Joan Dunn was born February 22, 1943 in the Bronx of New York City, New York. She was a teenager when she met and fell in love with Leslie Dunn. The couple married in 1962. And their loving partnership as parents and business people began. Joan attended City College of New York and received a BS/MA from UNLV in accounting. The Dunns moved to Las Vegas in 1962, when Les came to work at the Nevada Test Site. Years later, the couple would invest in real estate and were involved in major projects such as the development of the Galleria Mall.
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Lorenzo Romans (1875-1965) was born in Iowa. His family moved to Los Angeles, California when he was very young and he spent the majority of his life in that city, working primarily in real estate. In 1894, Romans was hired to escort a client to the Las Vegas valley to purchase land; while in the valley, he stayed as a guest of Helen Stewart at the Las Vegas Rancho. After his retirement, Romans moved permanently to Las Vegas in 1950. He died in 1965 and was buried in Glendale, California.
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Alexander “Al” Salton (1894-1948) was a founding member of the Las Vegas, Nevada Jewish community. Salton moved to Las Vegas in 1928 with his wife Rebecca and his children, Adele and Charles. He worked for a grocery store that sold bootlegging supplies, and he invested in real estate. After Prohibition ended in 1933, Salton opened Al’s Bar on South First Street. Al’s Bar was the first bar in the area to have guaranteed jackpots and was very popular among the Union Pacific Railroad workers.
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Oral history interview with Susan and Irwin Molasky conducted by Michael Geeser on May 15, 2006 for the I Remember When: Recollections from Las Vegas Jewish Leaders Oral History Project. They talk about the founding of the Nathan Adelson Hospice and about the Jewish community in Las Vegas, Nevada. Irwin talks about building the first high-rise condominium and the first high-rise office building in Las Vegas, about building Sunrise Hospital and Boulevard Mall, about the future of Las Vegas, light rail in the city, and the Las Vegas downtown and its future. They also discuss the water supply in southern Nevada and the possibility of a high-speed railroad from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Rodel Fuentes conducted by Tracy Fuentes on December 4, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. Rodel Fuentes tells stories of his upbringing in Manila, Philippines, where he was raised in a shared family home amongst his parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles. He talks about his parents' immigration to the United States and how he later joined them in Los Angeles, California where he met and married his wife. Rodel Fuentes shares the couple's decision to move to Las Vegas, Nevada, his work at Dunn Edwards paint company, and how he became a licensed general contractor and real estate agent where he now owns his own company. Rodel Fuentes discusses his thoughts on Las Vegas' diversity, affordability, restaurants, and Asian community. He also talks about experiencing anti-Asian hate, worsened by misconceptions and discrimination that came from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Oral history interview with Paula Sadler conducted by Claytee D. White and Stefani Evans on January 28, 2025 for the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project. In this interview, Sadler describes arriving to Las Vegas, Nevada as a teenager with her mother from California. After graduating from Green Valley High School in 1994, she enrolled at Rollers Institute of Cosmetology in Commercial Center, and graduated as a manicurist. She then recalls renting a space in a salon before opening her own salon, A Harmony Nail Spa, in Commercial Center in 2004. In this interview, she discusses forming a business owners' association in 2007, cleaning up Commercial Center, and the original vision of Commercial Center by its original owners and developers, E. Parry Thomas and Jerome Mack. She describes the public ownership of Commercial Center's parking lots and sidewalks and the Clark County Commission's relationship with the property.
Archival Collection
Joan Dunn was born February 22, 1943 in the Bronx of New York City, New York. She was a teenager when she met and fell in love with Leslie Dunn. The couple married in 1962. And their loving partnership as parents and business people began. Joan attended City College of New York and received a BS/MA from UNLV in accounting. The Dunns moved to Las Vegas in 1962, when Les came to work at the Nevada Test Site. Years later, the couple would invest in real estate and were involved in major projects such as the development of the Galleria Mall.
Person
When Kenneth Fong was born November 11 1955, the family lived in a modest home on 20th and Stewart in Las Vegas, Nevada. When he entered third-grade, his parents moved his family to a newer subdivision near Rancho and West Charleston Avenue: the Scotch 80s. Their new custom home on Silver Avenue reflected Asian architecture and the family’s Chinese cultural heritage.
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Sidney Roxton Whitmore is the son of Roxton and Adella Whitmore. He was born in St. Thomas, Nevada on December 31, 1921. He graduated from Overton High School and served in the Army during World War II. He met and married his wife, Suzette Fortune Ziza, in 1946 while stationed in Algeria. After the war, the couple returned to the United States and Whitmore earned his law degree at George Washington University. He practiced law in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas City Commission appointed him city attorney in 1960 and he was later reelected.
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Alexander “Al” Salton (1894-1948) was a founding member of the Las Vegas, Nevada Jewish community. Salton moved to Las Vegas in 1928 with his wife Rebecca and his children, Adele and Charles. He worked for a grocery store that sold bootlegging supplies, and he invested in real estate. After Prohibition ended in 1933, Salton opened Al’s Bar on South First Street. Al’s Bar was the first bar in the area to have guaranteed jackpots and was very popular among the Union Pacific Railroad workers.
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