Oral History Project
|
Joseph Buckley Wing Fong Pat Goodall Harold Boyer Ty Hilbrecht Jim Jones |
Bert Purdue J.A. Tiberti David Welles Kenneth Miller Donald Aikin |
The following interview is with Mr. David F. Welles, a resident of Las Vegas since 1944 and a prominent local Architect. Mr. Welles joined the Las Vegas Rotary Club in 1967 and served as President during 1976-77. He is a Paul Harris Fellow.
This is March the 27th, Wednesday, 2002. I’m interviewing Mr. David Welles at his home in Henderson, Nevada. This is Patrick Carlton. Mr. Welles, would you please, for the record, give us your complete name, current address and your Rotary affiliation, please.
My name is David F. Welles and my current address is 1341 Imperia Avenue, Henderson, Nevada, 89052. In Rotary, right now I’m a senior active and just enjoying the fellowship and working on different committees.
You’re in the Las Vegas Rotary Club?
Yes, the Las Vegas Rotary Club. It’s interesting that you said that because when I joined, that was the only club in Las Vegas.
You joined in 1969? Is that correct?
I joined in 1967.
I wonder if I could get you to start off by describing your birthplace and how you ended up in Las Vegas.
Okay. My mother is a southerner, my dad, they said jokingly in the family, is a Yankee from Illinois. My mother’s relatives were in Illinois and at the time they were on hard times and needed to move back to Illinois to live with their relatives. Back there, my mother met my father and, needless to say, I happened later. That was in 1933 in Decatur, Illinois. We lived there for one year. This was during the depression, so dad found work where he could find it and then he would tell me about working in the cornfields all day for $1.00. Mom always had some sort of a job. She was a real go-getter. They worked there for a while. They both went through college and they both had teaching degrees and jobs opened up in Cave Springs, Georgia. They were both specially trained in special education. At that time it was called teaching the deaf and they both taught for the Georgia State School for the Deaf in Cave Springs. We lived there for a few years and then a job opened in the Tennessee School for the Deaf in Knoxville. Dad wanted to get his masters and mom wanted to continue some of her education. So, they both accepted jobs in Knoxville and continued their education. By this time WWII had opened up and mom’s sister was a librarian. She was the head librarian in San Bernardino, California and invited us all out to look at job opportunities. The pay was much higher in California than it was in Tennessee. So, dad accepted a job in California and mom was to move out. Well, the job that dad really accepted was with the Japanese relocation camp just outside Casa Grande, Arizona. The job was the social and recreational activities of that camp. I’ll never forget mom telling the story about how we moved out. Dad was out and she packed the car up and apparently I slept all the way. We had a little dog at the time. The speed limit was 45 miles per hour. Mom drove all the way from Knoxville out to Casa Grande, Arizona at 45 miles per hour. I still have some of the ration coupons and things that they got. It was quite the adventure going from Tennessee to the middle of the desert in Arizona. At that time, Casa Grande was a very small town and until the camps were built the economy was very minimal and it was just a small desert town. That was the first time I’d ever been in a sandstorm that would literally take the paint off your car.
This is 1942 that you’re talking about?
Yes. I always remember the metal drives that they had at school where if there was any bit of metal you could bring, bring it. For a kid, it was a great place to live. The people were nice. Everybody knew who you were and it was an old schoolhouse. Mom taught in a little out of the way schoolhouse and I don’t quite remember all of that, but dad was out at the camp. Then, one day he said that they had housing for us out there, let’s go. So, we went out about 12 or 15 miles out of Casa Grande to the relocation camp. It was called Rivers, Arizona. Rivers and Canal were the two camps. The living accommodations were a section of a barracks. It did have a kitchen and two bedrooms and a little living room and that was it. That was pretty good. I went to school out there in the compound. We had a Japanese teachers and Japanese kids. We say Japanese, but these were all Japanese Americans. They were good guys and good kids. They accepted me and I accepted them and we had a good time. That was a good job. My grandfather Welles decided, he was a retired superintendent of White Hall School District in Illinois, to accept a job as a guard out there. He was a very light duty guard. The Japanese made the desert turn into a garden place. They grew all kinds of vegetables and other things. I have pictures over here of some of the Japanese friends that my folks made.
Where is Casa Grande? Are there any large cities around it that we would recognize the names of?
Well, it’s south of Phoenix. It’s between Tucson and Phoenix.
So, you lived with a group of Asian Americans, Japanese Americans. What was their general attitude toward the war and their feelings about what was happening to their lives as far as you could tell?
As a ten or 11 year old kid, I really didn’t get much reaction from the parents, but I did from the school kids. My peers in school, everything was okay, but there was a lot of animosity with the high school Japanese kids. It was how many Zero’s were shot down and how many P-38’s were shot down. They kept a plane count. There were always arguments with that. Of course, being a little tenacious, I’d enter in those arguments and always was on the losing end. Nonetheless, the parents accepted me. In fact, I’d go over to the mess hall and eat with the kids. I learned how to eat with chopsticks. I learned how to eat all sorts of Japanese food. It was fun. I enjoyed it. It was the first time I saw Sumo wrestling. They would build a ring, very inventive. They had to climb on board the buses and they were delivered out there with just the clothes on their back. The barracks were I don’t know how long and they would divide them into sections and that’s where a family would live. I was invited over to their home all the time, but they couldn’t go to where my barrack was. They couldn’t go through the guard gate.
You said that a year later you made a move to Los Angeles?
What happened was, the YMCA, for a number of years had been trying to get started in Southern Nevada. They had a YMCA up in Reno, but nothing in the south. Since my dad was in charge of recreation and social activities, he was sort of in that clique of people. He was asked to go to Los Angeles and be interviewed and would he be interested in starting a YMCA here in Southern Nevada. I think he and a friend of his, Dr. Hoffman, who was at the camp also, he had something to do with it and I’m not quite sure what, went to Los Angeles and dad interviewed for the job. He got the job, but did he want to move here and bring his wife. My sister was born by then. She was about six weeks old. Did they want to move up here? It was more permanent than where he was. So, he came up and said, gee, look at all the bright lights. I think there were two or three downtown. You’ve got to remember, this was a town of about eight to ten thousand people then. He came back with glowing reports and my mother, being the adventuresome soul that she was, she said, okay, let’s go do it to it. My mom taught school in Casa Grande and there was a dire need for teachers in Las Vegas at the time. So, when they arrived, it was Easter Sunday, 1944. We drove across the dam and there were guards. They took our cameras and anything we had like that and you came over in a caravan. In those days, you had running boards and you had a guard on each side of the car. Everything was very friendly. If you’ll notice, out at the dam, the pillboxes up on the hills, they had machine guns in them at the time. It was very military, believe me. Anyway, we got here and there was no housing in Las Vegas. None. You couldn’t even rent anything. We found a house out in Henderson, the old section of Henderson, next to the BMI Plant and we lived there for a little bit until a house opened up in Las Vegas in Huntridge. Then we moved into that house. My folks lived there until mom passed away about two years ago, in 2000.
You went to school in Las Vegas all the way through.
We started out in Henderson. I went to part of the 5th grade out there and by that time they decided they could move in to Las Vegas and John S. Park School is part of Huntridge. That’s where I went through the 8th grade. Then I went to Las Vegas High School.
Las Vegas High School is now the Academy, correct?
Yes. At that time it was the only high school in the area. There was Las Vegas High School, Basic High and Boulder City High School.
What year did you start high school?
I got out in 1952, so that would have been 1948.
Who was the principal when you went there?
Walter B. Long. He was a real nice guy. He had two daughters and two sons. They all lived down the street from us.
So, you were close enough to walk to school.
I did. I didn’t have a car, but he always drove.
I believe you indicated that you got into sports early on and were pretty active in it. Could you talk about that?
Well, that was, I was never one to hit the books very hard. I was a big kid and had a lot of fun doing sports. A buddy of mine and myself, we sort of prided ourselves in that we were the sports leaders in grade school. Had a lot of fun doing that. Then, the high school started seeing us when we were in the 8th grade and we’d go over there and practice with them. That just led on to football and track, not much basketball.
What was the building itself like, the Las Vegas High School building? Did it look about like it does now or have there been major additions to it?
There were two buildings. It was a three, maybe even four story building if you count the basement. I haven’t been in it in ten years, so I’m sure that they’ve made modifications. Then there was the gym next to Butcher Field. Frazier hall hadn’t been built yet and the little commons wasn’t there. There was nothing between the school and the Baptist Church. I’ll tell you something going back to John S. Park. They had an el shaped masonry facility there, but there were so many kids there, we went in temporary buildings and I’ll never forget. They were panelized plywood with a coal oil stove inside and they would sway when the wind would blow. The beams were a tension beam system and they were wire. It was something else. It was funny. They had wood floors, but they tore all of that down after I left.
Of course, you didn’t have any air-conditioning or anything in those buildings?
No, this is all before air-conditioning. Air-conditioning came in high school. Well, we didn’t have it in school, but the first air-conditioning I can remember was the Rose family up on Charleston, just about where Charleston and Gass come in together. The only reason I know that, it was Lois Rose and I was dating her. I liked to go over to her house because it was the coolest one in town.
Miss Maude Frazier was active during the time you were in school, was she not?
Yes.
What was her role?
I think that was when she was superintendent of schools. Walter Johnson was in that era. R. Guild Gray and Harvey Dondero were all in that mix in some way. They were all part of the upper echelon in school administration.
You graduated, you said, in 1952? What did you do immediately upon leaving school. What was your next move?
The good lord says, if you want a good laugh tell me your plan and I’ll laugh. My plan was to go into the Navy and because I was sort of at sea with myself. So, I went into the Navy and I’ve been in the Navy reserve. I’d had problems with my back and they said, oh, that’s growing pains. In those days, they didn’t have x-ray strong enough to find out what was the matter with your bones. So, I went in the Navy and I really liked the Navy; All you could eat and all the physical activities you wanted. Even in there, I could get by the classes, pretty easy classes. My back kept hurting and hurting and I thought it would go away after a while. I woke up one morning and I was paralyzed. I was in the upper bunk, so that was a problem getting out of that thing. It went away after a little bit, but during the marching that morning, it started locking up and hurting like heck. So, they said, go to the infirmary. I went over there and there the Navy had real powerful x-rays.
They said part of your spinal column, the bone, is missing. You know how you have three prongs like that, well, it was gone and it was rubbing and it was severing all those nerves. That’s what was causing the pain. So, the Navy says, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll give you a desk job if you let us operate on you. Or, we’ll put you on inactive status and you can go get it done by a private doctor. I chose to have a non-military doctor do it. So, I went home that summer and instead of my plan, that’s what I did.
I went down to Loma Linda and bumped into two doctors down there that had just gotten back from Korea and they both said, tell you what we’ll do. We’ll give you a fifty-fifty chance that you’ll stay in that wheelchair for the rest of your life or you might recover and be able to walk. They didn’t guarantee a thing. It was a little cavalier, but I said, give it a shot. My physical activities came to a screeching halt. I had to do something or I would have gone nuts and reading was it. So, I started reading. I read everything I could get my hands on. In fact, the kids were real sympathetic to me. They’d stop by and talk philosophy and one thing and another. That was my first shot at a library. I had a paperback library that wouldn’t quit. They’d bring me books in and I’d read them and trade them in for other books. I had some friends going up to Cedar City to school. I think they called it Branch Normal in those days. It was a little school of about 250, 300 students is all. I said, well, I can’t even get a job because I can’t bend. I had to wear a brace and do a lot of rest. They said, come on up and go to school. I said, okay, I will. This was a poor boy school. I mean these were kids from the farms and the valleys in Utah. The parents would send them with food and it didn’t hardly cost anything to go. It was a great school. I really enjoyed my time up there. I got into scholastics and I got out of being the biggest guy on the football field.
So, you had been released by the Navy by this time?
Yes. Well, I was on inactive status and I was that way for eight years before they released me. Now, I have my medical and honorable discharge. So, I went to two years of school in Cedar City and that was the first time I’d ever been around any ranchers or farmers or anything and I thought that was really neat. Here, I’m a desert rat kid and they’d take me home with them and show me how they do sheep, how they skin them and prepare them and cows and how they did the farmland. That’s where I first got into hunting. We’d go out and get us a pheasant for Sunday dinner. We’d go out and get us rabbits and eat that or a deer from time to time. It was great. I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun.
You said two years. What happened at the end of that second year?
It was a two-year college except for education. That was a four-year school and there are a lot of principals like Neil Twitchell who is a retired principal down here and he worked under my dad. He went to school up there. He was two years ahead of me up there. A lot of dentists went up there to get their first two years preparation for dental school. It was really a good school.
Had you declared a major by this time?
Construction. I always thought it would be heavy equipment because I was into the building thing. All of a sudden, I found out that I didn’t have the physical abilities to get into heavy equipment. Then, that’s when architecture evolved. It just happened. I had enrolled up there in civil engineering.
You were telling me a story earlier about how you made the decision.
Well, what it was, I was very good in math and math was no problem. In civil engineering, I was in surveying, no problem. It was a lot of fun. I could do that stuff. Chemistry, I stumbled through that okay, but physics was a real downer. I just couldn’t do physics. I had a physics professor that was very understanding, but he was one of these kind of guys that every time he went to do an experiment, it would explode on him. So, there was a touch of humor in the physics department up there, but I still couldn’t catch it. When I was getting my final grade in physics, he asked me where I was transferring to and I told him I didn’t know yet. He said, what are you going to go into? I said, architecture, definitely. He said, good, I’ll make you a deal. If you go into architecture and you stay out of engineering and you stay out of physics, I’ll give you a “C.” I said, done deal and away we went. I always thought that was a humorous story.
So, you had summer jobs, of course, between academic terms. What kind of work were you doing?
Out of high school or in high school?
I was thinking about Cedar City.
Okay, that first year between high school and Cedar City I was laid up. That next summer, there was a firm here called Tyson Engineering. He was a civil engineer and I don’t remember how I got hooked up with Lafayette Everett Tyson, but I was pretty good at surveying. So, he gave me a job and I worked days surveying on a survey crew. There was three of us and four of us sometimes. At night, I was the only one who could draw, so, he had me drawing up, at night, what we surveyed during the day. Now, I’ll tell you a little story here. Right next door to us there was a little bitty office, this was up on Charleston, probably 30 foot by 20 foot and there was a gas company in there. They needed somebody to draw something up because all they had was a foreman up here for all the gas lines that were in the streets. Well, that evolved into Southwest Gas. I can’t remember the foreman’s name, but he’d bring that stuff over and I’d draw it up for him and that’s how I started my drafting. I surveyed all over the place. One story I like to tell on that is, we were out surveying the front side of the Sheep’s, the Sheep Mountains over here. We were doing what we were supposed to do, bumping around in a jeep. I saw a sign out there and I said, let’s go see what that sign says. We drove over there and looked at the sign and the other side of the sign, facing the other way said, warning, something like stay out of here. There is unexploded ordnance over here. It was the bomb range out there, Nellis bomb range and we’re out there stomping all over. That was kind of funny. We surveyed all the way up to Ely. We had jobs up in Ely and Elko.
Once you had finished at Cedar City, you went on to further, higher education. What happened?
For some reason, I didn’t care for the West Coast schools. I don’t know where that came from. So, I applied to the 10 top architectural schools other than the West Coast. Then the next thing was, where did I want to go. I was accepted to all 10. They suggested that I visit them, so, I thumbed my way around the United States. I went down to Texas and to Rice and went to Tulane and went to Georgia Tech, University of Tennessee and up to Illinois, whatever the 10 were. Anyway, I had passed through Stillwater, Oklahoma because Okie State was high up on the list and so was the University of Oklahoma. That stuck in my memory. Well, I thought I’d go to the University of Illinois because that’s where my dad went and I had relatives in Champagne and Urbana. So, I enrolled there. It was a huge school and I came from a school of 300 up to a school of 20,000. I was used to sunshine and dry air and up there it was drizzling for two weeks. I got arthritis or something in my shoulders and I couldn’t move well, so, after a semester I said the heck with this. I’m out of here. I left there and came back to Las Vegas and got on a survey crew and surveyed that next semester and that summer and then a buddy of mine said why didn’t I go to Arizona?
I ran a crew, finally. The other guys were gone and I was crew chief. A buddy of mine, he was going to University of Arizona then at Tucson, said why don’t you come on down there. It’s a small school, 5,000 kids and it’s drier. So, I went down there and enrolled in education. I figured the heck with all of this architecture. Then geography got the best of me. I found out where Mexico was and what a fun place to be. I’m sorry to say that once again my academics weren’t up too snuff. But, I went there that year and I came back to Las Vegas that summer and there were no jobs. The test site at that time was going great guns. You have to understand that the first bomb they popped off out there was when I was in high school in 1951. They let everybody out of school to go to the bleachers to see the bomb and wear the glasses. They did that and that always stuck in my mind. What’s up there? This is a good case of me investigating that and coming up with a job. They were putting together what they called a rad-safe department, a radiological testing for the personnel out there and anything else, too. Where is radiation? It was an experimental thing. They didn’t know what they were doing. Being who I was, I would volunteer for anything. Let’s go do it. So, I got the job and moved out to the test site. I had a great time out there. The best food in the world, all you could eat. They needed somebody that could draft. I could do a little bit of that. They needed somebody who would volunteer for most anything. I bumped around at that test site. I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of houses that were going up out there. Well, that’s where I was. That was a real great experience. I met some of the brightest minds in the world out there. I was lousy in physics, but these guys were superhuman in physics. They taught me a lot. I just drank it in. They were the ones that said, don’t you dare quit school. You go back to school. It got to be a real thing. They encouraged me. I was making $16,000 a year, more money than I thought I would ever make. This was in 1953, something like that, 1954. I said why don’t I just stay out here? They said, listen, get that degree. I had messed around long enough. The University of Arizona was too close to Mexico. When I was surveying, I was taking night courses over at the newly finished Frazier Hall. Professors would fly down from Reno. Can you imagine that? I took those night courses. Then, I got up to the test site and living out there you are totally involved with what is out there because there is nothing out there. So, I worked in the labs after hours just to learn what was going on. I talked to all the scientists and physicists and just learned a lot. I really did. I made some great friends out there and I’ve always said the reason the caliber of engineering and architecture in Las Vegas is what it is today is because of the brains from all over the world that ended up out there and that’s the truth.
So, you went back to school though? You finished the summer job?
Yes, when school came around, they said you’re going to school or you’re fired. That was Bill Fairhall. The only school that I remembered that there wasn’t anything to do except to study was Stillwater, Oklahoma. There wasn’t anything there. There wasn’t an ocean, Mexico was too far away, there wasn’t a mountain to go up skiing on, there wasn’t anything. It was all flat. So, I said, I’ll go there and that was really what did it for me. It was study, study, study.
You graduated from Stillwater in what year?
Well, it was a half year. It would have been 1961. It was the tag end of 1960 before that Christmas break.
Your degree was in architecture?
Architectural engineering. The test site always had a job opened for me. Anytime you want to work, you can work. So, I didn’t stay around for the graduation ceremony.
Was that a permanent job for you? Did you stay there?
I stayed there. By that time I was married and had a kid, so I worked in town. They made sure that I had a job, but it was here in town. It was, again, with Reynolds, but it was in their structural drafting department. The way their system is, they’d have structural engineers, mechanical engineers and electrical engineers all in one big room. I would do the drafting for them. There was another fellow in there that did drafting, but I did most of it because I was a little more artistic than the engineers were. I learned a lot about all sorts of engineering. It was a great experience. It just came in through the pores. It was great. The guys were very tolerant of me. They would stop what they were doing and explain what they were doing, so when I was drawing it I could get it in my mind and make sure they got what they wanted. I worked there for a year or so and then they said, get out of here. Go get a job in an engineering office or in an architectural office. You’ve got the degree and that’s where your talent is, go for it. I walked around, looking at different offices and I ended up with Moffit and Hendricks, Architects. They had a small office, a second floor office, down on Las Vegas Boulevard now, but it was called 5th Street. It was south of Fremont on 5th Street. I worked there for a little while. They were building a new office out on San Francisco Street, which is Sahara now. I worked for them for two years. That’s where I met one of my future partners, Fred Kennedy. The guy who interviewed me was George Tate who wanted to go on his own and be his own guy and he had to replace himself and I was it. I don’t know if you’ve run into George Tate’s name or not, but he has been a prominent architect and he ended up being my partner. Both of those guys have since retired. I always vowed never to work at the same place more than 18 months because I wanted to learn how to do an office. So, after my 18 months, I got a job, came home and told my wife that I’d quit my job. It devastated her. That was Friday night. Monday morning I had a job with Jack Miller and Associates. What are they now? Let’s see, J.M.A., you’ve probably heard of them.
What year was that now?
I can tell you. It was the same year that President Kennedy was assassinated. They had just built an office over on 222 Twain. So, I worked on the two, two twain. I worked there for about 18 months. What happened was, all this time I had been doing side jobs for people and after a while my side jobs were getting so numerous. I wasn’t a licensed architect yet, but I was always starting my own business. When I was in college, I had my own business. Jack’s office was really slow. I went to him one day and I said, Jack, what I better do is, I don’t want to be a leach on you, so I’m going to do some work on my own. I’ve got my own staff. He said, okay. I said, if you need help, just give me a call and I’ll come back. In Jack’s office I met a lot of guys that became architects and today still are, some of them. Well, Bill Fairhall, my old boss from the test site had come to Las Vegas and he had Fairhall and Associates. He said he needed an architect and I wasn’t an architect, but I had the training. I said, okay, I’ll go with you Bill. He had come from being out at the test site, he was the head guy at Oakridge, Tennessee. He was a big gun back there. At this test site, he came in with Kerr McGee to set the test site up. He was a very prominent engineer in military circles. He had a lot of contracts with the Air Force that were secret. What I did there was, he’d say, Welles we’re going to take a trip in the morning. We’d fly to someplace and he’d say you just go out there and do whatever you have to do because we’re going to put a building there. I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d come back and then there were always these guys that would fly into town and come up and we had a lock-down office where, once you got in there’ you didn’t get out until quitting time. You remember the Gary Francis Powers? Okay, the U-2 started out of Watertown or Area 51 at the test site. Okay, that’s for a start. North Edwards, Edwards Air Force Base, had a smaller base called North Edwards. Part of my job was to fly over there and recondition it so the U-2 could fly in there. Then, there’s another airfield called Beal up in Northern California so that was a triad. I would go up there. What I did up there was these laboratories, scientific buildings, labs testing this and that. I did a lot of ready rooms. I had a clearance for the test site and that’s why I could move around pretty good. They’d take me in there and I would do my thing and I’d come back and we’d draw it up and they’d go build it. They’d say you go out there and take a look at it and see if that’s what’s supposed to be done. They were all Air Force people and probably engineer trained. They didn’t know anything about bricks and sticks and stuff like that. That was my turf. That was interesting. We did the biggest hanger in the world, at the time, on Okinawa. Interesting thing, when you do those overseas things, they have nothing over there, so you have to package, on a ship, how you are going to unload it so that the forms get there for the concrete and on and on. That was a learning experience. I enjoyed that. So, it wasn’t all just straight architecture. Let’s see, we built Fair Hall. I wanted to break loose, so I asked him if I could and he said, yes, go get some other work. I went out to the school district and they asked if I wanted to interview for a job and I said sure. Filled out the application and then Bill, for some reason, didn’t want to get involved with that type of activity and so I said, I’m out of here. Elmo Bruener was an architect here in Las Vegas and he was a graduate from Okie State and had some work to do. It was for St. Anne’s Catholic Church over there on Maryland Parkway, the rectory. Elmo told the powers that be that I could do that job. I wasn’t licensed yet. I guess I was getting licensed, though. That was 1966. I remember that. So, that was the first job that I did for Elmo. That’s where I met Wing Fong and Harry Polk, another developer. Alpine Village was a really nice restaurant here in Las Vegas. It was very unique. Hershel Everton was the guy who owned it. He built the Alpine Village on North 5th Street just as it breaks over the hill and moved out to build another one. Well, that’s where Elmo had his office and all these characters in Las Vegas, developers and one thing and another, like Wing Fong and Harry Polk would drop by just to shoot the breeze. Well, I’m learning a lot. It was really interesting listening to those guys and they were years ahead of me in how you develop something. That was the area I was going into. I worked for Elmo for a little bit and he wanted to have a partnership, but he didn’t want to sign anything. It was just sort of a let’s get together thing. My work got a little heavy and I remember Fred Kennedy back over at Moffit and Hendricks and I asked Fred if he wanted to come in with me. You can work at nights for me for a while. After a little while I said, I can’t promise you anything, but we got too much work. How about coming over full-time. He said, done deal. He was a risk taker. I couldn’t promise him a thing. Fred and I just worked day and night, trying to do our thing. Sure enough, here’s a school job. There’s a story on the presentation of the school job that’s kind of funny. Also, out at the test site they gave me a job out there. It just started coming in. Fred and I were together for a little while and I told Elmo that we needed a bigger space because we were operating out of a very small space. So, I said, maybe we ought to just go our separate ways. He said okay. He could understand that. Fred and I want over to an office on Industrial Road behind the Stardust Hotel and as soon as we got over there, we got some City work. We got a reputation with the contractors that if they wanted something, we could draw it up for them. Fred was drawing on his background. His father was a masonry contractor and he had a lot of contacts there. I developed a lot through metal buildings. I had just gotten into metal building somehow. Oh, through Bill Fairhall, because there was a lot of metal building work there. He had the contractors lined up, giving us work. Nothing big, but it was enough to survive. Then, Fred and I built our first building in 1972 and moved into that. It was over off of San Francisco Street, which is Sahara now. About that time there was George Tate, you remember that name, and Tom Dubrusky had a firm and, for some reason, they wanted to split up. George was sort of at sea with himself with what to do and I said, hey, why don’t you come over with Fred and me. We have more work than we can handle. So, he came over. We landed such things as the big addition to the Memorial Hospital. It was the County Hospital then, the North Town Slammer, which was the jailhouse in North Las Vegas, and more school work. That’s when we got the ABC Schools.
Talk about the ABC Schools again, please.
Okay, how that came to pass was at the time the local architects were side-stepped by the school district and the school district was very impressed with out-of-state architects like Blue Rock, like Schaeffer, Edwards Daniels and the list goes on. The local architects were just floundering. Edwards Daniels did high schools. Blue Rock did the Vo-Tech schools and Schaeffer did the elementary schools. Then, come to find out when they go to build one of those things the out-of-state architects fell apart. Nobody was here to tend the store. The school district asked us to make a deal with the out-of-towners. Zick and Sharp got the middle schools, George Tate got the high schools and I got the elementary schools. After awhile, it got to where the out-of-towners weren’t doing anything, so we just bought them out of their contracts. That’s how the ABC Schools got started. They were a tilt up school and we cast ABC on one side of the entry and 123 on the other side of the entry. They were a very good school at the time.
Is this something you could replicate pretty readily anywhere in town.
Yes. The high schools were a prototype. Middle schools were the round buildings like Cannon Middle School out here and the ABC schools were all prototypes. You had the three prototypes. It was just site adaptation. It worked out very well for both the school district and the architects.
How quickly could you put one of those buildings up?
Well, let’s see. Our first one, the cost was about $850,000. We had to get all of the approvals from the various agencies. It would take somewhere between six months and nine months before you could break ground because you have to have a lot of engineering on each site. The school stays the same and the foundation changes from the slab down because you might have water or you might have poor soil or you might have rocks, you never know. Those things take time.
You said at one point earlier that you had married. How did you meet Mrs. Welles and how did you decide to put your fortunes together?
Back there in Oklahoma, I was very sports minded and there was football, basketball, wrestling, track and I went to all of them. In fact, my buddy and I had an apartment right across from the stadium there. Of course, being college guys, we all wanted dates. There was this good looking girl that I’d been spying and I asked her out. So, she accepted and we went out and we got to talking and I found out that back in Oklahoma, those women are very single-minded. She just asked me if I was rich and did I have any money. I said, heck, no. That sort of ended that date. I noticed her in the Student Union, which was a great Student Union. She had this good-looking older girlfriend. [She said] That’s my cousin Janeen. I wondered if she would like to go to the football game with me. Well, that worked out and we went to the football game and she was sports-minded. We went to everything. The thing that I liked best was that she would invite me out to dinner and I was broke. I was a poor boy. She knew how to get to me. Anyway, one time her mother was in the hospital and she said that she had to get home and I don’t know how to get home. Will you take me home? I said, sure. That sort of drug me into the family atmosphere. It went from there to one day I was sitting on a couch in her family room and she said, we’re getting married. I said, really? I thought she was kidding and she wasn’t kidding. So, we got married.
This was what year now?
I think it was 1959, June 1, 1959.
Did you all have children?
Not at that time. Yes, those girls from the Midwest know how to be mamas. I can tell you that. We have Rene. She’s 42 now. Daughter #2 is Desiree who would have been 40 last month. She passed away two months ago. Then our son is 33. His name is David Curtis.
What kind of work are they doing now?
Rene and her husband and the two grandkids live in Truckee, California and she’s a speech pathologist. She is married to an architect of all things. They were going to school up in Reno where they met. She’d bring him home every once in a while. He got to talking to me. He’s a graduate from Purdue in industrial engineering and didn’t particularly care for it so he saw what I did in architecture and he just fell into it.. Now he’s got a whale of a practice up there. She’s with the school district, the Truckee School District.
Is David local?
Yes. He’s just across the way. He’s into security, hotel security.
This is the continuation of the interview with David F. Welles. It’s March 27, 2002. Mr. Welles, I wonder if you could talk a little bit further about your professional career and particularly reference the construction of Lied Library at UNLV.
Of course, we are always interested in high profile projects. The school district had some huge projects, not project individuals but the size of the bond issues. We were into that pretty heavy. We had done some work out at the University and the State was after someone to do a study of all state libraries throughout the State including UNLV. We got the commission to do that. We put a team together to do that study. A year or so after the study, we heard that they were seriously talking about a major building on the UNLV campus. We put in for that. We were very interested in doing that project. The trouble was, we didn’t have large library experience. We had small library experience. It was local. I had done several of those libraries. We teamed up with Leo Daly out of Omaha, Nebraska who had done a number of major libraries on campuses throughout the United States. With the Daly group, we hired them to go in with us as a team and we were able to be commissioned for the Lied Library. At the time, it wasn’t the Lied Library. They were still talking to the powers that be, to get money for that. So, we did a study on the Lied Library, which evolved into, part way through the plans, the design of it. We worked with the University and we worked with the State; we worked with other library consultants; we worked with Leo Daly. The Daly people, we had them do the lead on the programming of the library so that there is a programming document that was approved by everyone. From there, we did the design and the project documents and plans, specifications and so forth. It took about two years to get all the approvals because it is an unusual building. It had a large atrium in it, so we had to hire some people who could do some atrium type design for air conditioning. The big problem there is the fire protection. It was bid and prior to bidding we had signed, unfortunately, a contract to monitor the construction. It was a minimum contract because the State was very interested in it. They were the ones who picked up the slack and they were going to do it. Well, the University said, we doubt it. We said, okay guys, if you need us to become more active we will. We did and, unfortunately, we got the low bid contract. It was a struggle, but we are on the other side of the struggle. We still have loose ends out there, but it has become an internationally renowned library. We have visitors flown all the way from Europe to see the thing. We have some unique materials. There is this zinc and lead material plating on the building, which was never before used in the United States. It was used on the Paris Airport. We flew over to check out these materials. We, with the State, during the design process and the University visited several libraries in the United States. Then, Pugsley and I on our own took off to see various aspects of library science these days. Tom Finley, who is the library guru for Leo Daly, helped a lot. He was the backbone of the study. He knew what he was doing and it really worked out to be a good program. We also got interested in a computer system over there, a retrieval system. There was one up in Northridge. We went up there and visited that one. During the earthquake up there we were very concerned about it. That was the only thing on the whole campus that still worked, that doggone retrieval system. I go over there (to UNLV) every once in a while just to sit and listen to comments. Of course, the library is just chuck full of computers and the kids really think that that is wonderful. You talk about quiet. They are all so intense on those computers. We have little seating areas designed around there and I’ll intentionally go over and sit down and start talking. How’s it going? How does this feel to you? Oh, we really like it. This is wonderful, yak, yak. We get calls from all over the world to come and see the library. Can we visit you? Can we talk to you, Mr. Architect? We had a group from the Netherlands asking if we would do one for them over there. We backed off of that because that’s too far away and a whole different program. We turned them on to Leo Daly. Let them do it. They’re international and we’re not.
How was it that you lit upon or decided on this soaring design? It almost looks like a wing in some ways. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before.
Well, what we did with the Daly group is that we had these workshops. The problem is, we had such strong sun out here that we faced exposure to the East. We had to break the exposure up some way. So, we put the counter eyebrow out there. We put shading fins on the East part. The electronics in the building are super. It’s just an extremely modern building. It will take care of the University for a long time. Of course, now it’s the heart of the University. What’s happening is, in the library, the kid up in Hiko has just as much right to that library as the kid here in Las Vegas. Tying in to the library’s electronic system, the kid has, maybe not an equal advantage but the same advantage of exploration of all the stuff you guys have at the library. Special collections and like that, they can come and visit, but nonetheless, you’ve got to have this center and that’s where education is going anyway. I have a friend with the University of Phoenix. I brought him into Rotary. It’s all that way. We’ll go on a trip and he’s over there with his little computer with some kid in South Africa taking a course. So, that’s what it’s all about and this library is set up for that.
The Electronic age is upon us for sure.
What we tried to do with that, researching who was the cutting edge on electronics, we planned into that library as much as we could see into the future. You can only see so much, but we left the library flexible so it can go where the electronic age takes us. In interviewing the students out there, maybe you’ve done this, just sit down with students and talk to them. Ask them, how is it working? They’ll be pretty up front. They say everything is going good if they really like it.
Did you all design the interior, the furnishings and that sort of thing?
We designed it to a point, but the interior decorator, interior designer, was Jane Fielden. She really carried it beyond where we carried it. What we did was, here’s where we want a workbench, here’s where we want a carrousel, here’s where we want this or that. Then our engineers would take the appropriate utility to that location. Now, what the desk was going to look like was up to her, but we gave her a space to put a desk. She and the library people worked out exactly what they wanted there. We made sure that the proper utility was there.
Were you folks responsible for the air handling and the conditioning and that sort of thing?
Yes, that was Petty and Associates. Throughout this whole thing because this was the largest educational facility in the State of Nevada at the time and I guess it still is, we had two sets of engineers, well, we had three sets. We had our primary engineers. We had Leo Daly’s preliminary engineers and then we had a backup system where what our engineers did would be checked by outside consultant engineers. Because of the complications of that building, it was necessary. Our guys did real good. They came out shining. Tom Kroot was the electrical engineer on it and he did great stuff. His office mate was Petty.
Considering the fact that this is a massive structure and very heavy did you have to do anything special about the underlay?
Of course, they are all special and I would say nothing out of the ordinary, just going through and doing the proper engineering on it. There’s caliche under part of it. There is water under part of it. There is sand under part of it and you have to accommodate all of those situations, but you have to do that with any building.
Any other major construction projects in the recent past that you wish to comment on?
Well, the Law School is coming. When the library moved out of the old library it vacated a little round building, done by Jim McDaniel years ago and Jack Miller did the rectangular building which was the main body of the old library. The School of Law had to have a home. Now, I don’t know if the University is still planning on taking over the bottom floor for administration, but at one time that was the plan. That’s the Law School and that’s a major remodel or refurbish. Codes have changed since those buildings were built, materials have changed, this and that have changed. So, it’s quite a mental gymnastic situation. They are going strong over there.
Maybe we could shift and talk about some Rotary issues now. You joined in 1967 and I understand you were the president in 1976-77 and you had some real interesting comments about the Rotary presidential year. It says here, just for the record, that you made it your business to work on building a closer rapport among other clubs in the Southern Nevada area as well as closer associations with the district clubs throughout Nevada and Southern California. I wondered if you could maybe talk a little bit about what your vision was for that presidential year and what steps you actually took and what the results were.
I felt like the local clubs at the time were all disjointed. There were North Las Vegas, Boulder City, Henderson, Moapa Valley and our club, the Las Vegas Club. We all had our little golf game and we had our little program here and there and I thought that was kind of a sad thing. Why don’t we all get together and do something good? So, Janeen and I started inviting them over to the house and that was once a month. We would have a little social with the presidents of all these clubs. If you showed up fine and if you didn’t, fine. We got their wives involved. It got to be quite a social thing. It was a fun thing. Then all of a sudden they said why don’t you come over to our house? So, we would meet at different houses and that got to where if there was going to be golf event, all the clubs got together and had the golf event. If it was going to be a picnic, all these clubs would get together and have the picnic. Then, I got to thinking about the district. The heavyweights in the district are on the coast. Of course, the incoming governor and the this and the that, that’s where they all came from, never Las Vegas. That kind of bothered me. I said, wait a minute, let’s band together and go down there and say, hey, we’re Rotarians too, get us involved and it worked. It wasn’t that they were trying to ignore us; it was that we weren’t there. What I was trying to do was to get a closer tie because we were one district and we acted like we were two different districts. We got to put on a district conference. We got to put on the events and pretty soon the Las Vegas clubs, we wouldn’t put it on as one club as they were used to doing. We put it on as the Las Vegas clubs. Gee, we’d take stuff from the hotels down there and pass it out. We’d have all sorts of host things going on. That really got us involved with the whole district. It was kind of a fun thing, then. It wasn’t, oh you guys are from way over there in the desert. It almost looked like we were the pushers in the district and not them.
Were you successful in getting some of our people elected to office?
Oh, yes. Shortly after that one of the incoming governors, I think, passed away. Right off the bat I got a phone call. I don’t even know if I was president then or not, but anyway, they knew I was the instigator down here. Would I see about getting one of the guys out of Southern Nevada to be district governor? I said I’ll try. That’s quite a commitment. I wasn’t able to because everybody had their own thing at the time, but the point was that the opportunity was there and it had never been there before. Fortunately, committee heads were appointed from this area on a district level and there was a turnabout. We had a convention here. It was a case of all the clubs in Southern Nevada getting together and having more influence on the district. Not that that is what Rotary is all about, but being half way a rebel, I enjoyed it.
Does this relationship continue? How do you view the situation in 2002?
Well, what happened at that same time, nothing to do with me, Las Vegas was just absolutely growing out of its mind and then all of a sudden you got Joe Buckley as governor. Ken Miller becomes governor. Don Aiken becomes governor and mainstays like Dr. Hal Boyer, a mainstay in the background, strong Rotarian, he came into a committee chair and others like Hal where before they hadn’t been. Now, that’s not to take anything away from the guys on the coast, but it was just that we weren’t there. It was our own fault that we were over here fiddling around in the desert and they were down there making decisions without us. I don’t know if that has anything to do with how things are run today, but for a few years thereafter we had quite a thing going. But now, with our population base and all the clubs that are out here, we’re on equal footing. I think everybody is getting what they want out of Rotary; the fact that they can work on these different committees. In fact, we’re called all the time to work on committees.
Also, during 1975, 1976, the 25 Club was created. I wonder if you could talk about the purpose of that organization and your view on the contributions to the life of the Las Vegas Rotary Club that it has made?
One day I was sitting at a table with a group of Rotarians and they were talking about who had the latest heart attack and bypass. So, it got to be a humorous discussion on the fact that if you didn’t have at least one bypass, why are you in Rotary? At that same time, we were quite cliquish, annoyingly so. The then president Don Ashworth and I got together and said this is terrible. If I’m a new Rotarian and I sit at a table and the conversation stops, that’s horrible. After a few of those times, you say why do I want to be a Rotarian? So, I’ll get out of here. Don and I figured out, why don’t we have a club within a club. We were a club of about 220 members and it was very hard to get acquainted. Why don’t we take the last 25 members and have them do social events and activities so that they would have an influence base or power base. Because when they get in the old club, and I mean old, that they would have people they knew. We started that and, at first, it was sort of a grind and they got into it and if you got a new member, the oldest 25 Club member got booted out. It’s not that way any more. It’s evolved into something else, but that’s how it got started. It was so that guys could have an acquaintance base or nucleus from which to operate. It has evolved into something else and I don’t know exactly how it works now, but you have to have points or something to get in. That’s how that got started and that’s who started it, Don Ashworth.
The year after your presidential year, the history says that the club collected funds to purchase books for the Clark County Public Libraries and I was wondering if you could talk about the setting? What was it that generated that situation and what was the outcome that the club was able to achieve?
Actually, I wasn’t involved with that at all and I don’t know too much about it. I know our president will take on certain things that he wants to do. Jim Cory was president and that was probably one of his pet projects.
It says here also that you all set up the first County-wide picnic which was held at Sunset Park and that the Las Vegas Club hosted the other clubs. Was this part of the let’s get together thing?
Yes, let’s get together and do things as a group. What happened was, actually Burt Purdue was in on that with me. Burt and I traveled to every club in Southern Nevada, encouraging them to participate and what our idea was to once a year have all Rotarians and Rotary family members get together in this big picnic. That was our vision. I think we held it for two years and then North Las Vegas wanted to do it and from there somewhere it fell apart. I don’t know what happened. I always thought it would be a good idea. Rotarians ought to know who Rotarians are in other clubs. Let’s get together and meet each other.
Apparently, at about the same time then, you all put together a memorial or a plaque for Maxwell Kelch, who had been very active not only in Rotary, but also in the Boy Scouts. He was quite an outdoorsman, avid outdoorsman. In fact, you’ve got that Kelch Reservoir named for him. Yes, that was another project. I wasn’t involved in that one.
I’m a little vague on this, but I understand for a long time you all used to have debunking parties at somebody’s ranch or at somebody’s home. What was that all about?
I’ll tell you about that and then I’ll tell you about the four-way speech contest. To get rid of the president, you build up to a debunking party and I think it’s in June or July and it used to be out at the Crockett Ranch which was out on Bermuda on the other side of the airport. It was Katie Crockett’s parents and they were very kind to let us have a debunking party up there. It was always quite a social affair. You could brings guest and your family. They had quite an entertaining program and they gift you with a book of your Rotary year and they always give you some kind of remembrance. That’s where you turn the gavel over to the new president and then he introduces his group. It has been out at the Silk Purse Ranch the last few years. I understand the Silk Purse Ranch just got sold. I read it in the paper this morning or yesterday and so I don’t know where it’s going to be now. Dr. Fahdi had a social out at his house and he may be planning to have it. I don’t know where it’s going to be, but that’s a ritual in Rotary that you always debunk the old president, get rid of the guy. They usually tell something about his life story and various incidences that happened during his year and things like that. It’s a very satisfying program. I really enjoyed mine.
Did you keep a copy of the presentation that was made when you left office?
Oh, I’ve got all that stuff. Yes, they give it to you.
Now, you said you were going to talk about the four-way speech contest.
Alright, I’ll tell you about the four-way speech contest. I volunteered, I guess I was out of the room, for the four-way speech contest which is, in my mind, one of the biggest things in Rotary for young people. Rotary is for scholastic abilities in young people and promoting those capabilities. There are very stringent rules for the four-way speech contest. I came home and told my wife that we were doing the four-way speech contest. I volunteered her and for about six or seven years we ran it and it was a pretty good thing. We had about 13 different high schools that participated. She (Janeen) would chase speech classes at each high school and see what students were available. There might be two or three students from each one. We had several levels for the speech contest. It really got to be an event and it was a lot of fun.
Is that still going on today?
It is, although we are not doing it any more.
Had it been in existence when you took it over or were you the one’s that actually started it?
Yes, before me there was Ken Miller and before him there was someone else. It’s always been there. I really liked to promote it. I thought it was great. Can you imagine a kid, 16 or 17 years old getting up in front of that ugly bunch of people. Now, we were out at the hotels on the big stage and all the drama and everything and here’s this poor kid up there with all of these grumpy looking people out in the audience. Why, it would have scared me to death.
Mr. Welles, could you talk a little bit more about your Rotary interaction in 1976 and 1977. The district governor whose last name was Liphold, what interactions did you all have with him? He was from Pasadena Sunrise.
Well, he was very open to our involvement in all levels of the Rotary and he worked very well with us and he’s been a friend for years. When we’d go to district conferences, he was always there. He said that was his family and I don’t know if he lives in this district any more or not, but we haven’t seen him in 10 years. Before then, he was a fixture at all the district conferences. He was a real nice person and so was his wife. That’s about all I know about him.
In looking back on Rotary for 40 years now yourself, could you give me some feeling of your view of the overall influence that the Las Vegas Rotary Club and Rotary in general have had in Las Vegas in building of this metropolis.
Well, when I was first in Rotary, if you needed to get something done in this valley you could get it done through Rotary. I’ll never forget the time we were having a four-way speech contest that interfered with the State speech contest and we had some of the same participants and they had to leave that morning on the bus. So, that was a real problem. The kids wanted to get up to Reno where they were having the State contest and we wanted them to be at our Rotary Club for the Southern Nevada contest. At the time, the powers that be said, hey, not a problem. We’ll get the sheriff to escort them to the bus and he did. After the speech contest, the kids got in the car with the sheriff and he scooted them on out on the old Reno highway. He chased the bus down. The bus driver knew what was going to happen. He pulled them over and the kids got up to State. We could do things like that. If you wanted to do something, you could get it done. People were very community minded then. I think, to a certain degree, that is still possible, but with the influx of population we have been diluted. I think a couple of things. People that come here may be here for only two years. They are the head of a department store for two years and then they go somewhere else. The community roots aren’t there. I think that we’ve lost something there. On the other hand, I’ve noticed in our Rotary Club we are getting a caliber of young people that is just super. Our president, my hat’s off to that guy. He has upped the level of Rotary way beyond what I had expected. I thought Rotary was going down hill, but the last few years I’m meeting the new members and they are very substantial people. I’ve got a lot of faith that Rotary has come back. We were real concerned with it for a while because the corporate person coming in wasn’t really that interested in Rotary. He just joined Rotary to be joining something, I guess. The people that are coming in there now are really interested in community. They car community minded and they are doing good things. I’m glad to be a member of that club.
How many clubs did you all actually spin off over the years? I’m sure you must have helped start a bunch of them.
The Paradise Club, Southwest Club, Moapa Club. The clubs spun off from us and then a club spins off from that club. So, I don’t really know who else is out there, but those are the ones that I remember.
Women were admitted in Rotary in 1987 and we have in our district the first official woman Rotarian, a woman named Sylvia Whitlock who is over in the Duarte Club in California. When did women begin to participate in the Las Vegas Club?
I don’t know the year, but I think that Jane Fielden was the first woman here in Southern Nevada. She has since dropped out. It was a strange thing. There was a big uproar against it, but such substantial women have come in that they have really been a benefit to Rotary. I’m in other clubs and other associations and we’re finding that our world is changing, and the women are really picking up the slack sometimes where the guys have sloughed it off. There are some hard-core feelings there, but I think they are all by the boards now. I think they left five years ago.
At the time, though, there was a little controversy about it?
Oh, yes. Guys dropped out. The thing is, what’s Rotary about? Men or women? Or is it about a little bit higher philosophy? You have to keep your eye on the ball and quit being distracted with these side issues. What about different races of people? Are we against them? What about tall guys, short guys, are we against them or is it the Rotary philosophy that we are supposed to be in there about?
Speaking of race relations, you were here in the late 60s and 70s when I understand there was a little bit of upset. What actually happened in Las Vegas and how was it handled?
Well, you want to go back further than that? Let’s go back to football days. I had buddies in what you call the Westside at the time. It was about Bonanza and D or F Street or one of those in there. That was the old Las Vegas. That was where my buddies were. So, I didn’t feel there was any racial prejudice. In fact, the spiker on the railroad with me, he was a big old Mexican guy. We were best buddies. He was the only guy who had the rhythm that I could keep up with. In football, there was George Anamoto, one of the top halfbacks we had on the football team. Let’s see, Jerry Hogard and he switched his name to David, Jerry and I were good friends in high school. I didn’t feel there was any racial animosity whatsoever. Now, I know there was because out on the strip you had situations where Sammy Davis couldn’t stay in any of the hotels. He could perform there, but he had to go live with a family on the Westside. In my level, there really wasn’t any of that that I knew of. The first time, when I went to Oklahoma, I found out about racial prejudice, but not here. Then, in the time you’re talking about, yes, there were a few marches up and down the strip, but I think it was mostly just show, just somebody out there trying to do a political something or other. We never paid any attention to it. That was the strip. It was never talked about that I can remember socially in any of our social events. I think that was outside people coming in here trying to change something and I don’t know what the something was.
I know the Las Vegas Rotary Club has been very active in community projects. You’ve mentioned several like four-way speech test and contributions to the libraries. What other major activities has the club sponsored and been involved in during your time in the club?
One of the great ones was Bob McBride and the Santa Clothes. My wife and daughter used to always participate in that because what do I know about buying clothes for a kid? But the thing is, you got 80 to 100 kids there that really need some help and Rotarians would go to Penney’s and Penney’s would give us a break on the cost and it would be about $140.00 or $150.00 a kid. The idea is to get them good durable school clothes. I think that was one of our greatest ones because here come these kids, it’s a real tearjerker, you find out about the kid. Of course, my wife loves to shop and so did my daughter and they would take those kids out there and my wife can tell some of the funniest stories. One was about the little Hispanic girl who wanted the red party dress and the patent leather shoes and she didn’t want the school stuff. She wanted that party dress. My wife and she clashed, but it came out fine. The one about the little girl who had this raggedy sweater on and Janeen says, give it to him, he’s my husband and he’ll hold it for you. She says, I have to be real careful with my sweater because my sister may need it. The story was, they had one sweater between the two of them because this little girl was coming out to a special event she had the sweater. But anyway, it’s stories like that that just get to you. Stories like that make you proud, you feel worthy to be a Rotarian.
Las Vegas, as you said, has really grown in a colossal fashion since you came here many years ago. I’m wondering how, as a community member, you feel about the changes that have occurred? Some people are arguing that Las Vegas is a big city while others say it is still a small town in its style. What is your view on that?
Parallel to those two is that I feel like I had a great time growing up here. What a place to have a career in architecture. I just am absolutely amazed that I was able to be here during the growth of a place of, let’s say, 10 to 20 thousand people up to, what are we now, a million three now or something. What an experience. Very few architects get to live that experience. I think it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing professionally. Now, when I was a student in high school, I could walk down Fremont Street and say hi, Mr. Ronzone. He owned Ronzone’s store. Hi, Mr. Christiansen, that’s where the jewelry store was. Hi, me so-and-so and so-and-so. I knew everybody. I don’t even know what’s downtown now. I don’t know any of these people in these shops out here. It’s not my town anymore. It’s not my valley. I feel a great loss there. So, there’s a dichotomy there, an irony. But, I found that the construction industry is still a small clique and word gets out that this guy did this and this guy did that and so forth. That is still there, but as far as walking downtown, I don’t know a soul. We are so diluted with newcomers. Now, is that good or bad? I don’t know. The irony is, let’s just pick on the school district for a minute. The school district is doing a fabulous, wonderful job. People don’t realize it. The school district won’t tell anybody that. It’s one of the greatest secrets in the valley, but they are. They are one of the most sophisticated school districts I’ve ever been involved in. I’ve been involved in a few of them. They are doing a great job. They have 16,000 new students every year. That’s a heck of a lot of kids and they are housing them. Then here come all the people coming in from outside and they didn’t like their school district back there, but when they get here, they condemn our school district and say you ought to do it the way we did it back there. So, you’ve got 40 different ideas on how to do it. I don’t see how the poor guys on the school board survive. The politicians, I’ll stick up for them, too. I’ve never seen a place where the politicians are boom oriented. They are doing a great job. Of course, there is controversy. That’s called democracy.
How about the issue, you’re talking about government service and so forth? To what extent is the presence of the various levels of government felt here and obvious here? I’m thinking about both the city, the county, the state and the federal and how they play into the Las Vegas picture.
Of course, Southern Nevada rules the state. Northern Nevada does to an extent, but we really rule the State down here. If you’ll notice, Governor Kenny Guinn was superintendent of schools. He’s real tight with our County Commission. Politically, he’s very tied to Southern Nevada. Bob Miller, the preceding governor, he’s a Las Vegas kid and very tight with Southern Nevada. Dickey Bryan, real tight with Southern Nevada. He grew up here. The thing is, this is the power base. Who’s going to be our next governor? It will be Kenny again, but where are they looking to find somebody to buck Kenny? Is it Jan Jones? No, she doesn’t want to do it. Is it somebody from up North? Nobody knows them. This is the power base. I think they ought to move the capital down here somewhere. The whole point is, it used to be, when I was a kid, that Reno ruled the roost. I know that we were always North and South then. We’re still North and South. Politically we are arguing. At the University, you guys are fighting Reno all the time. I don’t know what Reno’s growth is. Your growth [at UNLV] has got to be outstanding. It has to be way beyond what you dreamed of and you come from communities that are stabilized, I’m sure and when you come out here it is a whole different ballgame. So, I think politically, our politicians work very well with the city politicians and the county politicians and the State politicians. Yes, they’re going to squabble because they are all bureaucracies, but in the main they are all from the same school. You might say that that is old-boyism, well, so what? It’s being done properly. For what we are, I mean we could just be blown apart in this whole valley if we didn’t have people with vision. You hear Oscar Goodman popping off, now he’s just popping off. He is a very sound minded guy. He knows what he’s doing. You couldn’t have had a better mayor. What a scoundrel! I love it.
Senator Reid is from right around here, is he not?
Yes, Searchlight. He’s a crony of O’Callahan, who was governor. In fact, O’Callahan taught him in school out at Basic High. What would happen is, Harry would have to ride the bus in because they didn’t have a high school out there. Mike was a teacher before he became governor. It’s all a tight situation. Northern Nevada is in that also. They really are. It’s not just Southern Nevada. I like it. If I want to, I can call up the governor. We are a small State. If you want to, you can call up the governor.
Of course, our biggest industry here still is gaming. I guess construction is number two. How have the attitudes about gambling and gaming changed in the last 30 or 40 years as you’ve observed it?
Let me tell you. Of course, it’s all corporate now. I think it’s crazy out on the strip. Everybody likes to gamble. When we were kids, if the gamers on the strip, the hotel people, knew we were coming out to see a show, let’s say a junior prom or something like that, we were treated like kings and queens. They just bent over backwards for us. Kids were the name of the game and you’d sit up front. Everything was comped. It was great. It was a wonderful thing. It’s not like that any more, I’m sure. In fact, they try to keep the kids off the strip. Go do something else. It’s just a big business now where it was kind of like a little family business before. They seemed to care more about their community. Now, they don’t care if you’re from Las Vegas. They hope you’re from Hawaii and are a big spender or something. But, on the other hand, look at the stuff that’s out there on the strip, some very exciting structures. Of course, it’s the only place in the world that you can do this.
Did your firm get involved with the construction of the convention center?
No, I tried to stay away from strip stuff and convention type stuff. I dabbled in it in my early career, but schools, libraries, churches, office buildings, that’s my bag.
Now, which churches did you all build?
Lot’s of Mormon churches, LDS. That’s mainly it. I’m not LDS, but…
They like your work.
I guess so. Now, Dave is know as the Mormon architect in the valley. He does more churches than anybody else.
We have some beautiful structures here.
He works well and he is LDS and strong into the church, so that’s good.
I’m wondering if there are other topics that I have failed to cover that we need to bore in on. I’ve asked about everything I can think of, that I believe would be helpful. Are there any other things that you would like to speak of while we’re on the record here?
Of course, I could go on and on, but I think that’s pretty well it. Are you aware that I did the hotel administration building out there on the campus?
No, I didn’t know that. What year did that go up?
Here’s the study on it.
This was a while back, I take it.
Let’s see, that was in 1980, 1979 and 82, 3, something like that. This is a picture of John S. Park School, one of the first buildings out there.
Is it still in existence?
Yes, they’ve modified it. There is one thing that I would like to say. My sister, who is deceased, was one of the very few, I think it was 1961, 62, she was a rodeo queen.
Tell me about Helldorado. I don’t know much about it except that it occurred.
Old Jim Cashman, Cashman Cadillac, was a real promoter in the Elks. He was an Elk. They decided one year, let’s have a rodeo. This was back in the mid 30s. I don’t know the exact year. That was a big deal I’ll tell you. When I was growing up, Helldorado was a big deal. That’s when the circus came to town and that’s when all the rides were there and on and on and on. Everybody in Rotary always had a , where the heck is it, I’ve got a picture of the Rotary, how they were doing their Rotary float. It was something. The hotels had fabulous floats. There was one that had a glass swimming pool with the girls diving in and all that stuff. Bands from Ely. Ely had a tremendous band, Henderson, Las Vegas, Boulder City, we’d all have our bands going. It was quite a thing. Of course, it got out of hand. It got too big and everybody quit. I don’t know what’s going on now.
This was a one day event or did it go on for the whole weekend?
It would be, I think it would start on something like Tuesday or Wednesday and run through Sunday when they’d have a beauty contest and rodeos and on and on. It was just a big social thing for this community. A few of those Elks got together and then the Jaycee’s put it on for years and years. They did a great job.
One of the things that we did not cover had to do with recreation and how people spent their leisure time.
They would go to such places as Red Rock, Mt. Charleston, Valley of Fire, frog gigging up in Moapa. Let’s see, let’s take Red Rock before it became the Red Rock as we know it today. Let’s go back 50 years ago. I enjoyed hiking a lot. The thing at Red Rock was, there were still the old line shacks that the cowboys had out there. They papered the interior with newspapers. We could catch frogs in the streams out there and if you were more adventuresome, you could climb up to the seven natural tanks up in the red rock up there, that when it rained, they would fill up and the brine shrimp would come out. When they dried up the brine shrimp would hibernate or whatever they do. That was my thing, doing the hiking. I had a little dog and we’d take up hiking. Mt. Charleston, my dad and the YMCA would take me with him when we would develop camps. There was an old CCC camp that was deserted, but still had the platforms there. Dad and I would recondition it for the kids to come up to Lee’s Canyon. I don’t know if anybody even remembers the old CCC camps or not. Anyway, I would hike up what they call the Windbreaker Peak. When the YMCA first got started, they’d go up to Cold Creek. I’ll never forget the Cold Creek. Anderson Dairy was owned by a guy named McDonald and some of the men on the board, a guy named Tonser and Tim Naler would go up and help dad create structures right on the Cold Creek. There were two creeks up there, one was Cold Creek. They would help him build a temporary something for the kids that summer. That’s what people did. There is a warm springs on the North Shore Road of Lake Mead. We’d go up there. There were warm springs over, I don’t know if it’s Peterson or not, up near Moapa that we would go up and have a picnic. The Valley of Fire, I’ve got pictures of when we’d go up there.
We want to thank you for spending the time with us, Mr. Welles and are looking forward to seeing the results of this activity when we get it transcribed.
|
|||||
Oral History Project |
|
||||