Oral history interview with William Carl Weikel conducted by Barbara Tabach on May 10, 2012 for the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project. Weikel's family owned the YKL Ranch near Searchlight, Nevada from 1950 to 1989. The property was known before and after their ownership as the Walking Box Ranch, owned at one time by Rex Bell, Sr. and Clara Bow. In this interview, Weikel talks about living and working on the ranch, some of the more notable people in Searchlight, and tells stories about interesting incidents that occurred on the ranch, and his opinion on protecting the desert tortoise.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Ida M. Harris conducted by Claytee D. White on March 25, 2004 for the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project. In this interview, Harris discusses moving to Las Vegas, Nevada as a young women in 1920. She talks about parties she attended, her employment in retail and accounting, the Rose Bowl Parade, Helldorado, the construction of Hoover Dam and Boulder City, Nevada, and riding events she participated in as a member of the women's riding group The Lariettes. She also mentions local sights, the outdoor movie theatre, the early casinos, and the Las Vegas Jockey Club racetrack. She also identifies numerous individuals in photographs.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Catherine Buchanan conducted by Claytee D. White on March 26, 1997 as part of the UNLV University Libraries Oral History Collection. In this interview, Buchanan speaks at length about her child and young adulthood in Louisiana and explains how she moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1971. She discusses her first job as a maid at the Landmark Hotel and Casino and how she applied to the Teamsters Union to move into front desk work in the hotels, which led to a job at the Sahara Hotel and Casino. She then talks about discrimination and the small percentage of African Americans in the more "visible" jobs at the hotels.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Henrietta Pace conducted by Claytee D. White on June 15, 1996 as part of the UNLV University Libraries Oral History Collection. In this interview Pace first talks about growing up on a sharecropping farm in Arkansas, the type of work she performed as a child, the impact on education, her family and community, and the way the community celebrated holidays. She briefly discusses her marriage and then explains how and why she chose to move to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1961. She talks about working as a housekeeper at a number of Strip hotels, about discrimination in employment, living in the Westside, and becoming involved with the union.
Archival Collection
The Sean Clark Collection of Las Vegas Entertainment Ephemera (approximately 1940-2004) contains a variety of material relating to different eras of Las Vegas, Nevada entertainment. Included in the collection are newspapers about the 2004 re-release of Howard Hughes' "Two Arabian Nights" film, and draft articles about 1960s entertainment leaders Jack Entratter and George Sidney. Also included in the collection are original photographs of Corinne Sidney with Jack Entratter and others in the 1960s, and Sidney's father's political advertisements that show her as a young girl. A newspaper clipping about Edthye and Lloyd Katz, a 1979 ShoWest award to the couple, and a Huntridge Theater poster document the couple's work in the entertainment industry in the 1960s and 1970s.
Archival Collection
Oral history interviews with Vassili Sulich conducted by Gerald A. Villa on March 23 and May 4, 2002 for the UNLV University Libraries Oral History Collection. In these interviews, Sulich recalls his upbringing and his experiences as a child during World War II, his study of ballet, and the beginning of his professional life with several ballet companies in France. He then recounts his move to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1964 to produce the Folies Bergere (Las Vegas) at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino, a position he held for nine years. In 1972 he began teaching ballet at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and formed the Nevada Ballet Theatre. He continues talking about his philosophy of dance, the changing perspective of male ballet dancers, and the process of working as the artictic director of a ballet company, and the extreme toll constant practice and performance have on the physical and emotional state of dancers. Finally, he discusses his resignation from the Nevada Dance Theatre and a ballet he choreographed in his mother's memory.
Archival Collection
The Desert Inn "Black Book" Photograph Collection (1955-1969) consists of 36 black-and-white photographs of individuals arrestest for gambling-related crimes in Reno, Sparks, and Las Vegas, Nevada and Oakland, California. The photographs contain information on the verso with name, date of birth, crime(s) committeed, and known aliases and associates and where gathered by Desert Inn security. These types of photographs were widely circulated amongst casinos, particularly after the formation of the Gaming Control Board in 1955 and the Gaming Control Act in 1959. Crimes listed include slot spooner, slot slugger, dice switcher, and hand mucker.
Archival Collection
Ken Hanlon oral history interview conducted by Cynthia Cicero on January 17, 2014 for the UNLV University Libraries Oral History Collection. In this interview, Hanlon discribes his background, talking about his childhood in Maryland, his early interest in music, and the opportunity to study with the same band teacher through middle and high school. He talks about starting to play a baritone horn before switching to the trombone, his early experiences playing with dance bands, starting private lessons, and eventually matriculating to the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland. He continues, relating his five years teaching middle-school music after graduating from college, and his decision to move to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1968 to seek work as a full-time musician. After talking about some of the difficulties he faced finding work, he discusses his time in a road band and deciding to apply to teach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He explains that he was hired to teach as an adjunct in 1970 and two weeks later was offered the job of department chair, a role he held for 16 years before moving into university administration. During this period he continued to perform, playing trombone in the Sands Hotel and Casino house band under the direction of Antonio Morelli. Finally, he discusses Morelli at more length, and concludes by talking about endowments for music education and the Arnold Shaw music collection at the Arnold Shaw Center at UNLV.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Edythe Katz-Yarchever conducted by David Schwartz in 2006 for the UNLV University Libraries Oral History Collection. In this interview, Katz-Yarchever discusses 1960s Las Vegas, Nevada, the opening of the Caesar's Palace Hotel and Casino, Nate Jacobson, and William "Billy" Weinberger and his wife Jean. She also talks about Jake Freedman, president of the Sands Hotel and Casino. She also spends time talking about race relations and discrimination in Las Vegas businesses and community, the Westside, and the three movie theatres she and her husband, Lloyd Katz, owned in the city.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Joyce Bush conducted by Claytee D. White on September 20, 1995 for the UNLV University Libraries Oral History Collection. In this interview, Bush discusses the formation of her non-profit organization, International Youth for Christ Choir. She explains that she developed the idea in 1994, based on the "True Love Waits" abstinence program of the Baptist Church. She explains how the organization was formed, the process of building a board of directors, ideas about fundraising, publicity, and soliciting donations, attracting youth to the organization, her hopes for the future of the organization, and the reasons corporate sponsorship was unlikely because they tend not to support religious groups.
Archival Collection