The Frank F. Watts Photograph Collection (approximately 1940-1959) contains black-and-white photographic prints, negatives, and slides. The photographs were taken in and around the El Rancho Vegas Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada and include publicity photographs, celebrity images, wedding photographs, and images of the hotel interior and exterior. Also included are images of the El Rancho's executives with national figures, including Eleanor Roosevelt and Walter Winchell. A few additional images depict the Hoover Dam (Boulder Dam) and Lake Mead.
The Frank F. Watts Photograph Collection (approximately 1940-1959) contains black-and-white photographic prints, negatives, and slides. The photographs were taken in and around the El Rancho Vegas Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada and include publicity photographs, celebrity images, wedding photographs, and images of the hotel interior and exterior. Also included are images of the El Rancho's executives with national figures, including Eleanor Roosevelt and Walter Winchell. A few additional images depict the Hoover Dam (Boulder Dam) and Lake Mead.
Collection is open for research.
Materials in this collection may be protected by copyrights and other rights. See Reproductions and Use on the UNLV Special Collections and Archives website for more information about reproductions and permissions to publish.
Materials remain as they were received.
Frank Frederick Watts (1911-2004) was born in Columbus, Ohio and attended Ohio State University before graduating from Franklin University in Columbus. He came to Las Vegas in 1950 with his wife, Jane. He spent his career as a hotel controller, working at the El Rancho until it closed in 1960 and then at the Riviera. Watts, along with the Nevada Resort Association, helped found the hotel college at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) in 1966. Watts died on on December 10, 2004.
Source:
"Frank Watts,"
Frank F. Watts Photograph Collection, approximately 1940-1959. PH-00169. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.
Materials were donated by Frank Watts in 1978; accession number 1978-100.
In 2020, as part of an archival backlog elimination project, Melise Leech wrote the finding aid and entered the data into ArchivesSpace.