For the first 19 years of her life, Mary Martell Shaw called Central America home. Then thanks to misrouted luggage, she met the love of her life Rollin H. Shaw, a civil engineer, at a time in when his atomic energy career was taking off. In October 1943, they married in Costa Rica and for the next two decades traversed the country: Hawaii to California to Panama—wherever a project required Ronnie's engineering skills. Mary supported her husband every step of the way, with every new location. As a traditional homemaker of the era, she became adept at raising their four kids while packing boxes, enrolling them in school and setting up a warm home wherever they landed. The move to Las Vegas in September 1964, however, left her a bit challenged: there was a shortage of adequate housing, a concern for where to send her two daughters and two sons to school, and the feeling that they wouldn't be here long. Years later, Mary and Ronnie would retire to the city where their roots ran deepest, Las Vegas. With great wit, Mary recalls the long absences demanded by Ronnie's work with the Atomic Energy Commission. She also tells stories of the great fun they and their fellow Nevada Test Site employees had at parties, of her learning to paint with watercolors, and the pride she has of all her children's successes based on their education in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas tourists who stop to admire the Mirage volcano, the Bellagio conservatory, the Wynn Las Vegas mountain, the Encore gardens, and the iconic Welcome to Las Vegas sign’s surroundings on the Las Vegas Strip likely do not realize that in each case they have sampled a unique landscape environment conceived by Don Brinkerhoff of Lifescapes International, Newport Beach, California. It is for producing work of this caliber that in 2016 the American Gaming Association selected Brinkerhoff to be the first designer inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame. In this interview, the Los Angeles native and son of a working-class father and an artist/schoolteacher mother, explains how he spent his youth in an owner-built house in the modest suburb of El Monte, where he tended the family truck garden. Despite earning his degree in ornamental horticulture at California Polytechnic (Cal Poly), Don felt unschooled in the arts because the small school did not teach them. To fill that educational gap, Don took his wife and four children to Europe for two years, where he affiliated with the American Academy in Rome and worked for TAC (The Architects' Collaborative) in Greece among other adventures. The family spent another six months in Hawaii, where the children attended school and Don worked with a local landscape architect. The family’s unusual work, school, and travel experience more than completed Don’s arts education and shaped his world view and that of his daughter Julie in countless ways that came to silently benefit the Las Vegas built environment. Upon returning to California in 1968, Brinkerhoff opened his Orange County office, and Lifescapes International became the “go-to” firm to create water features for condominium projects. This work led to his first hotel-casino project at a Sun City golf course condominium project in South Africa, which in turn led to a telephone call from architect Joel Bergman inviting him to become one of three candidate landscape architects to work with Steve Wynn on what would become The Mirage hotel-casino in Las Vegas. Here, Brinkerhoff speaks to his design philosophy as ninety percent problem-solving and ten percent inspiration even as he describes organizing the signature tree for The Mirage, building the Mirage volcano, taking the idea for Bellagio’s conservatory from the DuPont family’s Longwood Gardens, of creating faux banyans in the Mirage atrium, of creating the model for the Las Vegas Strip median, and of building the mountain on Las Vegas Boulevard in front of Wynn Las Vegas to conceal the Cloud at the Fashion Show Mall. While the fortunes of Lifescapes International continue to grow and succeed worldwide, both Don and Julie credit Steve Wynn and their Las Vegas work: “Las Vegas has totally changed our lives.”

On March 16, 1978, Valerie McLeod interviewed her father William Lee McLeod (b. January 31st, 1937 in Los Angeles, California) about his life in Las Vegas, Nevada. McLeod begins by speaking about his career as a contractor, the growth of Las Vegas and the city’s population. Moreover, he speaks about recreational activities such as riding motorcycles and exploring mines around Nevada. McLeod also spends time going over Indian reservations around Nevada and neighboring states, the Lost City in Nevada, boomtowns and ghost towns. Lastly, McLeod talks about the history of water and springs in the state of Nevada, what he would consider to be the Old Ranch and the stagecoaches that passed through Gold Point, Nevada.

Julie Menard began her career as a showgirl in 1964, performing in the Folies Bergere at the Tropicana Hotel. Although she appeared in the show for only sixteen months, she offers an insider’s view of the early Las Vegas entertainment scene. She describes a period when showgirls were treated as local royalty and “the boys” wielded considerable influence. Menard’s narrative sheds light on the glamour and complexities of the showgirl. Her descriptions of physical characteristics of the job, the day to day work schedules, the expectations of physical beauty, as well as the stigma of her occupation outside of Las Vegas offer a fuller view of the job. Menard left Las Vegas in 1966 to pursue a film career in Europe but like many Las Vegas entertainers, she returned to make the desert city her home. Although her brief performing career failed to prepare her for future employment, she relishes her brief experience as a showgirl. Her narrative evokes the glamour, excitement and mystery of Las

Interviewed by Monserrath Hernández. A native Las Vegan, Justin Favela reminisces about growing up on the east side of the Las Vegas Valley. Favela provides insights about what he refers to as the caste system he is part of, how skin color makes a difference in social hierarchies, and his personal evaluations of the litany of terms such as Latinx, Latino/a, Hispanic etc. He discusses values impressed upon him by his family, especially his grandmothers; one is Guatemalan and the other Mexican. Favela was born in 1986 and discusses his universe where pop culture, gender, ethnicity, history, and Latinidad mix. He talks about his personal artistic expressions and the two podcast series he has created and hosts.