With the explosive growth of the Las Vegas Valley over the past 30 years, it is rare to find someone who has deep battle born roots that go back to the early mining days of Nevada. Nancy Cummings-Schmidt is an example of that rare kind of gem. As a fourth generation Nevadan, her family came to the state in the 1800s form Ireland and England. Looking to capitalize off of the mining boom in Virginia City, they transitioned to ranching. She spent her first years in Reno and when her father went off to fight in the Second World War, her mother moved to Herlong, California and sent her to live with her grandparents. Upon moving to Vegas for fourth grade, her mother remarried and worked for the Las Vegas Sun while Nancy attended the Fifth Street Grammar School and later became a member Las Vegas High School’s first graduating class in 1956. After graduating from high school, Nancy invested in the spirit of wanderlust as it carried her to study theatre at Texas Christian University (which sh

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.

Brothers Steve and Bart Jones live and breathe Las Vegas history. Their grandparents, Burley and Arlie Jones, arrived in Las Vegas in the nineteen-teens; their father, Herb Jones; his sister, Florence Lee Jones Cahlan, and their uncle, Cliff Jones, helped form the legal, journalistic, and water policy framework that sustains Southern Nevada today. The Jones brothers build on that foundation through their custom home-building company, Merlin Construction. In this interview, they talk about living and growing up in Las Vegas, of attending John S. Park Elementary School, of hunting in the desert, of their family's commitment to cultural and racial diversity, and of accompanying their grandfather to his business at the Ranch Market in the Westside. They share their early work experiences lifeguarding and later, dealing, at local casinos as well as second-hand memories of the Kefauver trials through the tales told by their father and uncle. Steve describes mentor Audie Coker; he explains

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.

On March 5, 1981, collector Kathy Ricks interviewed Mary Carol Melton (b. April 4th, 1900 in Rockville, Missouri) about her life in Nevada and the development of the United Methodist Church in Las Vegas. Melton speaks about moving to Las Vegas, Nevada because of her husband’s health, her time working with attorney offices and in the Las Vegas Courthouse, and the different homes in which her family lived. Moreover, Melton talks extensively about starting the first Sunday school in North Las Vegas in a garage as well as the church she and her husband built. Melton discusses the programs and minstrels performed in the church, the crafts sold to make money for the church and the organ they purchased. Lastly, Melton talks about going to the Hoover Dam nearly every week to see new developments, her participation in the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), and watching the above ground atomic tests.

On March 6, 1981, Laronda D. Tinsley interviewed Gwendolyn Weekes Rahner (born August 14th, 1923 in Atlantic City, New Jersey) at her home in Las Vegas, Nevada. In this interview, Mrs. Rahner discusses working in politics and registering people to vote in Las Vegas, Nevada. She also discusses living in West Las Vegas and her experiences there.