The Franklin M. Murphy Photograph Collection, dates from approximately 1929-1933 and consists of black-and-white photographic prints with 27 corresponding negatives. The majority of the images show locations in and around the current site of Hoover Dam and Lake Mead in southern Nevada and Arizona with a focus on the geology of the area; a smaller number show individuals and locations in Las Vegas, Nevada.
On March 31, 1977, Patricia Holland interviewed Celia Rivero Grenfell (born 1926 in Las Vegas, Nevada) about her life in Southern Nevada. Grenfell first talks about her family background in Mexico and later describes her family’s restaurant business. She also describes her education, recreational activities, Downtown Las Vegas, and Helldorado. The two also discuss racial segregation and prejudice, the El Rancho Vegas, Lorenzi Park, early churches, environmental changes, early air conditioning, and Grenfell’s early work in a laundry business.
Sandra Peña’s story begins in East Los Angeles, where she spent her first fifteen years with her parents (both from Michoacán, Mexico), and her younger sister. The father's managerial position at Master Products allowed the family to live rent-free in a company-owned house behind the main factory, because he collected the rents for the company's two other dwellings. In this interview, Peña recalls the family move to Porterville, in California's Central Valley, her return to Los Angeles at nineteen, and her work with Parson’s Dillingham, a contractor for the Metrolink rail system. She draws the link between the Los Angeles and Las Vegas construction communities by describing her husband's move to Las Vegas to find work; a chance Las Vegas encounter with a friend from Chino, California; her ability to gain employment in Las Vegas at Parson’s, a company that had joint ventured with Parson’s Dillingham, and her move from there to Richardson Construction, a local minority-owned company. As Peña says, "It's kind of all intermingled. Even if you go here and you go there, it's like everybody knows everybody." Throughout, Peña weaves her family story into the narrative as she describes her youth, the birth of her son, the illness and death of her father, and her family's participation in her current employment with Richardson. As she remembers the people, places, and events of her life, Peña speaks to the ways one woman of color built on her interstate construction connections and rose in a male-dominated industry.
Lawrence Gray was a silent film and vaudeville actor active between 1925 and 1936. Born on July 28, 1898 in San Francisco, California, Gray performed and starred in silent films including the Marshall Neilan-directed and produced Everybody's Acting (1926), a film later acquired by Howard Hughes. In 1935, Gray married actress Louise Figueroa, and spent his later life coordinating the American and Mexican film industries.
Gray died on February 02, 1970 in Mexico City, Mexico.
Oral history interviews with Antioco Carrillo conducted by Rodrigo Vazquez and Monserrath Hernández on June 27, 2019 and July 11, 2019 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. In this interview, Carrillo discusses his early life in Jalisco, Mexico. He talks about attending an all-boys school, the braceros program, and moving to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1987. Carrillo describes the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Las Vegas, being executive director of Aid for AIDS Nevada (AFAN), and the disproportionate infection rate of Hispanics and African Americans. Carrillo talks about advocating for same sex marriage, his involvement with lawsuits that involve defining marriage in Nevada, and being the first same-sex marriage in Nevada. Lastly, Carrillo discusses the struggles to achieve equality, and living in a heterosexual society.
Aerial view looking west to the terminal structure of the Wellton-Mohawk Extension Channel in the foreground, Morelos Dam and the Colorado River in the center and Mexico's Alamo Canal in the upper portion. (12-14-65) (Bureau of Reclamation photo by E. E. Hertzog.)
Nora Luna was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her parents are from Durango, Mexico. Luna works as the Director of Diversity and Grant Funding at the Nathan Adelson Hospice.