Engineer Edward "Ed" Butera spent hours constructing models from the time he was a five-year-old boy in San Jose, California. Besides his interest in building and design, the young Butera also loved math and music—specifically the clarinet, at which he excelled, and which he still enjoys. After earning his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering at San Jose State University he was hired by Ralph Joeckel as a consulting engineer for Trane, a heating and air conditioning company. Joeckel became a mentor and "second dad" to Butera after the company sent him to Las Vegas in 1972, and the two remain close to this day. In this interview, Butera shares how he engineered and designed power, water, sanitation, utilities, and heating and cooling systems on many Clark County high schools, hospitals, and data centers while considering such factors as the building's shape and its affect on the way wind forces act on its glass, windows, and doors. He talks of his casino work that began with the Stardust soon after he arrived in Las Vegas, and before his client list grew to include Tony Marnell, Steve Wynn, and MGM. Besides the hotels, he shares his experiences engineering the infrastructure for the Bellagio fountains, The Mirage volcano, Treasure Island's pirate show.

Lee Cagely, an interior designer and professor who designed some of the most iconic hotels in Las Vegas, Nevada, was born in the Panama Canal Zone on January 31, 1951. His father Leo was a civil engineer for the Panama Canal Company and his mother Charlotte worked as a receptionist. After his father left his job in Panama, Lee spent his childhood in Dallas, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Des Moines, Iowa. He started to attend Rice University for architecture, but he chose to leave before completing his degree. He returned to college a few years later and graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in interior design in 1975. While his first California jobs were in restaurant design, he quickly moved on to airports and hotels and moved to Las Vegas in 1990 after associating with Marnell Architecture. Cagley is known for his designs in the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, Ceasars Palace Atlantic City, the Mirage, and the Bellagio Resort & Casino. He is currently Chair of the Iowa State University College of Design and is principal designer for Lee Cagely Design. Here, Cagley explains the importance of keeping the various pieces of the infrastructure of a resort—including landscape architecture, architecture, interior design, all kinds of HVAC [heating, ventilation and air conditioning] concerns, housekeeping, food service, maintenance, etc.-invisible in order to maximize the visitor experience. At the same time he illustrates through several examples how resort design does not happen in a vacuum-it is instead part of a complex team that works together to create the whole. He also describes the challenges the Las Vegas resort industry finds in creating the very best visitor experience for a broad range of groups-from Millennials to their Boomer grandparents and all the generations in between.

As Bruce Woodbury reflects on his twenty-eight years as Clark County's longest-serving County commissioner (1981–2009) he recalls serving with about thirty different commissioners. Surprisingly, "only seven of us got major jail sentences." He ruminates how Federal Bureau of Investigation probes Operation Yobo in the early 1980s and G Sting in the early 2000s exposed several Clark County politicians who succumbed to greed. While Woodbury considers honesty in office a given, his values were not held by all of his colleagues. One Operation Yobo recording caught a fellow commissioner responding to the query, "How about Woodbury?" with, "No, you can't touch him with a ten foot pole." Woodbury remembers his "campaign guys really liked that." Apparently the voters did as well, as he consistently won re-election. The Las Vegas native, who was raised in the John S. Park neighborhood and attended Las Vegas schools, earned his Bachelor's degree at the University of Utah and his Juris Doctorat

always thought I'd be more urban. I would live in a downtown city. I wouldn't have a car. I would walk around. I would work on these big skyscrapers.” At one point in his life, architect Craig Galati dreamt of designing large buildings in some of the nation’s biggest cities. Instead, he was drawn back to his childhood home of Las Vegas, where he created projects meant to preserve the city’s integrity, such as the Grant Sawyer State Office Building and the first building at the College of Southern Nevada Charleston Campus. He speaks to his work in preservation at the Las Vegas Springs Preserve and in welcoming visitors to Mount Charleston with his Spring Mountains Visitor Gateway design. In this interview, Galati talks about his parents’ decision to move from Ohio to Nevada and what it was like growing up in Las Vegas. He recalls his first teenage jobs in the Las Vegas of his youth and his studies in architecture at the University of Idaho. He recounts the dilemma of struggling to find architecture work he enjoyed and how that vision drew him back to Vegas. He describes various projects in his portfolio from his early years to the present. He speaks highly of his partnership with Ray Lucchesi and the basis for their vision: “We wanted to be a place that everybody liked to work for. Buildings were just tools to do something grander. They weren't an object. We had a philosophy that was not object based, it was people based.”

Louis La Porta served on the City Council of Henderson, Nevada and the Board of Clark County, Nevada and oversaw periods of great growth. He was born in 1924 in New York City, but his service in the United States Air Force pulled him out West. After settling in Henderson, Nevada, with his wife Elayne, La Porta became interested in insurance sales and local politics. While in office, La Porta oversaw the development of critical roads for Clark County, the Henderson Historical Society, and Henderson Libraries. He recounts each of these major developments in his interview, chronicling the evolution of Henderson, Nevada, into a major city.

On March 13, 1981, Dana Jamerson interviewed Harold McKay (b. July 27th, 1903 in Dresden, Kansas) about his life as a teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada. McKay speaks about his education, his move from Chicago, Illinois to Las Vegas and how he began his career in education. McKay focuses on how and why he founded the Teacher’s Credit Union, his time working in administration and his business school, as well as the problems related to segregation and integration in the educational system. Lastly, he talks about the growth of the gaming and entertainment industry in Las Vegas, and his volunteer work with the Senior Citizen Center.

On February 27, 1979, collector Greg Abbott interviewed Hildred Meidell (b. March 17, 1900 in Webb City, Missouri) about her time living in Las Vegas, Nevada. Meidell covers a range of topics, from her and her husband’s time as tourists in the city and their subsequent retirement to Las Vegas from Los Angeles, California. Meidell describes the Las Vegas Strip, the interstate and highway conditions between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, as well as their numerous visits to Hoover Dam (Boulder Dam). Moreover, she speaks about the changing layout of the city, the increase in shopping centers and department stores, and the clothing stores inside of hotels. Lastly, Meidell talks about the prominence of churches in local communities, the atomic testing program and the structural damages these tests caused in her neighborhood, and the influence of the railroad and passenger train on the town.