Month: January 2018

“When you feel that the people around you are taking too much care of your private business, move to Nevada. It’s freedom’s last stand in America.”

Yep,  that was Will Rogers who call Nevada “freedom’s last stand in America.”

Not sure Will was talking about gambling, or marijuana,  but he did know there was something special about Nevada.

Despite the fact the airplane he was flying in flipped on its back when landing in Las Vegas, he liked the “dandy little city.”

And he did one of his last films at Lake Tahoe and Reno and he almost bought a Nevada ranch.  Will Rogers was unique and helped people though the Great Depression.   In this article we explore his connection to Nevada.

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Midas was not involved when Gold was turned into Silver in Las Vegas.

Oh, them golden slippers

Oh, them golden slippers

Golden slippers I’m goin’ to wear

To walk the golden street

It stands proudly in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard near the Neon Museum, but the Silver of the Slipper was a second precious metal choice by its owners.   From Golden to Silver, the details follow.      Continue reading “Midas was not involved when Gold was turned into Silver in Las Vegas.”

Earl Brothers, Curio King of Boulder Dam

Earl Brothers, as the Boulder-Hoover-Boulder Dam was being built, received an exclusive license to supply visitors and tourist with everything from post cards to small metal dams.

Brothers was in fact for several decades, the Curio King of Boulder Dam.  In this first of a multi-part series, the focus is on his relationship with the largest post card printer in the United States at the time Curt Teich out of Chicago.

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Nevada Life 1945-46 to Hank Greenspun’s Las Vegas Life 1946-1947

With the end of World War II, and the development of the soon to be named “Las Vegas Strip” two magazines, popped up off and on for several months between 1945 and 1947.   One was Nevada Life, when it folded a second, looking, at least on the cover like the first, was called Las Vegas Life.  Its publisher Hank Greenspun.   More research, more interviews, more details need to be uncovered, and here are is a set of the current notes.

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1914 Las Vegas Post Card – Clark County Court House – DeLongchamps

Frank Doherty, newspaperman, elected official of new county of Clark County and Las Vegas silent motion picture operator, in 1914 published one Las Vegas Post

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The original “Father of Clark County”

With all due respect to the man known as Copper King, and the person who Clark County, Nevada is named after, William Andrews Clark, the true, the first, the original “father of Clark County” was Marius Samuel Beal.

This eleven-page article will detail the early development of Las Vegas through the actions of a world traveler, who very late in life, would move to a railroad camp on the edge of the Mojave desert, and what he did to create the county of Clark.

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COMING SOON

  • The Helen Holmes Story  Las Vegas First Lady of Film.
  • Motels of Reno.
  • The History of Albertype Post Cards of Nevada.
  • The History of Curt Teich Post Cards of Nevada.
  • The Black Biltmore-the First Integrated Resort in Las Vegas
  • Lightnin’  The un-rereleased Will Rogers movie filmed in Nevada.
  • Howard Hughes’ 1952 movie “The Las Vegas Story” and its premiere

Neon Noir -1940’s Las Vegas

   (Updated January 16, 2021)

Las Vegas became the site, the focus, the backdrop for several 1940 movies that nicely fit into the “Film Noir” classification.

A list of ten Las Vegas Film Noir  was originally published in the August 2015 issue of Nevada Public Radio’s magazine,  Desert Companion. 

Research on the movies continues to this day.

An expanded version of the article with new details and images is presented below.

Work continues and details will continually be added to this report.   In addition, a separate article on Las Vegas movies of the 1940’s, as well as individual articles on each film will be produced as separate reports.

 

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Going, Going, Gone, the Motels of Las Vegas 2018 update

This is the first of a series of articles on motels of Nevada.    As motels in Nevada’s major metropolitan areas are being paved over, the important role they played in the development of the state’s hospitality industry is also being lot.

While still alive and well in places like Boulder City, and communities along Interstate 80, and smaller tourist destinations in Nevada, the fight for survival is a daily battle.

The focus of this article is a short overview on the status of motels in Las Vegas.

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