NEVADA STATE MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY LAS VEGAS, NEVADA THE LAS VEGAS I REMEMBER INTERVIEW WITH ORAN GRAGSON Taken At KNPR Studios 5151 Boulder Highway Las Vegas, Nevada TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 2 MR. GRAGSON: I'm Oran Gragson. MR. WRIGHT: And one of the places we sort of like to start is at the beginning. We'd like to know first a little bit about the Gragson family, and then we'd like talk a little bit about how they ended up here, how you ended up here in Las Vegas. First of all, where are you from? MR. GRAGSON: My home was New Mexico. Tucumcari is where I was born. However, I had lived in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, so I was kind of a gadabout perhaps. MR. WRIGHT: What kind of business was the family in? Or what kind of work did your father do? MR. GRAGSON: My dad was a farmer. First, he was a cattle rancher in New Mexico. MR. WRIGHT: And what was it that made you decide to come out to this little railroad town in the desert, out in Las Vegas? MR. GRAGSON: Well, if you recall back in the '30s, especially in the early '30s, '32, there was quite a depression on. Employment, work of any kind was hard to come by. And Hoover Dam just appeared to be a good place to go to in the hopes of finding work, which I did. MR. WRIGHT: So what year was that that you came out? MR. GRAGSON: 1932. MR. WRIGHT: 1932. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 3 Can you give us some idea, if you remember, of your first impressions of Las Vegas. MR. GRAGSON: The first impression began at 11:00 o'clock at night. MR. WRIGHT: That's a good time to see Las Vegas, I think. MR. GRAGSON: It was. I crawled off of a freight train here at 11:00 o'clock at night. The Busy Bee Cafe was yet open. I went there and had my first meal in several days. MR. WRIGHT: Did I hear you right? You got off a freight train? MR. GRAGSON: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: You didn't come in luxury, first-class accommodations? MR. GRAGSON: No, I didn't come luxury at all. MR. WRIGHT: Busy Bee Cafe, what the heck was that? MR. GRAGSON: It was a little cafe that was on First and Fremont. And at that time a half-pound hamburger, potatoes and gravy, and coffee was 15 cents. A full pound hamburger was a quarter. MR. WRIGHT: Where did you stay? It probably took you a little while to find some work. What kind of accommodations did you have? MR. GRAGSON: My older brother was here, and he lived TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 4 down on the 1100 block down on Fremont Street. I found work the third day I was here. MR. WRIGHT: 1100 block on Fremont, that was way out of town, wasn't it? MR. GRAGSON: Oh, it was way out of town, yes. Very little shacks. MR. WRIGHT: You say you found work on your third day. I guess that was probably pretty lucky. Or were there just that many jobs to be had in Las Vegas? MR. GRAGSON: Well, no. At the employment station they had for Hoover Dam, there would probably be 40 to 50 people there every morning. And they'd put up a list of the names of who they wanted to hire, and the third day my name happened to come up. So I went to work at Hoover Dam for two weeks. MR. WRIGHT: What kind of work did you hire on for out there? MR. GRAGSON: Well, it was labor. Cleaning rocks and patching holes in the tunnel. MR. WRIGHT: It doesn't sound like very fun work. MR. GRAGSON: It wasn't. MR. WRIGHT: And it probably didn't pay a whole lot. MR. GRAGSON: Forty cents an hour. MR. WRIGHT: Was that pretty good? MR. GRAGSON: That was pretty good wages then. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 5 MR. WRIGHT: But you only worked there a couple of weeks, though. How come? MR. GRAGSON: A couple of weeks. When I had the physical, I didn't pass it, so I got laid off after the first two weeks. Then I went to work for the highway department -- not for the highway but for the highway construction company, J.C. Compton out of McMinnville, Oregon. Worked for him for three years then. MR. WRIGHT: What kind of work was that, first of all? MR. GRAGSON: Well, cat-skinner I began, then truck, just general gadabout. MR. WRIGHT: Did this take you around the state quite a bit, or were you just working mostly around here? MR. GRAGSON: Well, not too much. From Glendale to Alamo, and from Beatty to Goldfield, and from Railroad Pass to Searchlight. MR. WRIGHT: That's getting around quite a bit it sounds like. You were working on roads. MR. GRAGSON: Working on the highway, yes, roads, building them. MR. WRIGHT: This wasn't all that long ago. Tell us what the roads were like before you started working on them. MR. GRAGSON: The road to L.A. was gravel. All the roads were gravel then. And the road to Searchlight went TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 6 through that dry lake, and it was all blow-sand. MR. WRIGHT: Somebody told us -- we were interviewing somebody that came to town about the same time -- said right out in the middle of the dry lake there was a bootlegger out there. Do you remember that? MR. GRAGSON: No, I don't. I know one thing, during the construction of the dam, if you wanted to find some booze, you just look under some of the culverts, and they'd hide it before they went in. They couldn't take it into Boulder City because they had the guard gates then. MR. WRIGHT: So they wouldn't let you onto the reservation. MR. GRAGSON: Not if you had booze. MR. WRIGHT: That's one I hadn't heard before. I guess they had to stash it before they got out there. MR. GRAGSON: That's it. They stashed it under the culverts or wherever was handy where they could find it. MR. WRIGHT: I'm wondering if you could give us some kind of idea what Las Vegas was like. I know it's very hard to kind of sum it up, but something about downtown, about Fremont Street, about what the feeling and atmosphere of the town was before World War II, say. MR. GRAGSON: Well, Fremont Street actually went to Fifth Street, as far as any buildings. Then there was TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 7 residences along the street. Where Trader Bill's is was a residence, and it was paved to Fifth Street only. And the street lights was in the trees. MR. WRIGHT: In the trees? They didn't have any stop signs? MR. GRAGSON: No stop signs. No lights at all other than what they hung in the trees. MR. WRIGHT: And was Fremont the only street that was paved at that time? MR. GRAGSON: Fremont was the only street that was paved, and it was only paved to Fifth Street. MR. WRIGHT: What about that first block of Fremont Street right across from the train station? That was sort of where everything was happening, wasn't it? That was sort of the downtown of Las Vegas? MR. GRAGSON: Yes. The Overland Hotel and the Golden Gate Hotel were there. There was a saloon in the Golden Gate, which was then the Sal Sagev, Las Vegas built backwards. MR. WRIGHT: I bet a lot of people wondered about that one coming through, wondering what the Sal Sagev Hotel was all about. Did you patronize some of those establishments, especially the nightclub kinds of places? MR. GRAGSON: Patronize them, no. MR. WRIGHT: So you can't describe what they were TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 8 like outside of their facade. MR. GRAGSON: Well, at Sal Sagev in the restaurant -- a man by the name of Miller owned it. And the cafe was right by the side of the hotel, and he wouldn't permit anybody in in shorts or anybody without a shirt back in those days. And it was one of the only restaurants on Fremont Street then. MR. WRIGHT: So that was sort of the class place in town -- MR. GRAGSON: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: -- if you couldn't go in there in shorts. Wasn't there a Chinese restaurant down there, too? MR. GRAGSON: Chinese was on North First. MR. WRIGHT: And do you remember who operated that? MR. GRAGSON: Yeah, Wing Fong. It was actually Wing Fong's uncle at that time. And by the way, they lived upstairs over my store at that time. There was several Japanese. At that time the Chinese wasn't very happy here, wasn't very well received in Las Vegas. MR. WRIGHT: Oh, really. How so? MR. GRAGSON: I don't know. I couldn't understand why, but they wasn't. They all bunked up and lived in one big room above the store. MR. WRIGHT: Do you remember a place called the Barrel House which was right close by there on Fremont TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 9 Street? The reason I ask is because right next door to the Barrel House there was another cafe; I think it was called the Silver Cafe or something like that. MR. GRAGSON: Silver, that was on South First Street. North First Street, I mean. That is the one. Silver Cafe, Wing Fong's uncle owned it. MR. WRIGHT: And they're still a prominent Las Vegas family -- MR. GRAGSON: Oh, yes. MR. WRIGHT: -- with Fong's Garden and so forth. MR. GRAGSON: And I guess the uncle still owns Wing Fong's, but it's on East Charleston now. MR. WRIGHT: You say you only worked for Compton for three years, was that right? MR. GRAGSON: For who? MR. WRIGHT: For Compton working on roads. MR. GRAGSON: Back those days when they was spreading oil on the road, they didn't have the hot mix. And in the wintertime when it was cold, you couldn't mix the oil, so it was only a summertime job. MR. WRIGHT: What did you do in the wintertime, then? MR. GRAGSON: Well, I'd be a janitor, actually, in the Exchange Saloon, working for the Peccoles. MR. WRIGHT: Now, where was the Exchange? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 10 MR. GRAGSON: That was on South First Street. MR. WRIGHT: I'll be darned. But how many years was it you worked at your road job? You said three years, I believe? MR. GRAGSON: Three years, yes. Then I leased a dairy in Seminole, Oklahoma. I went back there and operated a dairy for 16 months and then came back and went to work again for Pete Peccole in the furniture store. MR. WRIGHT: So that was your first introduction to the furniture business. MR. GRAGSON: Yes, the first introduction to the furniture business. And then a little later, I opened up my own called the Little Secondhand Store. Most everything in there, well, in the beginning, was all secondhand. Then it was spread out to new and used. MR. WRIGHT: About what year might that have been? MR. GRAGSON: That was '37. MR. WRIGHT: '37, so still in the Depression. MR. GRAGSON: Yeah, still in the Depression. MR. WRIGHT: Was the town hurting pretty badly? The dam construction work was all finished. Were people still optimistic in '37, '38? MR. GRAGSON: Well, that's hard to say how optimistic it was, but I think it was probably one of the best places in the area. However, nearly all of the people who had TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 11 previously worked on the dam went back to Georgia, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, all over. So there wasn't too many of us left here that worked on the dam. MR. WRIGHT: Who were some of the prominent people around that you knew, or maybe you didn't at that stage know? MR. GRAGSON: The Beckleys were. The Hams were. Ham was the attorney. MR. WRIGHT: And Beckley was? MR. GRAGSON: Beckley had the Beckley's Clothing Store on First and Fremont. MR. WRIGHT: Where Vegas Vic is now, the big neon sign. MR. GRAGSON: Yes, where Vegas Vic is now. MR. WRIGHT: The big neon cowboy. MR. GRAGSON: And across the street was Ethel's Liquor Store. And on the other side was Sheriff Ward's grocery store. And on the other side was the Northern Casino, a gambling hall. MR. WRIGHT: That was one of the early gambling halls. Did you know who ran it at that time? MR. GRAGSON: Yes, I knew. If I can think of the name right now. MR. WRIGHT: Was that Pete Morgan? MR. GRAGSON: No. They're the ones that owned Tule Springs at that time. Darned if I can think of the name right TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 12 now. MR. WRIGHT: Was that Houssels? MR. GRAGSON: No. MR. WRIGHT: Oh, shoot. I should know that myself, and I can't come up with it. Now, one thing I want to ask you about, a little bit about the Westside. I want to come back to it later, but did you have the experience to travel around what was called the Westside, say Bonanza to Owens and west of the railroad tracks? Can you sort of describe what it was like in the 1930s? MR. GRAGSON: Fact is, I lived on the Westside. MR. WRIGHT: Oh, really? I guess you can describe it, then. MR. GRAGSON: It was just pretty much a shantytown, no pavement, no water. Fact is, Gene Ward was sheriff at one area. The candidates was Tim Payne in the Westside -- people was going to bring water over there. And I'll never forget it. Gene Ward says, "I'll deliver more water over here on the back of my burro than all of these people will." MR. WRIGHT: And did he? MR. GRAGSON: No, he didn't. Finally they did get water, though, but I thought that was pretty clever of him because he was a prospector, and he did have burros. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 13 MR. WRIGHT: I've been told that it wasn't unusual to spot a burro strolling down the street, even as late as the 1930s. MR. GRAGSON: Well, there was a few. Darn few, all the mess they were. MR. WRIGHT: Okay. So you ran the Little Secondhand Store. MR. GRAGSON: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: And I think you lived above the store. MR. GRAGSON: Lived above the store, I did. We had six rooms above the store, and we lived up there. MR. WRIGHT: And I think in the meantime you had gotten married; right? MR. GRAGSON: No. I was married then, when we opened up the store. MR. WRIGHT: Yeah, I think before you opened the store. MR. GRAGSON: Yes. I came here in '32. I got married in '34, December. MR. WRIGHT: You married a Las Vegas girl? MR. GRAGSON: No. I had to go back to Arkansas. MR. WRIGHT: And brought your new bride out to Las Vegas. Did she like it? MR. GRAGSON: No. No. MR. WRIGHT: Why not? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 14 MR. GRAGSON: Well, it was the first time she had ever been away from home, and there just wasn't too much for her to be interested in. The fact is, she told me one day, "You can stay here if you want to, but I'm going back." And I just take her by the hand, led her out on the street and pointed out some sages there -- Gene Ward's restaurant, the bank. And I says, "One of these days, I'm going to be mayor of this town." Never dreamed of it. MR. WRIGHT: Trying to think up something to keep her here, and it turned out -- MR. GRAGSON: But anyway she didn't leave. MR. WRIGHT: Great. Okay. What was the next stage in your developing career in Las Vegas from the Little Secondhand Store? MR. GRAGSON: I bought in half interest in a store with George Calsted (phonetic). Then in a couple of years, one day he told me, "I don't know why I should be giving you half of this profit. Let me buy you out." I says "Fine." So I sold out to him, and then I opened up my own furniture store. MR. WRIGHT: And what was that called? Oran Gragson's Furniture? MR. GRAGSON: Gragson Furniture. MR. WRIGHT: Gragson Furniture. And where was Gragson Furniture? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 15 MR. GRAGSON: On North Main. I still own the property there. MR. WRIGHT: About what year was that? Late 1940s? MR. GRAGSON: That was '39. MR. WRIGHT: Oh, '39, that you opened up. How Las Vegas must have changed incredibly between, say, 1941 and 1945 because of the war and various other kinds of things. Do you have any kind of feeling for that or something that can help us understand what happened to Las Vegas in those years? MR. GRAGSON: Well, one thing that happened was North First Street, the first block had cat houses. And after the war come on and the Air Force opened up taking over the airport, they put Las Vegas off base (sic) because it had the sporting houses. And they moved from there to Four Mile, operated just the same. MR. WRIGHT: Did that kind of cut into your furniture business a little bit? MR. GRAGSON: No, it didn't. Fact is, I sold more furniture out there than anyplace else for a while because they moved in those little cabins with no beds, no chests, no dressers, no nothing. So I had a pretty good business out there for a while. MR. WRIGHT: That's a great story. I'm trying to still stay on this subject for a moment of Las Vegas and how TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 16 rapidly it grew in the 1940s. This must have been a really profitable time for the town. MR. GRAGSON: Well, let me put it this way: The Hoover Dam, the Air Force, and the test site was the main projects that actually built Las Vegas due to the people coming in to work. And Hoover Dam was the first that brought the tourists into the area. So Las Vegas has had a constant growth. The fastest growth has been in the last year, but it had a constant growth all the time, building up, new people coming in. MR. WRIGHT: Something else that happened during those years, and it had long-term consequences, and I think for your political career, and that was the magnesium plant at Henderson and so many workers coming in. And many of those workers were African-American workers. Was the city open to black workers or quite the contrary? MR. GRAGSON: The city itself, no, but of course, the plant out there was. The blacks for some time wasn't very welcome in the restaurants and other places. MR. WRIGHT: And most of them ended up living on the Westside, did they not? MR. GRAGSON: In the Westside, yes. MR. WRIGHT: Those that didn't live out near the plant. MR. GRAGSON: Yes. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 17 MR. WRIGHT: Were you still living on the Westside at that point? MR. GRAGSON: No, I wasn't. MR. WRIGHT: Where? MR. GRAGSON: I only lived over there for one year and that was right on Bonanza. MR. WRIGHT: And where did you move after that? MR. GRAGSON: I bought property on North First Street. Before that, for about eight months, I lived up above the store that I opened. I had six rooms up there on North First, the 100 block, right behind Beckley's Clothing Store then, before the alley. Oh, I had a big building, 25 by 25. MR. WRIGHT: That was a big building? MR. GRAGSON: For me it is. I had to furnish it. MR. WRIGHT: So you were certainly within easy walking distance of your work. MR. GRAGSON: Easy walking distance. MR. WRIGHT: I want to get a little bit now to your political career, and it's an interesting story that you told us. You first ran for mayor in what, 1959 was it? MR. GRAGSON: '59, yes. No, wait a minute. Yeah, '59. MR. WRIGHT: You told us an interesting story about what prompted you to run for mayor and it had to do with the police department. Can you sort of tell that in as much TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 18 detail as you can? MR. GRAGSON: Some of the police officers, one in particular, not only had keys made to my store, but he had keys made to the other store. And they'd get called at 1:00 o'clock or 12:00 o'clock at night, not before 11:00, telling me they had found the store doors open, which I knew they had not. And I had televisions stolen. I had other things stolen. The police was doing it. So I went to the manager, the chief of police and explained to them what had happened. They either didn't believe me or didn't care. So that kind of teed me off, and the only way I knew I could change that would be to run for mayor. And believe me, it changed. MR. WRIGHT: There's one thing I skipped over. I want to come back to that, but I did skip over something that I wanted -- because I think it's also an interesting story, since you mentioned televisions. Television came to Las Vegas relatively late. It was in the early 1950s, and you sort of played a bit of a role in that, did you not? MR. GRAGSON: That was actually reasonably early for television. It came out then as black and white. Well, I bought a carload of televisions before there was ever even a TV station in Las Vegas. But I bought combinations; they had radio, phonograph and television. So I sold quite a lot of TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 19 them before there was ever a television station on the air. It was being built and I knew it was going because I was part owner of it at that time. MR. WRIGHT: Now, which radio station was it? MR. GRAGSON: Channel 8. MR. WRIGHT: So a lot of people were sitting around with these strange contraptions in their living room but nothing to watch on it. MR. GRAGSON: Well, nothing to watch, but the radio, and they had the record player. So they wasn't completely out. But they was there ready to receive the first television signal that come on. MR. WRIGHT: Now, this doesn't have particularly to do with Las Vegas, but I think a lot of people will be too young to remember. Can you tell us a little bit about local television? When it first came to town, what kind of programing did the TV station or stations put on? MR. GRAGSON: Well, it was able to bring in national television; however, the most of it was more or less advertising and promotion. By the way, Hank Greenspun was part owner of the station at that time. Later he bought all of us out and was the sole owner. MR. WRIGHT: And then Howard Hughes, I think, bought the station later than that, from Greenspun as I recall. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 20 Okay. I just wanted to make sure I covered that one before getting back to your mayoral race. I think it would be interesting to a lot of people to know what campaigning was like in that era. I think it's safe to say it was a different kind of political campaign than we see now. Can you tell us a little bit about how you ran and how you campaigned? MR. GRAGSON: Well, I didn't have any TV advertizing. MR. WRIGHT: Too expensive? MR. GRAGSON: Too expensive. And very little newspaper. However, the town was small then and I had an awful lot of coffee claques, we called them. This lady would open up her home and bring a half a dozen or a dozen women in, and I'd go there. And from there, those women, some of them would, "Oh, you can come to my place at a certain time. I'll have some people there." It just spread out. My campaigning was nearly all in that mode, meeting them personally in their home. MR. WRIGHT: So did you go door to door or just mostly -- MR. GRAGSON: No, I didn't go door to door other than this, because they'd invite the neighbors in. And then one of them would invite others in, so it scattered out pretty well over the city. But it was small then. MR. WRIGHT: Who were your opponents in that first race? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 21 MR. GRAGSON: Wendell Bunker, who had been on the council for ten years. MR. WRIGHT: And he had, of course, long-time family name going way back. MR. GRAGSON: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: He would have been the odds-on favored to win. MR. GRAGSON: At least the newspapers thought he would be, because one of them said if I was elected mayor, it would be the political miracle of all times. And the other one said that he had as much chance of being the first man on the moon as I did to be elected mayor. MR. WRIGHT: Was it a close race? MR. GRAGSON: I won it with the largest majority ever at that time. MR. WRIGHT: And why do you think that was? Obviously, people believed you and liked your message. MR. GRAGSON: Well, they may have. And I think what hurt my opponent the most was pointing out my speech impediment. MR. WRIGHT: That was an issue in the campaign in 1959? MR. GRAGSON: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: I'll be darned. MR. GRAGSON: And my only answer was that Dewey had TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 22 the decency not to charge Roosevelt to a foot race. MR. WRIGHT: Did you make the police department an issue in that campaign? MR. GRAGSON: I did. MR. WRIGHT: Is it fair to say that was your main issue -- MR. GRAGSON: It was. MR. WRIGHT: -- the corruption in the police department? Before I get on to your time as mayor, who were the political powers in the city at that time? Obviously, you didn't come into office with any big political debts to pay, but I'm just wondering, who were the key people politically? MR. GRAGSON: I guess you'd say the so-called political powers was the casino people, and of course, Ed Fountain and Mr. Whipple. And by the way, every commissioner that was on the board at that time campaigned for my opponent at that time because they didn't want me in there. MR. WRIGHT: Maybe they were afraid you were going to clean up a profitable little circle in the police department. So what did you do with the police department as soon as you assumed office, then? MR. GRAGSON: I didn't have to do anything. They resigned. The chief and several of the members resigned and so did the city manager. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 23 MR. WRIGHT: Was the city manager sort of involved or it was just his responsibility on his shift? MR. GRAGSON: Just his responsibility and a good friend of the police chief. MR. WRIGHT: So after that, no problems with the -- MR. GRAGSON: No problems. MR. WRIGHT: -- with the police department? MR. GRAGSON: No problems. MR. WRIGHT: How many votes did you get on the Westside in that first election? MR. GRAGSON: Less than none. Fact is, I got 19 votes out of that area. I think there was 2300 votes total over there because it was big then. No, it wasn't. There was 1900 votes over there. MR. WRIGHT: And you just got a small handful. MR. GRAGSON: Just a small handful of them. MR. WRIGHT: And were they that supportive of Wendell Bunker? MR. GRAGSON: Oh, yes. Yes. And by the way, the casinos all supported my opponent then. MR. WRIGHT: You came into office at a very crucial time not only in Las Vegas, but a crucial time in race relations throughout the nation. The sit-ins had begun and all of those kinds of things. The Supreme Court was making active rulings in the area of race relations, and yet TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 24 Las Vegas was still pretty well segregated, wasn't it? MR. GRAGSON: Oh, no question. MR. WRIGHT: And you played a very key role, I think, and a lot of people have given you credit for playing a very key role in helping Las Vegas get over that burden of segregation and racial discrimination. Can you tell us a bit about that? MR. GRAGSON: Now, they had planned on a march down Fremont Street, and it was kind of a destructive march. MR. WRIGHT: This was the NAACP? MR. GRAGSON: Yes, the black community. And some of the Black Panthers from Los Angeles was up. But the day they was supposed to do that march, I called a curfew where they couldn't cross over certain areas -- Bonanza was one, Main Street was the other, and Eastern Avenue was the other. I didn't have the authority to do it. The attorney told me I didn't have. I said, "Well, I'm going to do it anyway." And they kindly cooled off. And I met with the leaders the next day over in the Westside, and we discussed it all. And they decided to call it off, thought that they were getting just as square a deal as it was possible to give them at that time, and we had no march. But they were prepared to march, and they had Molotov cocktails made. You know what that is, don't you? MR. WRIGHT: Oh, the bottled gasoline and a flaming TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 25 rag. MR. GRAGSON: Yeah. And they called it off. They didn't march downtown at all. MR. WRIGHT: The march would have brought quite a lot of attention to Las Vegas. MR. GRAGSON: Oh, yes. The Four Queens and the Horseshoe had those air curtains. They could have throwed the cocktails right into the casinos, the hotel area. MR. WRIGHT: Who were some of the other people? I know that you attended one meeting in particular at the Moulin Rouge. I know Dr. James McMillan was one of them. MR. GRAGSON: Dr. Jim McMillan. MR. WRIGHT: Dr. West probably. MR. GRAGSON: Yes, Dr. West. MR. WRIGHT: I think some local law enforcement. MR. GRAGSON: Yes, local law enforcement. And Mr. Whipple attended the meeting with me. The leaders decided to call it off; that is, they wasn't promoting the march anyway. But through their efforts, the march was called off. MR. WRIGHT: I think Hank Greenspun played a role there, too, did he not? MR. GRAGSON: I don't know. I think he did. MR. WRIGHT: I know his newspaper gave quite a lot of coverage to that where the other newspaper -- MR. GRAGSON: Yes. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 26 MR. WRIGHT: -- didn't give quite so much coverage to it. MR. GRAGSON: But I'm quite sure that Commissioner Whipple and I was the ones that got it called off because we're the ones that met with them. MR. WRIGHT: You told us that, with regard to the Westside, as soon as you became mayor, you took a couple of rather obvious actions. One had to do with garbage collection, didn't it? MR. GRAGSON: You mentioned that. I wanted the Westside cleaned up. And the garbage disposal people said that they would pick up all trash, any and all kind, that was put out to the sidewalk or the curbs to where they could pick it up. And I don't recall, but there was truckload after truckload after truckload that the garbage company picked up. And it really made a difference in the cleaning up of the Westside and give them a little more pride. MR. WRIGHT: And the agreement that was sort of worked out there, by all reports, held up pretty well. The town did open up, as I understand. MR. GRAGSON: The town opened up without any pressure whatsoever from the mayor's office, because I think they just saw it was the right thing to do and actually good for business. MR. WRIGHT: Were there any state politicians? Was TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 27 there any pressure from -- MR. GRAGSON: No. MR. WRIGHT: -- Carson City? Carson City wasn't involved? MR. GRAGSON: No, they wasn't involved at all. MR. WRIGHT: I'll be darned. MR. GRAGSON: And the black leaders had an awful lot to do with it. MR. WRIGHT: The '40s and '50s were years that saw the arrival of a different kind of gambler to town. I'm referring specifically to some of the most notorious ones, people like Benjamin Siegel and some of the others. Did you have occasion to meet them or have business with them? What kinds of impressions did the town have of these newcomers? MR. GRAGSON: I never, as far as I recall, ever met or spoke to any of them. MR. WRIGHT: Any of the California gamblers? MR. GRAGSON: No. Now, Bugsy Siegel was in; however, he was more involved out on the Strip than he was downtown. You see, there's a difference. Sahara that way is the Strip, and most of the gaming was down in that area. MR. WRIGHT: Okay. You were mayor for how long? MR. GRAGSON: Sixteen years. MR. WRIGHT: Well, it's always been absolutely phenomenal growth, but from 1960 to 1976 must have been just TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 28 incredible. How did the town cope? How did the city government cope with that kind of rapid growth? And how did you as the mayor sort of try to deal with that? MR. GRAGSON: Well, actually, it pretty well did it on its own. We had, of course, our planning department, our engineering department. And others laid out the policies, recommended the stations and widths of the streets, the pavement, the curbs, the zoning and all. They give us their input on it. And the city council, most of the time with few changes, we was smart enough to take the expert's decision or advice rather than what we thought of our own. So you notice the streets are quite wide and other things are quite adequate in the outlying area. And I credit that to the engineering department and the planning department. But I had sense enough to follow their recommendation because they were the experts, I wasn't. MR. WRIGHT: Sixteen years is a long time to be in public office. What other kinds of issues were there? Was growth simply the major issue? Or were there other things that you had to focus on? MR. GRAGSON: Growth and zoning was actually the major interest then, especially zoning, people wanting to put certain things in certain areas where it wasn't compatible with the surrounding areas. Zoning matters was taking up quite a lot of the commission's time at that point. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 29 MR. WRIGHT: Had all of the zoning mechanisms been in place before you became mayor, or was this the period when zoning regulations were -- MR. GRAGSON: No. The planning department came into effect the year I was elected mayor. However, I'll have to tell you that the previous commission had already established the planning department. I didn't do it, but it wasn't operational until after I had come in as mayor. MR. WRIGHT: So basically, your administration then was the point from which Las Vegas sort of developed all of these planning and zoning processes. MR. GRAGSON: Yes, a more orderly development. In other words, whether the commercial zoning, the office zoning, and the residence zoning -- high-rise or multiple units -- that all come into effect then. MR. WRIGHT: Are there any key people that you would like to single out for particular credit or maybe for particular blame for events during that period? MR. GRAGSON: Well, the planning director and the engineer were the main source of information that was brought into the commission, what was proper and what wasn't. MR. WRIGHT: I think one of the problems, maybe it's a problem, but one of the things that people have pointed out about Southern Nevada is the multiplicity of jurisdictions -- the city, city governments, and county governments and so TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 30 forth. Wasn't there the beginning, during the later years of your administration, just the beginning of the sense of maybe we can merge some functions of city and county? MR. GRAGSON: Well, I recommended that, and I had some interest in it. One of the newspapers said that I was power hungry. I was trying to introduce them. But my policy was, my recommendation was at that time that the city and the county join as one. I would resign as mayor, and it would all be open for election to all of the people that was incorporated into there. But I just think the hotels outside, perhaps they couldn't have the influence over the cities they had over the county at that time, and they was opposed to it, so it didn't get on. It would have been good if it had of got on, though. MR. WRIGHT: It did come to pass in the area of law enforcement, however, and I think that was starting to happen, was it not? Or was it not while you were still mayor, the future merger of the police department and the sheriff's department? MR. GRAGSON: Oh, yeah. I was quite involved in that. And it was my recommendation because there wasn't any reason that I could see that the sheriff would control one side of Sahara and the police department the other. MR. WRIGHT: I wanted to ask you a bit, because it's such a major issue, so much talked about nowadays, the issue TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 31 of ethics in government. Are we less ethical now? Was municipal government more ethical then? Were things permissible then that people would not see as proper today? MR. GRAGSON: The only ethical question that ever happened while I was mayor had began just before I was mayor, and it was settled afterwards. It was on the borderline, that the planning director, the engineer, the right-of-way man had purchased property along the proposed right of way prior to where anybody else knew it. And I felt that was unfair competition, and they gave that up. But that was the only ethical problems I had in the 16 years in office. MR. WRIGHT: Did somebody actually try to offer you a bribe at some point through your wife or something, or am I confused? MR. GRAGSON: Yes, yes. MR. WRIGHT: Do you want to tell us a bit about that? MR. GRAGSON: Well, there isn't much to say on that. One of the commissioners said that they used to make money and they couldn't now, how would she like to meet him out in the desert somewhere and get so many dollars in $10 bills. And her answer was no, and if I thought Oran would do it, I'd divorce him tomorrow. So he didn't get very far with that. MR. WRIGHT: He didn't get very far with that one. MR. GRAGSON: No. And he even stated how they were TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 32 doing it. I won't go into that. MR. WRIGHT: Oh, come on. Not even in maybe a general sort of way? MR. GRAGSON: No. Certain ones would do for this one, certain areas would do for that, certain area to do for the architects. MR. WRIGHT: Oh, largely in the building permit process -- MR. GRAGSON: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: -- and that sort of thing. I see. MR. WRIGHT: After being a mayor for 16 years, what then? What direction did your career turn at that point? MR. GRAGSON: Well, I just turned to being an ordinary citizen. MR. WRIGHT: Well, it might be a little bit more than that. I think you've played a pretty active role since you were mayor. You've been involved in a number of organizations, haven't you, and projects? Anything you want to point to as being something that you think is something you're especially proud of? MR. GRAGSON: No. My prime concern and interest afterwards was my association with the Valley Hospital as chairman of the board. I served on that board for 26 years, so I had that interest there. But I wasn't involved in any of the planning after that. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 33 MR. WRIGHT: In your years in Las Vegas, were you part of any of the clubs, like Elks or Moose? MR. GRAGSON: I was Elks and the Eagles and the Masons. MR. WRIGHT: And the Masons. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about those, particularly the Elks. The Elks have been, over the years, very central to Las Vegas' growth, haven't they? MR. GRAGSON: Yes, they have. And they were the total sponsors of the Elks Helldorado which, in the beginning, the Elks parade was almost like the Rose Parade in California. But I guess we've got a little too large for it. And at the Elks parade, everybody from the whole county went to the Elks Helldorado. Had the rodeo at the same time. Coming to Las Vegas, you'd see people from all areas -- Searchlight, Goodsprings, Mesquite, Overton -- ride into the Elks Helldorado parade and rodeo. MR. WRIGHT: Had quite a few country western stars become associated with that? MR. GRAGSON: Yes, there were. MR. WRIGHT: You want to name two or three of them? MR. GRAGSON: Well, Roy Rogers was one. Fact is, he was the prime one at that time. And I don't just recall the names of the others. MR. WRIGHT: There's a gentleman from Searchlight TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 34 that I'm sure you knew. MR. GRAGSON: Yes, Rex Bell. Of course, he was down on Fremont Street in the Rex Bell Clothing. By the way, my son used to baby-sit the Rex Bell boys. MR. WRIGHT: Including Rex Bell, Jr.? MR. GRAGSON: Yeah, including Rex Bell, Jr. MR. WRIGHT: I'll be darned. Anything you'd like to say about the Eagles and anything you've been involved with there that the Eagles have -- MR. GRAGSON: Well, the Eagles is an organization really primarily designed to help each other. And believe me, they do. For instance, my first run for mayor, the Eagles paraded up and down the streets with their banners when the papers thought it would be the political miracle of all times if I was elected mayor, and all of that helped. MR. WRIGHT: So part of your success was due to your Eagle affiliation. MR. GRAGSON: Yes, affiliation with the Eagles. And the Friends of Youth at that time, that was an organization we formed to provide recreation and other things to the underprivileged kids. And by the way, I was the first president of that. MR. WRIGHT: So not quite just an ordinary citizen in TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 35 the last 20 some years. Any words of wisdom for modern Las Vegas? Are we still talking about the same issues, growth versus no growth? MR. GRAGSON: Well, I see now that they're talking considerable about growth control. My judgment is they just as well forget it because the economic situation will take care of all of that. I think we've got at the national level, the city level, and every level, perhaps too much government control now. And I think if private industry, private people can handle it, it will be better off than government involvement. MR. WRIGHT: There was one other question I was going to get to in an earlier context, and I forgot to ask about it. But going back to your first election as mayor in 1959, and you got a tiny number of votes from the Westside, what about the second election? MR. GRAGSON: I got 87 percent. MR. WRIGHT: So that four-year difference had completely changed your political career. MR. GRAGSON: And I didn't do a thing for them I didn't do for the rest of the community. MR. WRIGHT: What am I leaving out? What haven't I asked you about that you really want people to understand about Las Vegas? Remember, so many people are new to Las Vegas and will have little or no idea about what Las Vegas TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 36 is all about. What kinds of things haven't I asked that would help people to sort of understand what Las Vegas is all about? MR. GRAGSON: Well, all that I could really say, that Las Vegas is a lot different than what the tourists think it was, what the nation as a whole thinks it is. And new people that come in, in my judgment, it's easier for them to come in and mix and get acquainted and become a part of the activities of the community right off because that's just the nature of Las Vegas. It's open in almost every area -- the gaming, the schools, the churches, the organizations. It's open to any and all. And in my judgment it shows. MR. WRIGHT: Yeah. We've interviewed, as you know, quite a number of people and almost universally, they say one of the things about Las Vegas, at least before it became so big, was that it was so friendly and so open -- MR. GRAGSON: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: -- to strangers and so welcoming to new residents and so forth. You sort of mentioned the mattress business. We got to that a little bit. Your mattress business improved when it was out at Four Mile. Okay. Let's go back a little bit more to the situation that got you involved in politics in the first place. You mentioned it a little bit, but maybe you could go TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 37 into a little more detail. Just what were the police doing that got you so upset that made you want to run for mayor? MR. GRAGSON: Well, as I said, I know there was 11 businesses that the police had keys to. MR. WRIGHT: How did you find this out, by the way? MR. GRAGSON: Afterwards. I knew they had mine, but I didn't know they had the others, but I learned that after. The fact is they told me and showed me the ring they were on. Now, mind you, there was several policemen that resigned after I was elected, before taking office. But I had several television sets that disappeared. MR. WRIGHT: And the police would call you and say, "You must have had a robbery. Your door is unlocked." MR. GRAGSON: Yeah. "Did you lock your doors?" They didn't say there was anything gone, but they found the door unlocked. MR. WRIGHT: By the time you got down there, your TV sets were missing. MR. GRAGSON: And I knew I had locked the door. MR. WRIGHT: Sounds like a good reason to run for office to me. MR. GRAGSON: But I think the main reason I did, the manager and police chief I don't think believed me when I went to them and told them what had happened. And I said, "Well, I can't get anything this way." TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 38 MR. WRIGHT: So you don't think the chief was necessarily knowledgeable or involved in any way? MR. GRAGSON: I don't think that they knew what was going on. They just didn't think I was totally accurate in my presentation. Now, don't get me wrong. The police department as a whole was good. There's always a bad apple now and then. MR. WRIGHT: I think probably before you came to town there was a good deal of uproar in the police department, but I think by the time you got here, things had become a little more professionalized. MR. GRAGSON: Yes. Just about the time I got here, some of them had some problems, resigned. And had one -- what the heck was her name? -- mother's son that I knew was involved. She lived on the Westside, and she was sure perturbed. But I wasn't mayor then, I was just John Doe. MR. WRIGHT: What did your family think about your running, particularly your daughters? Were they a little bit concerned about your getting into this political race and becoming mayor? MR. GRAGSON: My whole family was. They just didn't think I should get involved in it. MR. WRIGHT: Why not? What were their fears? MR. GRAGSON: "Well, the press is going to cut you up." TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 39 Any one public office is open to any and all. But my question was, "If I do run, will you help me get elected?" "Oh, sure." MR. WRIGHT: So she went to the coffee claques, too? MR. GRAGSON: They worked. I had good family support. MR. WRIGHT: Tim says that Shirley thought that you would maybe become as corrupt and greedy as -- MR. GRAGSON: Well, the principal of the school told his assembly that if a person was honest when they run for office, that they wouldn't be honest long after they were elected. I didn't tell her I was honest now, but I says, "If I am honest now, I'll be honest when I leave office." I told her, "A leopard don't change its spots." MR. WRIGHT: That makes sense. MR. GRAGSON: She come home crying. MR. WRIGHT: At the thought of you actually -- MR. GRAGSON: -- actually going corrupt. MR. WRIGHT: How old was she at the time? MR. GRAGSON: Oh, my goodness, how old was she? She was in grade school yet. MR. WRIGHT: Just really quite young. MR. GRAGSON: Yeah. MR. WRIGHT: Thank you very much. (End of tape.) TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 40 * * * * * ATTEST: The foregoing transcript of the interview was transcribed fully and accurately from the audio tape provided by KNPR Radio. Eunice G. Jones, Transcriptionist TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 ??