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Transcript of interview with Michael S. Mack by Claytee White, May 21, 2009

Date

2009-05-21

Description

During this interview, Michael Mack visualizes his childhood memories of the later 1930s, when Las Vegas was a small, but steadily growing, desert town. As he says, "The desert was our backyard." The Strip hotels like the last Frontier and the Flamingo pop into the stories, but it was basically an innocent time. He attended John S. Park Elementary when classrooms were temporary buildings from the local Air Force base and the neighborhood was filled with children. He still maintains close friendships from that time. And he also recalls friends from the Westside neighborhood. Michael talks of scouting, riding horses, and watching Helldorado parades.

Michael Mack's first recollection of Las Vegas is as a two-year-old living in a duplex on Bonneville Ave. Though the family moved several times, they remained in or near the John S. Park neighborhood. Michael's father was a Polish immigrant who arrived in Boulder City, where he opened a shoe store, in 1932. The building of the Hoover Dam brought opportunities and his father Louis expanded into the salvage business. In time Louis moved the family to Las Vegas, opened a retail clothing store, which eventually sold uniforms, and set up the first local bail bondman office. During this interview, Michael visualizes his childhood memories of the later 1930s, when Las Vegas was a small, but steadily growing, desert town. As he says, "The desert was our backyard." The Strip hotels like the last Frontier and the Flamingo pop into the stories, but it was basically an innocent time. He attended John S. Park Elementary when classrooms were temporary buildings from the local Air Force base and the neighborhood was filled with children. He still maintains close friendships from that time. And he also recalls friends from the Westside neighborhood. Michael talks of scouting, riding horses, and watching Helldorado parades. Though the Macks were a Jewish family, Michael's mother always brought the Christmas tree to school. It was a period when people memorized each other's 3-digit phone numbers, went to movies for 14 cents, and there was a ranch for people to stay while getting divorced. Halloween Trick-or-treaters in the John S. Park neighborhood might get a tasty cupcake or a shiny dime. Michael has a plethora of stories about innocent mischief and the unique experiences of a boy growing up in Las Vegas.

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Krystal Ramirez oral history interview: transcript

Date

2019-10-30

Description

Oral history interview with Krystal Ramirez conducted by Monserrath Hernández and Barbara Tabach on October 30, 2019 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Krystal talks about her personal history growing up in Texas and spending summers with her family in Mexico. She shares her thoughts about how Las Vegas has changed and how she has contributed to the city's art scene as a staff photographer for Vegas Seven (a local magazine), the New York Times, and the Marjorie Barrick Museum. Subjects discussed include: Texas; Chihuahua, Mexico; Latinx Identity; Vegas Seven; Beat Coffee House; Downtown Las Vegas.

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Transcript of interview with Rabbi Sanford Akselrad by Barbara Tabach, October 29, 2014

Date

2014-10-29

Description

Sanford Akselrad is the rabbi at Congregation Ner Tamid. In this interview he describes his rabbinical training, coming to Las Vegas, and the growth of the congregation.

More inclined in his youth to pursue a career as a scientist than rabbi, Sanford Akselrad (1957- ) became the rabbi at Congregation Ner Tamid in 1988. Turning his tenure, Rabbi Akselrad has lead the congregation through its move from Emerson to Street to its permanent home on Green Valley Parkway and I-215 and shares a fun story about buying desks and chairs from the Clark County School District. He talks about many of the milestones including: Project Ezra which he started during the 2008 recession to help Jewish community members find jobs; the NextGen program which was initiated to bring young adults in their twenties and thirties back to the temple. For over twenty years Rabbi Akselrad was a member of the board of the Nevada Governor?s Council on Holocaust education, a topic that was the focus of his rabbinical thesis. He was the founding president of the Clark County Board of Rabbis and has served on the boards of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas, Jewish Family Services, and the Humana Hospital Pastoral Advisory Board. He was also the chair of the Federation?s Community Relations Council (CRC). Rabbi Akselrad is a board member of the Anti-Defamation League Nevada region office and the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada. Sanford Akselrad was born on October 6, 1957 in Oakland, California and raised in Palo Alto. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles and then went to graduate school at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion. He spent the first year of his graduate program in Israel, the next two in Los Angeles, and the final two years in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rabbi Akselrad met his wife Joni in Reno, Nevada and married her during his third year of rabbinical school. The couple has two children, CJ and Sam. After his ordination in 1984, Rabbi Akselrad was associate rabbi of Temple Israel in Columbus, Ohio, one of the largest Reform congregations in the Midwest. His choice of career was inspired by his father, Sidney Akselrad, who was a prominent rabbi involved in social justice issues and the Civil Rights Movement. Sanford Akselrad has followed his father?s example of community involvement, both in Las Vegas and on a national level: he served on the board of the National Conference of Community and Justice (NCJJ), he was chair of the NCJJ's Inter-faith Council, and he is active in the Union of Reform Judaism (URJ).

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Transcript of interview with Gene Segerblom by Layne Karafantis, February 7, 2009

Date

2009-02-07

Description

Interviewed by Layne Karafantis; Genevieve "Gene" Segerblom contributed in a multitude of ways to her home of more than fifty years--Boulder City, Nevada. She is a third-generation Nevadan and was born in Ruby Valley, Nevada, in 1918. Gene and her future husband Clifford moved from Reno where they both had attended the University of Nevada, Reno to Boulder City in 1940. After they came back from Panama in 1948 where Clifford had a photographing assignment, she ran a day care center and did freelance writing of articles about the Nevada landscape with her husband providing the photographs. Gene taught high school in Boulder City. She was elected city councilwoman in Boulder City in 1979. Gene served four terms in the State Assembly from 1993 to 2000. Her grandfather was a state senator and her mother was an assemblywoman. Today her son Richard "Tick" Segerblom serves in the State Assembly, so they are the only family to have had four generations serve in the Nevada legislature. She was involved in the creation and restoration of the Boulder City Hotel and Museum and was involved in the American Association of University Women, the Boulder City Chamber of Commerce, and the Community Club. Gene did charity work for other groups. too. The theater in the Boulder Dam Museum was named the Segerblom Theatre in her honor. She passed away on January 4, 2013, at the age of 94.

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Transcript of interview with Liliam Lujan Hickey by Layne Karafantis, March 18, 2010, & March 25, 2010

Date

2010-03-18
2010-03-25

Description

Liliam Lujan Hickey is best known in the state of Nevada for being the first Hispanic woman elected to the State Board of Education as well as for the enormous contributions she made while serving from 1998 to 2000. For this, an elementary school in Clark County bears her name. Despite many obstacles, Liliam has continually dedicated herself to standing up for the causes she believes in, such as providing preschool education to the underprivileged, preparing youth to enter the workforce, helping other Hispanics run for office, and proving that with enough courage anyone can accomplish their dreams. Born in Havana, Cuba in 1932, Liliam led a sheltered life that revolved mostly around her studies at a French Dominican school. She met her first husband, Enrique Lujan, when she was only sixteen and they wed soon after. Enrique was twelve years her senior, owned many casinos on the island, and provided a luxurious existence for Liliam and their three children. However, this lifestyle abruptly changed when Castro assumed power in 1959 and Liliam and her family were compelled to relocate to the United States. In Miami, Enrique assisted other refugees financially, hoping that his wealth would remain secure in Cuba. He was wrong. This left the family destitute. In addition to casinos, Enrique had been Cuba?s coach for the Olympics. He moved the family to York, Pennsylvania, where he hoped to find work at the York Barbell Company. Liliam, who had been accustomed to having maids and nannies in Cuba, found herself doing all the housework while she also worked in a factory. The change could not have been more dramatic and the living conditions became unbearable. The family chose to move to San Diego in a Volkswagen Minivan with the hope for a better life. The next few years brought many transitions. Things did turn around in San Diego, and Liliam she recalls her years in southern California as some of the happiest of her life. Liliam found a job working at the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla. After a few years, Enrique found a job in Las Vegas and the family moved again. In Las Vegas, Liliam gave birth to her fourth child, Mary, and life once again became financially difficult for the family. In 1972, the situation grew worse with Enrique?s untimely death. Liliam was a widow at forty years of age. She had to teach herself how to drive a car, write checks, and perform financial tasks that Enrique had insisted on managing while he was alive. Determined not to give up, however, she worked tirelessly to keep the family together. Amidst all this, a friend introduced Liliam to Tom Hickey, and after a brief courtship they were married in 1981. Within a few years, Liliam became active in politics, running for the State Board of Education. Her campaign manager advised her that voters would not be receptive to photos of a Hispanic woman on billboards, and to capitalize on the name “Hickey,” which was a recognizable name because her husband was an assemblyman. She took the manager?s advice and was elected in that campaign and for two more terms, the maximum limit for the office. After the first race, she proudly displayed her face on billboards across the state. During her time at the State Board of Education, Liliam dedicated herself to helping all children receive a better education in Nevada, not only Hispanics. She co-founded the Classroom on Wheels [COW] program, which brought buses to poor neighborhoods to provide pre-school education. She established Career Day, which pairs high schools students with business professionals in an effort to help them make the transition into the workforce. While the COW program is no longer running, 8 Career Day still operates and awards scholarships in Liliam?s name annually, which helps youth receive the educational opportunities they need to succeed. And she involved Hispanic youth in Boy Scouts by bringing ScoutReach to the Las Vegas valley. Lujan Hickey worked in a wide array of other community organizations. In the 1970s, she began to work with Circulo Cubano, which later became the Latin Chamber of Commerce, and she would later belong to the National Chamber of Commerce. A longstanding member of the League of Women Voters, Liliam saw the need to get Hispanics more involved in politics in the state. Her story is one of great inspiration, and when asked why she does it, she simply replies with a smile, “I love life.” Hickey?s narrative offers the reader a glimpse of the experiences of the Cuban refugee experience in the U.S. in general. Specific to Las Vegas, it provides a rare story of the experiences of early Latinas in the political and economic development of Las Vegas in the last half of the twentieth century.

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Charles Guy interview, 1995: transcript

Date

1995-04-06
1995-04-14
1995-04-21
1995-05-19

Description

Guy begins by talking about his birth in Brazil, Indiana, his early work selling Civilian Conservation Corps magazine subscriptions, and his travels across the United States before arriving in Boulder City, Nevada in 1938. Next, Guy recalls his early memories of Boulder City, the Las Vegas Wash, and his work at the Boulder Beach campgrounds at Lake Mead Recreation Area and in Overton, Nevada. Guy also discusses the campgrounds' working conditions, entertainment, access to amenities, and work associates. Afterwards, Guy talks about his time as a railroad worker in Indiana and Las Vegas, Nevada, Block 16 in Las Vegas, Las Vegas entertainers, working as a volunteer fire fighter, and anecdotes about people in his personal life.

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Transcript of interview with Harold R. Hunter by Philip John Mile, March 19, 1978

Date

1978-03-19

Description

On March 19, 1978, Philip John Mile interviewed former chef, Harold R. Hunter (born 1901 in Norwich, Kansas) about his life in Southern Nevada. Hunter discusses his different experiences working in early Las Vegas restaurants during the thirties and forties. Hunter also discusses the rapid growth of the Mormon community during this time.

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Union Pacific Railroad Collection

Identifier

MS-00397

Abstract

The Union Pacific Railroad Collection (1828-1986) is comprised of the original corporate records of the Union Pacific Railroad's operations in Southern Nevada, Utah, and Southern California, particularly focusing on Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The collection documents the purchase of Stewart ranch and the construction of the original depot and town which became modern Las Vegas. The collection also contains the records of the Las Vegas Land & Water Company (LVL&W), a subsidiary of the railroad formed in 1905 to handle the railroad's land transactions. The collection contains office files, correspondence, reports, leases, various legal, governmental and financial document, the collection contains large and small format maps, architectural and engineering drawings, published technical reports, railroad operational manuals, bound legal briefs, ledgers, and payroll and receipt books. The collection also includes the personal files of Walter Bracken, the Union Pacific's special representative in Nevada and vice president of the Las Vegas Land and Water Company, and a paper index of the collection materials.

Archival Collection

Economic Opportunity Board of Clark County (Nev.): memos, agendas, and meeting minutes

Date

1970-01-14 to 1970-02-25

Description

From the Clark County Economic Opportunity Board Records -- Series I. Administrative. This folder contains memos, agendas and minutes from meetings of the Clark County Economic Opportunity Board from January 1970 through February 1970.

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Benilda Long Somes oral history interview: transcript

Date

2021-11-29

Description

Oral history interview with Benilda Long Somes conducted by Vincent Long on November 29, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. Benilda discusses her life in Magalang, Philippines and her immigration to Saipan, part of the Northern Mariana Islands, as a young woman. She talks about meeting her partner, airman Robert Long, the birth of their son, and Robert's untimely death in an air crash less than a year later. Benilda shares how she and her child immigrated to the United States to be with family and their move to Las Vegas, Nevada in 2009.

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