Oral history interview with Hugh Shirkey conducted by Patricia van Betten on February 04, 2010 for the History of Blue Diamond Village in Nevada Oral History Project. In this interview, Shirkey discusses his personal history and arriving to Blue Diamond, Nevada in 1950. He talks about his employment at the Blue Diamond Mine as an electrician. Shirkey describes what life was like at the village as a single worker, the development of the mining plant, how the plant was managed, and traveling to Las Vegas, Nevada. Lastly, Shirkey recalls moving to Las Vegas and retiring from the mining plant.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Coleen York Wilson conducted by Claytee D. White on June 4, 1996 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: a Collaborative Oral History Project. In this interview, Wilson talks about growing up in Fordyce, Arkansas before moving to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1953 at the age of eighteen. She mentions that her parents had moved to Nevada in 1940 to work at Basic Magnesium, Incorporated (BMI), living in a trailer before returning to Fordyce two years later. She then discusses moving to Las Vegas to join an older sister and relates that she did not remember any discrimination in seating or eating meals during her bus trip. After this, Wilson lists the jobs she held in Las Vegas before her retirement in 1984, including work at the Las Vegas Cleaners, serving as a school crossing guard, and working as a housekeeping supervisor at the Stardust Resort Hotel, the Hacienda Resort Hotel, and Circus Circus Hotel and Casino before taking a job at the Nevada Test Site. She also talks about her family, her church activities, and her regret at not attending college.
Archival Collection
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