From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Drafts for the Las Vegas Sentinel Voice file. On the University of North Dakota receiving $5 million donation from Imperial Palace Hotel & Casino owner and approved Nazi war room artifacts.
An unidentified person looks at the ruins of the H. D. and L. D. Porter Brothers Store in Rhyolite, Nevada. The remains of two wooden buildings and several mining tailing piles are visible in the background. Originally from Illinois, the brothers opened their first store in Johannesburg, Ca. in 1902. Moving with the mining booms, they opened stores in Ballarat, Beatty, Pioneer and Rhyolite. From the Ballarat store, H. D. Porter loaded thirty tons of merchandise onto an 18-mule team freight wagon and came east across Death Valley to the Bullfrog District. The original store was built on Main St. After the move to Golden St., the wooden building was used as a furniture store for the Porter Brothers. With the purchase of a lot on Golden Ave. the construction of a new stone building began in July 1906 and was finished four months later. According to the Rhyolite Herald, November 1906 "This is a large substantial structure, practically fireproof, and occupies a prominent site on Golden Street. The main floor is 30 x 80 feet, with a basement and gallery." Nels Linn was the contractor who did the stonework. The estimated cost was $10,000 for the complete construction of the building. One of the signs that hung from the Porter Brothers Store was "All Things Good But Whiskey". With all the saloons already established in Rhyolite, the Porter Brothers maintained a reputation of never selling liquor. Rhyolite is a ghost town in Nye County, Nevada. It is in the Bullfrog Hills, about 120 miles (190 km) northwest of Las Vegas, near the eastern edge of Death Valley. The town began in early 1905 as one of several mining camps that sprang up after a prospecting discovery in the surrounding hills. During an ensuing gold rush, thousands of gold-seekers, developers, miners and service providers flocked to the Bullfrog Mining District. Many settled in Rhyolite, which lay in a sheltered desert basin near the region's biggest producer, the Montgomery Shoshone Mine. Rhyolite declined almost as rapidly as it rose. After the richest ore was exhausted, production fell. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the financial panic of 1907 made it more difficult to raise development capital. In 1908, investors in the Montgomery Shoshone Mine, concerned that it was overvalued, ordered an independent study. When the study's findings proved unfavorable, the company's stock value crashed, further restricting funding. By the end of 1910, the mine was operating at a loss, and it closed in 1911. By this time, many out-of-work miners had moved elsewhere, and Rhyolite's population dropped well below 1,000. By 1920, it was close to zero. After 1920, Rhyolite and its ruins became a tourist attraction and a setting for motion pictures. Most of its buildings crumbled, were salvaged for building materials, or were moved to nearby Beatty or other towns, although the railway depot and a house made chiefly of empty bottles were repaired and preserved. The town is named for rhyolite, an igneous rock composed of light-colored silicates, usually buff to pink and occasionally light gray. It belongs to the same rock class, felsic, as granite but is much less common.
Gwendolyn K. Walker arrived in North Las Vegas in 1962 from Houston, Texas, as a five-year-old with her parents, two brothers, and her cousins. The Walker family at first moved to a rented house on D Street, and Gwen attended Kit Carson Elementary School for first grade. Her mother enrolled in nursing school, so she sent Gwen back to Delhi, Louisiana, to be raised by her grandmother. In Delhi Gwen picked cotton with her aunt while she was in the second grade. Gwen returned to North Las Vegas to live with her mother and complete elementary school at Jo Mackey before matriculating to J. D. Smith Elementary School for junior high school and then to Clark High School. Later she attended UNLV. Gwen and her mother joined Saint James Catholic Church at H Street and Washington Avenue, but after she returned from Delhi she joined Second Baptist Church, where she became close with a cohort of friends that remained strong even as she experienced racism and bullying and love for the first time.
The Milton Norman Photograph Collection (1943-1970) consists of black-and-white photographic prints and negatives taken by City of Las Vegas Code Enforcement officer Milton Norman. The images were recorded as part of a survey of substandard residential dwellings built in the then racially segregated communities of the Westside and Vegas Heights in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Harmon Family Papers consist of the political and personal correspondence of Las Vegas, Nevada pioneer Harley A. Harmon from 1910 to 1934, and his son, Harley E. Harmon, from 1950 to 1966. The collection also includes correspondence, personal papers, and photographs of Harley L. Harmon from approximately 1950 to 1999. Also included are family scrapbooks with wedding announcements, photographs, birthday cards, newspaper clippings, and other ephemera.
Oral history interview of Brian Shepherd conducted by Claytee D. White on July 13, 2020 for the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project. Brian Shepherd, Chief of Staff of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1107, represents health care and public sector employees across the state of Nevada. SEIU advocates for fair wages, quality health care, and the "secret ballot" for all union employees. Shepherd discusses his work with the union, racism, discrimination, inequality, organizing protests, the Black Lives Matter movement, and social justice.