Oral history interview with Jill DeStefano conducted by Stefani Evans on January 19, 2024 for the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project. In this interview, DeStefano describes growing up in Long Beach, California and moving to Las Vegas, Nevada in 2006 with her husband. DeStefano became interested in helping protect the 13,000 acres of land near her home of Aliente, and became a member of the founding board of "Protectors of Tule Springs." In this interview, she talks about the role the recession had on their work; engaging the public in the project; the stakeholders with whom they negotiated; the tours they conducted; and the legislation passed through Title 30 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in December of 2014 creating the Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument.
The Gene Hertzog Professional Papers (approximately 1930-2015) are comprised of photographs, slides, transparencies, publications, video cassettes, correspondence, and digital files spanning Gene Hertzog's working years with the United States Army, the Bureau of Reclamation, and as a freelance photographer and videographer based in Southern Nevada, New Mexico, and Washington state. The collection documents the complicated infrastructure required to supply water to the Las Vegas Valley and includes still and moving images of the Springs Preserve, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, the Colorado River, and the Columbia Basin. The majority of the collection comes from Hertzog's time as a regional photographer for the Bureau of Reclamation and offers a unique glimpse into the Bureau's work in Southern Nevada, the southwest, and the Pacific Northwest from the 1950s to the mid-1990s.