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On February 26, and 27, 1980, Maylene C. Cabatingan interviewed Evelyn Miller McDonald (born 1905 in Alderson, West Virginia) about her life in Las Vegas, Nevada. Also present during the interview is Maylene’s step-father (name unknown) who occasionally participates in the conversation. At the time of the interview, McDonald had lived in Nevada for over seventy-two years and described early Las Vegas as a small-town railroad community with few amenities. McDonald discusses her occupational history, and how her father started the first car garage in Las Vegas. She goes on to talk about the impact of the Great Depression on Las Vegas and how Hoover Dam’s construction reduced the severity of the financial depression in comparison to other cities. She then recites the hotels that were built and the appeal that Vegas had to tourists and divorcees. McDonald later discusses how prostitution was accepted by the community, and recalls a story about how local businessmen rallied together to ensure that a minister would preach the funeral for a young woman who had died, despite being a prostitute. McDonald concludes her interview with a brief discussion of her goals in life and her pride in her daughters.
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Oral history interview with Mary Eaton conducted by Dennis McBride on November 15, 1986 for the Boulder City Library Oral History Project. Eaton joined her husband Bruce in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1932, soon after he found work at the Hoover Dam building site. Within months of her arrival, the couple welcomed their first child and moved to Boulder City, Nevada. In this interview, Eaton recalls the early community formed by the wives of the dam workers, the establishment of the Grace Community Church and the death of the church's first pastor, "Parson Tom" Stevenson. She discusses the beginning of the school system in Boulder City and her career as an educator, as well as her involvement in numberous community projects and groups including the hospital and the Rainbow Club for young women.
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