’m sure that there are a lot of people who believe that, and certainly there probably is still some pollution that emanates from the industrial plants out there, but it, in my opinion, represents less than five percent of the total pollution that we witness every day in the valley. What about social changes? UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 18 There have been a lot of social changes in Las Vegas, as I mentioned a moment ago. In the very early years, the community was one of people who, if not employed by the railroad, were certainly in supporting or service-type businesses. So, as a consequence, everyone was generally familiar with all of their neighbors and the other people in town. There was a great deal of comradeship and socializing among neighbors and the general citizen in Las Vegas. In recent years, as Las Vegas has grown to be a very large metropolitan area, all of this has changed. One of the largest or most significant changes has been in the number of people involved in the gaming industry. I would guess that the overwhelming majority of people in the area are now directly involved in gaming or entertainment or tourism, whereas in the very early years, people were employed by the railroads or working at Hoover Dam or involved in mining or something along those lines and were not directly involved in the gaming industry. Could you tell us a little bit about the members of your family? I suppose I could. Such as your brother Jim? Two brothers and four sisters—I have one sister, Maisie Ronno, who is married to Garland Ronno who is the son of a very prominent member of our community. His father, Joe Ronno, was one of the original county commissioners. His family had played a very dominant role in the development of the Las Vegas area. I have a brother, James (unintelligible), who is one of the prominent members of the state legislature, and he's been in the Assembly and the Senate altogether for sixteen years and has played a significant role in the development of the laws that all of us are concerned with. Does he also associate with your business, Pacific Engineering? UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 19 He is an officer of our company, and of course is extremely well known because of his activities in the LDS Church. He was a state president for some sixteen years. [Audio cuts out] He presently is a district representative for the governing body of the church and travels very frequently to his district, which encompasses Kentucky, Arkansas, and Tennessee. I suppose that the most delightful part of our family experience since living in Southern Nevada took place when my father was very active in community and state affairs. And I say that because the state was growing, there were lots of new people coming to the state, new things were going on. We were all very much interested, and he was very much a part of it. He occupied a position as a member of the state planning board for, I believe, fifteen or sixteen years, and that board is now known as the Public Works Board. They were responsible for the construction of state finance facilities, schools, state buildings, university. It was a great time of life. We look back now and then with some envy that things can’t be the way they were during that period of time. What do you remember about the opening of McCarran Airport? I have a very clear and fond memory of the opening of McCarran Airport. As you know, the original airport was located where Nellis Air Base is presently located. In the late 1940s, it was decided to build a new airport; the terminal building is now occupied by Hughes aircraft—I shouldn’t say it’s Hughes aircraft—it’s Summa Corporation and their fixed base operation. In any event, in December 1948, the airport was completed and dedication ceremonies were scheduled. On the day of the dedication, I flew to Las Vegas with my wife, who had never seen Nevada or Las Vegas. As we approached the field, she was quite enthused by what we could see from the air. There were planes all over the place and a tremendous crowd. As we landed, we discovered that we were the first plane to land, following the dedication ceremonies. Senator UNLV University Libraries Fred Gibson 20 McCarran had just spoken to the very large gathering for a gala occasion, and it was certainly a beautiful airport compared to what we had for so many years. Do you remember anything about the Old Ranch, formerly the Stewart Ranch, also known as the Mormon Fort? I think any of us that lived here in the thirties or early forties knew about the Old Ranch, Stewart Ranch, all of which, of course, has been a part of the original Mormon Fort. That is, all of us who lived here during that period of time had very fond memories of the Old Ranch because that was the location of one of the very few swimming pools in the area. Please tell me what you know about Henderson, its start, growth, and present status. That’s really a very interesting subject, and again I would guess that they’re a very large part of our population. Residents of the town realize the impact that Henderson has had on the growth of the community. You may recall that when the enabling legislation was passed