Places

Cameron M. Batjer

Places: Carson City, Smith Valley, Lyon County, Northern Nevada

The adage “once a teacher, always a teacher” best describes Justice Batjer’s life. The native Nevadan son of a pioneer family, and son of a teacher, Justice Batjer instructed people in how to live their lives through example and by embodying a fair-minded application of the rule... more

Cliff Young

Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada

Interviews with Nevada Supreme Court Justice Cliff Young were conducted during May, June, and July of 1999 at his home south of Reno. The setting is peaceful and relaxed—a ten-acre ranchette with a large pond near the front entrance and a driveway through mature shade trees. The Young ranch... more

Bruce R. Thompson

Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada

Born July 31, 1911, Bruce R. Thompson was a native Nevada son. His father taught Latin, Greek, and history at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR); his mother was a homemaker. Judge Thompson describes the family home on Reno’s Riverside Drive as one acre on the Truckee River with cows,... more

Howard D. McKibben

Places: Douglas County, Minden, Northern Nevada

Born April 1, 1940, in Virginia, Illinois, Howard McKibben lived at The Baby Fold orphanage in Normal, Illinois, until 1942, when he and his sister, Marian, were adopted by James and Bernice McKibben. Judge McKibben’s father was superintendent of schools, and his mother was an English and... more

Herbert M. Jones

Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada

Herbert Monroe Jones was born July 22, 1914 in Phillipsburg, Missouri. His father, an oil-drilling superintendent, worked for Shell Oil Company. In 1925, Mr. Jones was 11 years old when the family moved to Klulong, in Sumatra, Indonesia, a town he describes as being “carved out of the heart... more

Elmer Millard "Al" Gunderson

Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada

Elmer Millard “Al” Gunderson was born August 9, 1929 on the proverbial “wrong side of the tracks” in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A life story of never knowing an invalid father— in his own words, having met his father perhaps four times while growing up—and feeling... more

Frank W. Daykin

Frank W. Daykin, born October 28, 1920 in Cleveland, Ohio, was a Midwesterner with the soul of a classicist. He became “the editor’s editor” and, in the process, reshaped the way Nevada statutes are read.An only child, his father a surgeon and his mother a teacher of Latin and... more

Harry Eugene Claiborne

Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada

The life of Harry Eugene Claiborne had many chapters, from rural McRae, Arkansas to the neon lights of Las Vegas, Nevada. From his years as a rural farm boy who started a rabbit business at ten to a federal judgeship, imprisonment, and impeachment for tax evasion by the U. S. Senate, his was a... more

John Barrett

Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada

Judge John W. Barrett was a member of the greatest generation. Born in 1917, he lost his mother at the age of seven, grew to manhood during the Depression, and served in the U.S. Army Infantry from 1939 to 1945. Formed in the crucible, Judge Barrett’s bedrock values were duty, determination,... more

Milton Badt: Oral History

Places: Carson City, Elko, Elko County, Reno, Washoe County, Wells, Northern Nevada

Milton B. Badt, Associate Justice of the Nevada State Supreme Court, was a member of a pioneer Nevada family. His father, Morris Badt, was one of the state’s early merchants, arriving in Elko County in 1868. At Wells, in Elko County the elder Badt founded a mercantile business that expanded... more

Charlotte Hunter Arley

Places: Carson City, Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada

The year was 1947. Reno’s population was a mere 25,000, yet it boasted a total of 175 attorneys, many serving the wealthy eastern divorce trade. In this era of dude-ranch divorcees, only two other women besides Charlotte Hunter were practicing lawyers, Felice Cohen and Margaret Bailey. Little... more

Sands Hotel Implosion

Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada

Las Vegas has developed a reputation for imploding its past. Actually, the reputation is neither deserved nor unique. Other cities have blown up historic buildings whose owners or the community had decided had outlived their usefulness—Reno’s Mapes Hotel serving as an example. And Las... more

Lake Mead

Lake Mead, a man-made lake 25 miles southeast of Las Vegas and created by the completion of Hoover Dam in 1935, is the largest reservoir in the United States. Located within the 1.5 million-acre Lake Mead National Recreation Area, this enormous lake stretches along a 140-mile section of the lower... more

Sven S. Liljeblad

Places: Reno, Washoe County, Northern Nevada

Sven S. Liljeblad (1899-2000) was a prominent folklorist, linguist, and anthropologist who participated in an important chapter of Great Basin Native American studies beginning in the 1940s. Before his work in Nevada and Idaho, however, Liljeblad had already earned an international reputation for... more

Lorenzo Latimer

Lorenzo P. Latimer, a well-known Bay Area landscape painter, was a major influence on Northern Nevada artists, especially watercolorists, during the 1910s and 20s. He frequently journeyed to Nevada to teach painting classes and, in turn, his students became regular exhibitors and art instructors in... more

Morelli House: A New Architecture For A New City

Reprinted with permission from The Junior League of Las Vegas A NEW ARCHITECTURE FOR A NEW CITY In Las Vegas the past is often overlooked, forgotten, or demolished in the rush to the future. The historic Antonio and Helen Morelli house preserved by the Junior League of Las Vegas, however, is... more

Nevada Energy Overview

Nevada Utilities Help “Win the West” (This overview is the first in a series of articles about Nevada's major utilities, which helped open the Silver State to westward expansion. On September 22, 2008, Sierra Pacific Power Company and Nevada Power Company announced they would “do business” under... more

Richard Guy Walton

Richard Guy Walton arrived in Reno in 1929. He studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles and returned to Nevada to join the Federal Arts Project. He eventually set up his home and studio in Virginia City. Walton was a prolific painter and photographer. His subjects ranged widely: the... more

Robert Cole Caples

Robert Cole Caples was a legend in Northern Nevada before he left for Connecticut in 1958. An expatriate from New York City, he studied at the Art Students League and participated in the Federal Arts Project during the Great Depression. Caples worked in a variety of media including painting,... more

Stardust Hotel Implosion

Places: Clark County, Las Vegas, Southern Nevada

Las Vegas has developed a reputation for imploding its past. Actually, the reputation is neither deserved nor unique. Other cities have blown up historic buildings whose owners or the community had decided had outlived their usefulness—Reno’s Mapes Hotel serving as an example. And Las... more

Terrible Experience of the Ill-Fated Donner Party

[This is a transcription of a newspaper article from The San Francisco Call, Sunday, January 23, 1898. For a larger image of the newspaper page, please visit the Library of Congress, Chronicling America project. Also, we did not correct any errors in the original -- it is transcribed as printed... more

Donner Party. Authentic Story of Their Trip Across the Plains.

[This is a transcription of a newspaper article from The Salt Lake Herald, Sunday, May 24, 1885. For a larger image of the newspaper page, please visit the Library of Congress, Chronicling America project. Also, we did not correct the spelling errors in the original -- it is transcribed as printed... more

Pioneer Nevada Books

In the mid-1940s, Harolds Club began printing a series of newspaper advertisements containing vignettes of Nevada history, each accompanied by a large drawing. These vignettes appeared in every newspaper in the state and were enormously popular, leading to hundreds of requests for reprints. So in... more

Gerlach History

Places: Gerlach, Washoe County, Northern Nevada

The town of Gerlach sits about 100 miles northeast of Reno. More than a two-hour drive from any semblance of a city, the town has become known as an outpost for the Burning Man Festival, as well as the kind of place where residents can count on their neighbors for food and comfort.The town, along... more

Katherine Lewers

Places: Reno, Washoe County, Washoe Valley, Northern Nevada

Katherine Lewers studied at the New York School of Applied Design for Women and St. George's Art School in Glasgow, Scotland. She joined the University of Nevada faculty in Reno in 1905 and taught a variety of disciplines until her retirement in 1939. Regarded as an eccentric old maid by some,... more

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