Oral history interview with Lilly Fong conducted by Lisa Fremont on May 06, 1995 for the UNLV University Libraries Oral History Collection. In this interview, Fong discusses her family background and their immigration story to the United States in the early 1910s. She talks about her husband’s interest in the restaurant business and the opening of their restaurant, Fong’s Garden, in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1955. Fong remembers being elected as Regent for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the increase of students attending the College of Southern Nevada, and advocating to keep UNLV’s Tonopah Hall as a dormitory building for students. Fong talks about completing a master’s degree from UNLV in 1982, state university funding, and her involvement with the Chinese community in Las Vegas.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Mary Eaton conducted by Dennis McBride on November 15, 1986 for the Boulder City Library Oral History Project. Eaton joined her husband Bruce in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1932, soon after he found work at the Hoover Dam building site. Within months of her arrival, the couple welcomed their first child and moved to Boulder City, Nevada. In this interview, Eaton recalls the early community formed by the wives of the dam workers, the establishment of the Grace Community Church and the death of the church's first pastor, "Parson Tom" Stevenson. She discusses the beginning of the school system in Boulder City and her career as an educator, as well as her involvement in numberous community projects and groups including the hospital and the Rainbow Club for young women.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Joseph C. Mattingly conducted by Sean Powers on February 23, 1979 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. In the interview, Mattingly discusses moving back and forth between Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada during the 1930s and 1940s before finally settling in Las Vegas in 1954. Mattingly also discusses his life as a sheet metal worker for commercial buildings, Las Vegas Strip hotels, and buildings on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Al Lermusiaux conducted by Shirley Dianne Long on March 09, 1978 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. Lermusiaux begins by talking about his move to Las Vegas, his family and what brought him to the city. He shares many anecdotes about the construction of different iconic buildings in Las Vegas, the inner workings of the business, payments to employees and the changes in technology. Lermusiaux, in particular, talks of the telephone system in the fifties and the changes in structures and their regulations. During his interview, Lermusiaux lays out an image of old Las Vegas and Henderson, giving detailed descriptions of the layout of the city, the projects he worked on and the effects of the weather on building structures in Las Vegas.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Gerald Connor conducted by James Bonnell on February 22, 1977 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. Connor first discusses moving to Las Vegas, Nevada and serving as a pilot in the United States Air Force. He then discusses his education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and his church membership. Topics that Connor discusses during the interview also include changes in the school district and properties located in Downtown Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Strip, his political activity within the Democratic Party, the Helldorado Parades, and the early atomic tests at the Nevada Test Site.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Cathy Scott conducted by Dennis McBride on December 12, 2006 for the Las Vegas Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Archives Oral History Project. In this interview, Scott discusses reporting about the murder of Roger Jameson, a gay man who was found dead outside of a gay bar in Las Vegas, Nevada on April 25, 1995. Scott describes the scene upon her arrival and her initial reactions to the homicide. She talks about the issue of homophobia in Las Vegas at the time and explains that other newspaper publications would not want to cover this story because this was not seen as a serious issue. Lastly, Scott talks about the double life that Jameson lived and how the public reacted to his story.
Archival Collection
On July 3, 1975, Robin Wright interviewed Doctor Nancy Leveque (b. 1933 in Oak Park, Illinois) about her time living in Las Vegas, Nevada. The interview covers, among many wide-ranging topics, Leveque’s move to and away from Las Vegas, her career as a veterinarian, and the practice she and her then-husband built. Leveque also discusses how the city of Las Vegas has changed-environmentally and socially-, special interest groups and social activities, as well as natural phenomena. Throughout the course of the interview, Leveque provides anecdotes about prominent figures and old Las Vegas traditions, such as Helldorado.
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Oral history interviews with Nanyu Tomiyasu conducted by Robert McCracken on January 18, 2000, February 05, 2000 and April 02, 2000 for the Women's Research Institute of Nevada (WRIN) on behalf of the Tule Springs Preservation Committee. Tomiyasu opens his interview by discussing his father's immigration journey from Japan to Las Vegas, Nevada. Tomiyasu then describes his father's career in Las Vegas as a vegetable farmer. He talks about the process and challenges his father faced as a farmer in Nevada, and the techniques he used to maintain his land. Tomiyasu then discusses taking over his father's farm, racial discrimination the family faced, and the farm's purchasing agreements with local grocery stores. He also talks about the water systems his farm and the surrounding area relied on, as well as the animals that lived in the area. Tomiyasu ends his interview by discussing his mother's life story and his wife and children.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Allycia B. Murphy conducted by Stefani Evans on June 30, 2023 for Reflections: the Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. In this interview, attorney Allycia B. Murphy shares how she learned recently who her biological father was and how it has changed her life. She talks about connecting with half-siblings, her biological father, and learning about her father's Samoan, Japanese, and German family history. Murphy discusses growing up in southeast North Carolina, being enrolled with her mother's family as Lumbee Tribal Citizens, and learning to code switch. She talks about playing sports in middle and high school, majoring in African American studies at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and attending law school at North Carolina Central University. She recalls becoming a prosecutor with the North Carolina First Prosecutorial District, and meeting her husband. Murphy discusses moving to Las Vegas, Nevada in 2017, getting married, and the loss of her first child, and subsequent children since her first pregnancy. She closes her interview discussing being hired by the City of Las Vegas as a Deputy City Attorney, Office of the City Attorney, Criminal Division, a position she continues to hold at the time of the interview.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Emilia Marquez conducted by Maribel Estrada Calderón on July 5, 2019 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Claytee D. White and Emily Lucile are also present during the interview. Emilia Marquez was born in the United Stated and raised in Alexandria, Virginia, where her father worked as a bricklayer, until the age of twelve, when her father decided to move the family back to Uruguay. She describes acclimating to her new life in middle school and her shift from being perceived as an outsider in Uruguay to accepting Uruguay as home. She describes life in Uruguay and the positions that her family held while living there. After meeting and marrying her husband they trained to work in a casino. She trained as a slot machine operator, and her husband trained as a dealer. This eventually led them to leave Uruguay for the U.S. After the encouragement of her father and mother, she moved with her mother to Las Vegas to work in the casino industry. She describes working as a change person at the Luxor before moving to the newly opened Palms, where she worked until she left it to work at the Wynn. She ends the interview talking about various Uruguayan dishes and traditions, and a brief history of Uruguay. Subjects discussed in this interview: Uruguay, immigration, Las Vegas Strip, Latinx, Luxor.
Archival Collection
