1 NEVADA STATE MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY LAS VEGAS, NEVADA THE LAS VEGAS I REMEMBER INTERVIEW WITH FLORENCE MURPHY Taken On October 30, 1997 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. HALL-PATTON: My name is Mark Hall-Patton. And we are sitting here with Florence Murphy. Today is October 30th. It's about 1:00 p.m. at the studios of KNPR. I think we'll start with some of your early life, where you were born, some of your early history. And would you introduce yourself? MS. MURPHY: Yes. I am Florence Murphy. I've lived in Las Vegas for a number of years, quite a few years. I'm a native Nevadan. I was born in Fernley, about 20 miles east of Reno. And I came to Las Vegas in 1936 with my husband, John Murphy, who is a division engineer for the state highway department. Las Vegas was a very small town then. And most of the inhabitants lived on Fremont Street, from Fourth Street up to Seventh on both sides of the street, and on Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth, north and south. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. Let's first talk about your early involvement with aviation. How did you get interested in aviation? Where did you take your first airplane flight? MS. MURPHY: Well, my first flight was a result of a barnstormer who flew into town and landed on a dirt strip east of the Sahara Hotel where Paradise Road is now. My husband and I raced out to the Strip to see the plane and wound up taking a ride. The plane was a tandem two passenger. I think it was a J-3 Cub. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 3 My husband went first. And when he and the pilot returned, it was my turn. And I was more than a little excited. After we were airborne, the pilot wheeled the stick, put both hands in the air and yelled, "It's all yours." I grabbed the stick and tried to keep the plane level. We had earphones so that he could talk to me, and he talked me through some straight and level flying at the proper air speed. Needless to say, when the flight was over, I was hooked. I couldn't get over the wonderful feeling of flight. And in 1938, I began flying as a student. MR. HALL-PATTON: Where did you take your lessons? Were they here in town? Who were your instructors? MS. MURPHY: Yes. There were two fellows here in town that were instructors, one by the name of Eddie Sowinski. The other's name was Bob Fox. And they both later flew as captains for Western Airlines. But they were my original instructors. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, where were the lessons? MS. MURPHY: Out at what is now known as Nellis Air Force Base. That has a bit of a history. Pop Simon of Jean, Nevada, owned that land, and he gave it to the county so that Western Airlines from Los Angeles could serve Las Vegas. And it was called Western Airfield at the time. And that's where I began to fly, took my lessons. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. Can you tell us the story of TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 4 North Las Vegas Airport? When did you decide to get involved with it and why that location? MS. MURPHY: Well, as I say, there were only a few of us who were taking flying lessons at Western Airfield. And later on the airfield became known as McCarran Field. It was named after Senator Pat McCarran, who wrote the original Civil Aeronautics Act, which was passed by the House and Senate in 1929. A small group of not more than eight or ten of us were using the field, flying 50- and 65-horsepower planes. Actually, we were flying powered kites. That's what they were. When the U.S. Army took over the field as a gunnery school, we were told to find other facilities. And that is when my husband and I and a friend by the name of Bud Barrett decided to acquire enough acreage close to town so that we would have a strip from which to continue flying. We bought the land that is now known as North Las Vegas Airport, moved a metal hanger from Western Airfield to the site, and we were in business. MR. HALL-PATTON: And can you tell us about the opening of the airport? MS. MURPHY: Oh, yes. We scraped off the sagebrush for our landing strips because it was pretty level ground. And we decided we'd have an air show and open the airport to the public on December 7th, 1941, the day of Pearl TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 5 Harbor. We were all having a great time. I remember Tommy Hull from the El Rancho hotel was our master of ceremonies. There couldn't have been more than 7,000 people in the town about that time, maybe a little more. But we had most of them out there at the air show. And planes had come in from all over, from Los Angeles, from Salt Lake City. Because anytime you had an air show, if it were at all possible for you to make it, you went. So we were in the midst of our air show, having a great time, as I say, and we saw this low-wing monoplane flying over from Nellis. It was a gunnery school then. And we thought he had come to join us in our festivities, but actually he came over to shut us down, told us that Pearl Harbor had been bombed, and we were all grounded. MR. HALL-PATTON: So you hadn't heard of the bombing when you started the air show? MS. MURPHY: No, we hadn't. MR. HALL-PATTON: So you operated the airport during the war years. MS. MURPHY: During the war years, yes. MR. HALL-PATTON: Was it you and your husband and Bud Barrett? MS. MURPHY: Well, Bud Barrett and my husband volunteered as flight instructors in an Army CPT program, that's a civilian pilot training program, which was being TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 6 conducted in Wickenburg, Arizona. So the two of them left and went to Wickenburg to aid in the war effort. And I, then, was left to run the airport. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. Did you have a problem getting materials, planes? What was it like to try to operate a brand new airport during a wartime situation? MS. MURPHY: It was very difficult to get parts and supplies. And if one of our airplanes needed work on it, if we didn't have the materials, we just let it ride until we could get them. Generally, they would come through, but it would take time. MR. HALL-PATTON: Did you have a lot of use at that time? Did the pilots from the Army air base come over and use the field at all? MS. MURPHY: Well, they used to come over just to have fun. They were B-17 pilots. And I'd take them up, you know, to check them out in our small little airplanes. And I remember their reaction was, "I feel like I have a bunch feathers in my hand," because they were not used to the small airplanes. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, you've told me in the past of a particular pilot that came over and, I believe, did a barrel roll in his B-17? MS. MURPHY: No, it was a Pylon-8. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 7 MS. MURPHY: Because that was part of our training. We had to do Pylon-8s and precision flying of sorts. And this fellow in the B-17 came over. He had seen some of us out doing Pylon-8s, so he decided he'd try one. It was something to watch. MR. HALL-PATTON: I would think so. Also, during the war, you had well-known people coming in from other areas using your airport. And I'm thinking particularly of Howard Hughes at this point. MS. MURPHY: Yes, Mr. Hughes came in. I think his first trip up here in his own plane was when he landed at our airport, because he called us earlier in the day and told us that he would be coming in and that if it was after dark would we please get out with our automobiles and turn our headlights on so he could see to land. MR. HALL-PATTON: So he did come in that day? MS. MURPHY: And he did come in. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. Did he come in fairly often? MS. MURPHY: Then he came in quite often. He kept a plane out there for a while, and his crew of mechanics were also stationed there. MR. HALL-PATTON: So, now, how long did you operate the airport? MS. MURPHY: We sold it in the later part of '48. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 8 MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. And at that point you became involved with Bonanza Airlines? MS. MURPHY: Yes, uh-huh. MR. HALL-PATTON: Can you tell us a little bit about the history of Bonanza? MS. MURPHY: Well, when the war began to wind down, I joined with some people who were running a charter service called Bonanza Air. They had started their business with two twin engine Cessnas. And, among other charters, they flew tomato plants from Moapa Valley to the east. There was no north/south method of transportation from here to Reno except by automobile. And we had been kept quite busy flying people from here to Reno on business trips, on charter trips. We decided to get permission from the Public Service Commission to fly one round trip weekly to Reno with stops at Tonopah and Hawthorne. This was granted, and before long business was such that we were flying this schedule seven days a week. One of my duties was to meet with the county commissioners at Reno, Tonopah, Hawthorne and Las Vegas to negotiate airport landing fees. And by that time, we had acquired three Army surplus C-47s, which we bought from Kirk Kerkorian. And we replaced the bucket seats with passenger seats, and the C-47s became DC-3 passenger planes. But this meant hiring pilots, mechanics, stewardesses, station people, accountants and radio people. The operation was fairly simple TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 9 as long as we were an intrastate business. But that didn't last long because we applied and were granted the route from Las Vegas to Phoenix, which made us an interstate carrier, and we were then controlled by the Civil Aeronautics Authority and the Civil Aeronautics Board with headquarters in Washington, D.C. And by then, we had moved our operations from Nellis airfield to Alamo Airport, which later became McCarran Airport. And we trucked a hanger from Lemmon Valley near Reno down and reassembled it. And our complete operations, including our executive offices, were there. And since I had started negotiating landing fees at the various towns we served, I continued with written agreements with our personnel. And this entailed negotiating with representatives of national and international unions, such as the Airline Pilots Association and the A.F. of L.C.I.O., representing airline and engine mechanics throughout the industry. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, when you got involved with the airline, had you any airline experience? MS. MURPHY: No, I had not. MR. HALL-PATTON: What was it that drew you to the airline? How did you become involved with them? MS. MURPHY: The charter service had been started by Charles Keen and June Simon and Ed Converse. And Charles Keen TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 10 and June decided that they wanted to do something else, and so I joined Mr. Converse, and I actually took over June Simon's job. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. Had you known Mr. Converse before that? MS. MURPHY: No, I hadn't. That's when I met him. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. And as you went along, then, you became the vice president of the airline? MS. MURPHY: Well, Mr. McNeil, Larry McNeil of McNeil Construction Company, had built Basic Magnesium here. And he also is a pilot. So, as is usual, pilots generally get together when they're new in town. And so I met Mr. McNeil that way. And, then, he and Mr. Converse and I decided that we would get into the airline business. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. Now, as vice president, and as the airline grew, I know you negotiated many contracts and that, and you became involved with the airline industry and various industry organizations. And, I believe, you were the first woman to serve on the board of a few of those. Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like to be within the industry as a whole? MS. MURPHY: Well, for a woman to be in the aviation industry at that time was actually unheard of. So I knew that I was treading on thin ground when I was with the industry. And I knew also that I had to make them realize that I was TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 11 serious about this business and that I knew something about that, which I endeavored to learn at all times. At first they didn't accept me too well, but later on they decided I was okay and treated me like an equal. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, can you tell us which groups you were involved with? MS. MURPHY: Well, I was involved with the Airlines Personnel Relations Conference, which was headquartered in Washington, D.C. And at my first meeting with them, I was the only woman among about 70 representatives of all the airlines in the United States plus those who came in from out of the United States, international airlines. And there were about 70 men representing these airlines, and they were mostly attorneys. The first meeting I went to was in Chicago. And when I walked in representing little Bonanza Airlines from Las Vegas, I heard a lot of remarks like, "Oh, a woman here now. We're going to have to clean up our language. We can't tell any more jokes." And I felt pretty intimidated at that point. But after two or three years of meeting with them all over the country, they elected me to their board of directors. MR. HALL-PATTON: Very good. Now, I understand that you also caused a change in the wages of copilots? MS. MURPHY: Well, I did. Yes. I don't know where I TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 12 get this, but I have an inherent sense of fairness that I just can't seem to throw aside. I was negotiating the airline pilots agreement, and I noticed that there was a great discrepancy between the copilots and the pilots as far as wages went. And I didn't think it was fair. At that time our pilots were making $750 a month. Our copilots were making $250 a month. And actually the copilots were doing most of the work because the pilots were sitting telling them what to do, and they worked hard. And so during our negotiations, I decided all by myself that I would raise the copilots wages from 250 to 500 and signed the contract that way. Well, the representative of the ALPA was out of Denver, Colorado, and, of course, he was sitting in on all of the agreements that were negotiated. And once a concession like that was made, it reverberated throughout the entire industry. So everybody else had to conform to this raise in copilots' wages. And I might tell you that I was very popular with the copilots, but I wasn't quite as popular with management. MR. HALL-PATTON: Yeah, I understand from what you've told me in the past that Mr. Converse got some phone calls on that? MS. MURPHY: Yes, he did. He had calls for about a week after that, after our agreement was published. And they were saying, "What is this woman trying to do to us?" But he TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 13 stuck by me. He said, "She thought it was unfair." And he said, "Frankly, I do too and I agree with her." I joined the airline in 1946, and I stayed with them until 1958. MR. HALL-PATTON: And at that point what did you do? MS. MURPHY: In 1958? MR. HALL-PATTON: Um-hm. MS. MURPHY: Well, I joined Mr. McNeil in his project of developing McNeil Estates, which is the housing development and a nice one here in Las Vegas. MR. HALL-PATTON: And where is that? MS. MURPHY: It's out on Ashby Avenue, Rancho. Well, let's see. What are some of the other streets? Strong, out in that area. MR. HALL-PATTON: And what did you do with the development? MS. MURPHY: Well, when Mr. McNeil came in to build Basic Magnesium, there was no housing at all in Las Vegas. So what he had to do first, while he was building Basic, was supply housing for his employees. And he had thousands of employees out there. There wasn't anyplace for them to live, so he built a project in Henderson, which is still being occupied, and also a development here in Las Vegas called Huntridge. He built that too, and that's where his people lived while they were building Basic Magnesium. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 14 That was another interesting story. The McNeil Construction Company was considered one of the top ten in the nation. It was third generation McNeil Construction. His father and his father's father had also run that operation. And so he bid on this. It was a government bid. And he told me that his competition was very, very stiff because only the top construction companies were bidding on that job. The job was 157,750,000, and it was a 10 percent cost plus. So that meant that his take would be 15,700,000. And so he built these facilities for his people, and I met him after that. He also decided that maybe a housing project in Las Vegas wouldn't be too bad, so he bought up all of the property out where Strong Drive is and Ashby Avenue, and then the Scotch-80s. And the reason it's called Scotch-80s is because Mr. McNeil found out that a man living in Scotland owned the property. So he took a trip to Scotland and bought the land which became known as Scotch-80s. Then he was instrumental in getting George Ashby, who was president of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, and Frank Strong, who was the vice president in charge of land development, and another fellow, one of Larry's men, Vic Kunkel. And, incidentally, Mrs. Kunkel is still living here. And he brought them all into Las Vegas to live in their retirement. They were all retired then. And I think that was the beginning of our influx of California people into Las Vegas. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 15 MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, you were involved with that development, and, then, I believe, you became involved with your own real estate office. Can you tell us about the changes in real estate, the growth in the community that you've seen? MS. MURPHY: Well, it was fantastic. I started out first with a company with Mr. McNeil, because I was helping him develop McNeil Estates. And our company was known as Murphy-McNeil Realty. That was very interesting. We didn't build too many houses, but we sold the land, the lots for people to build upon. And it's a nice development. It's still a good area in which to live. After that, Mr. McNeil died in 1971. And so I dissolved our corporation, our company, and named my real estate business the Florence J. Murphy Realty Company. I operated that for a long while. It wasn't like it is now. I could sit in my office and people came to me. I didn't have to go out and drum up business, it was there. And after I had been in that for several years, I decided that I would retire. And I didn't work for a little over a year, and I got so bored playing bridge that I decided I couldn't take it. And so I went back to work for a small company, and I'm still with them, called Windmill Realty. And it's one of the best little real estate companies in this town. We have a wonderful group of people, mostly women, have a couple of men TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 16 in there. And we have a broker who is very knowledgeable. And we're like a family. I love it there. MR. HALL-PATTON: I wanted to segue into some organizations and some people. I want to ask you about the history of the Ninety-Nines here, which is the earliest aviation organization in the county. MS. MURPHY: The organization of the Ninety-Nines -- I'm wearing their pin right now. It was started by Amelia Earhart. And I can't remember the exact year, but I think it was either '27 or '28, along in there, '29, something like that. There were a small group of women in Los Angeles who flew, and that's where she was headquartered. And she did a bit of research and found out that there were 99 women in the whole world who were interested in aviation and who were flyers. And that's why it's called the Ninety-Nines. So we had two or three women flyers here. And we didn't have enough for a chapter, so we would go to Los Angeles when we could go to their meetings. Now we have a very active chapter here. MR. HALL-PATTON: I also want to talk a little bit about some of the people that you've known over the years. You mentioned Pat McCarran a while back. He was quite an influential senator for Nevada. Can you tell us what you knew? I understand that you knew him. MS. MURPHY: Yes. I knew Pat McCarran. I had known of him. He was from the northern part of the state. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 17 Mrs. McCarran was from Starr Valley or Clover Valley up out of Wells. The name was Weeks. It was a big ranch up there. Anyway, I had known of Pat McCarran before I ever came down here. And when I had any aviation business to take care of, I would go back to Washington, D.C., and talk with him. Actually, Alan Bible was there because Pat, I think, by that time was dead. But Alan Bible took over from him. And I was raised with Alan up in the northern part of the state. So I knew quite a few of those people. George Wingfield was another one. He was a power in Reno in the north. And Eddie Questa, who was the manager of all of the First National Banks in Nevada, I also knew him. Oh, there was another governor too, Morely Griswold, whom I just adored. He always wore a white Panama hat and a white suit. And he was a big man and a good looking fellow. And he made quite an impression upon me. I had a conversation with him one time when I was just getting really active in business. And he said to me these words, which I will remember as long as I live. He said, "Florence, do anything you're big enough to do, but don't ever trade on the sensibilities of innocent people." And I've never forgotten it. MR. HALL-PATTON: Valid point. MS. MURPHY: Um-hm. MR. HALL-PATTON: As we talk about Senator McCarran TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 18 and Alan Bible, were they supportive of the airline? Were they a help to the airline? MS. MURPHY: Oh, Senator McCarran was a great help. He wrote the Civil Aeronautics Act, and it was put into law, I think, in 1929. And, so, he was a great help to us. And, then, Howard Cannon was another senator that we all should be proud of. They represented Nevada so well. And they were very powerful people in Washington. I never realized just how powerful they were until I took a trip back that one time. And Eva Adams was Senator McCarran's secretary, and she took me to lunch. And I met more senators. I think I probably met more than half of them because they were all very much aware of Eva Adams. And she was a friend of mine from Reno. I don't know where Eva is now. I don't even know whether she's alive. As I say, Senator Cannon was one of our best. And I still think that if he had been returned to Washington, we wouldn't be in the mess with the nuclear waste deposit that we're in now. I think he would have had that under control and would have solved it to our advantage. MR. HALL-PATTON: In terms of the various senators and when it came to applications for the new routes, involvements with the federal government on behalf of Bonanza, were they a help? Did they get involved? MS. MURPHY: Yes. They were very, very helpful to TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 19 us. Because anytime we had a route extension or made application for a new route, it had to go before the Civil Aeronautics Board. There were rate cases going on all over the country. And we got most of ours because we started out, as I told you, as an intrastate from here to Reno. And we wound up serving Arizona, Southern California, Salt Lake City. We even went up to Canada. MR. HALL-PATTON: Let's talk a little bit about what the community was like. You came down here in 1936. Obviously, Las Vegas has changed a little bit since then. MS. MURPHY: Quite a bit. MR. HALL-PATTON: From your point of view, living here and working here over the years, what kinds of changes have you seen? What was the community like? MS. MURPHY: When I first came down here, it was a very small community. In 1936 there weren't very many people in this valley. I think Vail Pittman was the governor then. Is that right? MR. HALL-PATTON: I'm not sure, but I know in that period. MS. MURPHY: In that period, because I was invited to a luncheon at the Fremont Hotel where I was to be introduced to the women of the town. And also being in the reception line was the governor's wife, Mrs. Pittman. And it frightened me to death because I had never hobnobbed with the governor's TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 20 wife before that. And I thought, "Oh, if the people down here expect me to entertain like they're entertaining," -- because I'd gone to a few parties -- but I soon got over that. It was a nice town. It was a very social town. The women got together frequently. And they would have bridge parties, and we played Panguingue, which was very popular with the women. Do you know anything about that game? It's played with eight decks of cards. Some of the cards are taken out, but it's really a fun game. And I understand it was introduced by the Chinese. It's called Panguingue, and we called it Pan. Anyway, seven or eight people could play that game, and bridge, of course, is only four. But we would have parties out on the Strip when the hotels were built out there, primarily the Desert Inn and the Last Frontier. We'd have luncheons. And they would set up our tables for us, and then we'd have a luncheon, and then we would play cards all afternoon. That doesn't happen anymore. MR. HALL-PATTON: Backing up a little bit, before coming here, can you talk a little bit about some of the places that you were at with your husband with the road building and that, and then what it was like to come down here? MS. MURPHY: Well, when I married Mr. Murphy, he was designated as the resident engineer for the highway department. Now, the resident engineer was sent wherever TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 21 there was work to be done. So my first housing facility was a tent at Orovada, which is north of Winnemucca. I was raised in Winnemucca, so I knew about these little towns. There are towns like McDermitt, Paradise Valley, Orovada, and they're mainly ranching areas. And most of the ranches are owned by the Basque people who, incidentally, are very fine people. I was raised with them. They're good citizens. I admire them very much. But my first home, as I say, was at Orovada, and it was a tent. Then after that, we were sent to Wells. We were sent to Elko. And our term of residence in these places would be wherever these roads, new highways, were being built. I lived in Contact, which is now known as Jackpot. And there was only one house in the town with indoor facilities, so it was very primitive. But I've never known such enjoyment as I had in those little places because the people were all nice, and I made friendships that I still have. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, was Contact where you got snowed in? MS. MURPHY: Contact was a little town. We were building a road from out of Wells, Nevada, to the Idaho line. And there was a railroad that went through there at the time. But the snow was so great that we were snowed in for two months it was. And food was getting very scarce. But there TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 22 was a Utah construction company ranch close by, and we did a little poaching in order to survive the winter. But, finally, the weather let up and we were able to get into Twin Falls for groceries. MR. HALL-PATTON: And you talked about how the people came together in that circumstance to deal with the food shortage and that. MS. MURPHY: Oh, yes. We always helped one another. I don't know whether I told you this or not, but there was one fellow who had no shoes, and he had his feet wrapped in gunnysacks. And we felt sorry for Benny. His name was Benny. And so the first time my husband and I got to Twin Falls, we bought Benny a pair of shoes. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, how was it that you came to Las Vegas? How did you get, I take it, assigned here? And what was it like coming from some of these more primitive situations? MS. MURPHY: Well, I thought, as I told you, that I could never live up to the way the women entertained in this town because I'd been out in the boonies most of my life. But that didn't last too long. I finally got the hang of it, and I was entertaining just like they were. MR. HALL-PATTON: Was your husband assigned here? MS. MURPHY: He was transferred here from Reno and not as a resident engineer but as a division engineer. So, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 23 then, we were not obliged to move around so much. This was his headquarters, and we stayed here from then on. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. Can you tell us the story about your wardrobe when you got here? MS. MURPHY: Well, we had been through some very hard times, you know. The depression had been on. And when we came down -- nobody had any money in those days. So I had one nice dress, one underslip, one nice pair of shoes, and a pair of hose. And I took very good care of them because I didn't know when I was going to get another. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, your husband also, I take it, came back to Las Vegas after the war and became involved with the City of Las Vegas? MS. MURPHY: He was city manager here in the late '40s. MR. HALL-PATTON: And then with McCarran Airport, I believe, also? MS. MURPHY: He was the engineer on McCarran Airport. And, also, he was airport manager for a while. MR. HALL-PATTON: And this is the McCarran Airport that we know today? MS. MURPHY: That we know today, um-hm. MR. HALL-PATTON: We touched on Howard Hughes earlier. You had some tales we didn't get into about some of your contacts with him and what kind of a person he was to TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 24 deal with. Can you tell us a little bit more about Howard Hughes, the times that he came in? MS. MURPHY: I admired the man very much. I knew he was very able because of the planes he flew and the designs that he was instigating on airplanes. I knew he had a great amount of intelligence, particularly in aviation. He used to fly experimental planes in. And one day he groundlooped, which good pilots never do, expect I've done it too. They say it happens to everyone if they fly long enough. But it's not a very nice maneuver, and you have no control of the airplane. You're on the ground, but the airplane goes crazy. It spins around on one wing tip. And once it gets into that groundloop, there's nothing you can do about it except wait it out. Anyway, he groundlooped one of his planes and then came into the office and said, "Nobody saw that, no one here." He swore us all to secrecy. Later on he took that same airplane -- he was trying to get it licensed. And he took that same airplane, with two FAA men -- that's Federal Aeronautics Administration. And he was trying to get the airplane licensed, and he took them out. It was an amphibian, and he took them out on Lake Mead to go through the maneuvers. And they groundlooped on the lake, and the airplane went down. Hughes got out and one of the FAA men, but another was drown. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 25 And because McNeil Construction Company was in this area at the time, they were commissioned to bring that airplane up. And it was buried in 30 feet of silt. So it was quite a feat to get that airplane out of the water. MR. HALL-PATTON: Yes. What was he like as an individual when you dealt with him? Was he friendly? MS. MURPHY: Very friendly, very nice. And he was particularly nice to us. He used to invite us out to El Rancho. Now, El Rancho is not there anymore because it burned. But he used to invite us out to dinner, the whole gang of us, maybe 15 or 20 of us. And he'd say, "I'll have your table all set up." Well, we'd all go out for dinner at El Rancho. Mr. Hughes would appear and say, "Have anything you want, you know, but I'm too busy. I can't eat with you." He never did sit down and eat with us, but he would invite us out for dinner, oh, frequently. I liked the man. I thought he was very unusual. MR. HALL-PATTON: Are there any other particular individuals in Las Vegas history that stand out in your mind? MS. MURPHY: Well, I've mentioned Howard Cannon. MR. HALL-PATTON: Um-hm. MS. MURPHY: And another one that I have great admiration for is our former Governor Mike O'Callaghan. I think he's a very unique individual, and I think he did a TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 26 great job of representing us as governor. I talked with Mike yesterday, and he told me he was going to Israel and that he has been doing this for several years. He goes over there and works at the airfield and helps them with their planes and engines. I think Mike was a former airplane and engine mechanic. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, when we talked previously, you also talked about a particular incident in the growth of the Fremont Street area where one of the casino owners wanted a piece of property and the lady that owned it wasn't quite as inclined to sell. Can you tell us about that? MS. MURPHY: Well, I hate to mention names because some of these people are still around. MR. HALL-PATTON: Oh, it's all right. MS. MURPHY: But anyways, I had a friend who lived right on Fremont Street. I guess it's all right to mention her name. Her name was Mrs. Harrison Stocks of Stocks Mill and Supply. And Daisy and Harry lived above the building, above the ground floor. And, incidentally, Harry had put a little elevator in the back of the building so that we didn't have to walk up stairs. When we went into the ground floor, we could take this little elevator up to their penthouse, which was very nice. Daisy was an antique collector, and she had beautiful things. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 27 But I told her one day that I thought she ought to sell the property because it was too valuable. This was after Harry died. It was too valuable for her to be living there and she ought to sell it. So she decided maybe that was right. And the word got around that Daisy was thinking about selling the corner. And so we had an offer from Jackie Gaughn to buy it. And I went down to see Mr. Gaughn, and he gave me a check to present to Daisy. I asked him if he would make it a formal written offer and he said no, just to go back and tell her that he was interested in buying it. And he gave me a check to present to her. So I took it back to Daisy and said, "His offer is $65,000." And she said, "Huh-uh, no way." And she told me to take his check back and give it to him. MR. HALL-PATTON: And tell him what? MS. MURPHY: "Tell him to go to hell." Oh, does that come over the -- I don't generally swear. MR. HALL-PATTON: No, I understand that. That was a quote. That was not a swear. I wanted to also talk a little bit about -- we sort of touched on it a couple of times -- you know, the aspect of pioneering, of being the first woman to break into various areas. And I'm curious about your reactions to doing that. Did you think about it when you became involved in different areas? Were you thinking about the fact that, "Gee, I wonder TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 28 if any other women have done this?" MS. MURPHY: No, really I didn't think about that. I just knew that I was involved with it, that I loved it. I was excited with it. And, of course, with the airline, you can't buy an education like that. The experience is something that happens to very few people, and I was privileged to be one, and I felt that way. No, I would meet the various men in the industry, and at first I felt a little intimidated. But after a while, I guess either I got used to them or they got used to me. And so we got along fine. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, weren't you also involved with the Chamber of Commerce here? MS. MURPHY: Yes. I was on the board of directors of the Chamber of Commerce. I think that was in 1952. MR. HALL-PATTON: And were there many women on the board at that time? MS. MURPHY: No. No, there weren't. That was another very fine experience because we talked about the development of the town. I was on the board when it was decided to bring water in from Hoover Dam, from Lake Mead. And I remember the cost was going to be around $3 million and everybody was appalled. Three million dollars, of course, that was a lot of money in those days. And there were some objections to it, but we finally got it through and brought the water in, and we needed it badly. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 29 MR. HALL-PATTON: Yes, very definitely. Now, as a pilot yourself, were you rated for transport aircraft or multi-engine aircraft? MS. MURPHY: I never got a multi-engine certificate, but I did go on and get a commercial license, which that permits one to fly for hire. And, then, I went further and got an instructor's rating so that I could instruct, which I did for a number of years. MR. HALL-PATTON: With your license and being in the position you were in with Bonanza, did you ever do any flying for Bonanza? MS. MURPHY: Oh, yes. I used the DC-3s, and that was just like a big Cub to me. It had two engines. But, yeah, I used to fly that one, loved to fly it. MR. HALL-PATTON: Was there any problems with you being in the cockpit? MS. MURPHY: Oh, if we were carrying passengers, I wouldn't dare let anybody know that I was up there flying. I think they would have all jumped out the door. But I did have on board one day our board of directors, which was Mr. McNeil, a fellow by the name of Frank Beer from Phoenix, Ray Golenor, who is the father of John Gavin, the movie actor. And I had them all on board. We were going up to Reno for something, and I was flying. And, of course, we came in at Hawthorne. And every once in a while a TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 30 pilot gets lucky, makes a landing that we call, "it was greased on." And it isn't any great pilot maneuvering, it just happens that way. So when we came into Hawthorne, I greased one on. And they all just shouted and clapped. I had a great time because I had greased that DC-3 on the field. MR. HALL-PATTON: So you only had your board of directors on board as it were? MS. MURPHY: Yeah, when I let them know. I used to fly and not let 'em know. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, how would you do that? MS. MURPHY: Just go up in the cockpit. We had stewardesses that went back and forth from the cockpit to the passengers. And I would go up and always had an engineer's seat, the pilot, then a copilot and then another seat. And I'd go up and chat with them. Most of the time I rode in the cockpit. MR. HALL-PATTON: In the early years of the airline, I understand that it was a little hand-to-mouth in terms of finances. What was it like trying to get an airline off the ground here? MS. MURPHY: Oh, it was pretty bad. I sold tickets. I was behind the ticket counter. This was at what is now Nellis. I have ridden as a stewardess. I've done almost everything, but it was hard. And, of course, we didn't have any money. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 31 Mr. Converse was a very wealthy man. But like a lot of wealthy men, he was very eccentric too. He would just raise Ned with me if I spent $50 for office supplies. But when I would tell him that we owed the Texas Oil Company $50,000 for fuel, he'd sit right down and write a check out for it. But we didn't have a lot of money to throw around. And they used to say that Bonanza had to sell tickets before they could gas the airplane. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, were the facilities here really set up for flights? Did you have lighting on the air fields and that for night flights? MS. MURPHY: After a fashion, there was lighting on the fields. We flew into Tonopah at the Army base there. Hawthorne was the Naval base, but the runways were not like we have them now. It was pretty primitive, but we managed. MR. HALL-PATTON: In terms of those towns, the airports like Tonopah and Hawthorne, was that an important part of the income for the airline? Did you get a lot of passengers out of there? MS. MURPHY: Yes, we did. Surprisingly enough, we did. The roads were not all that good in those days. And when we started our airline service, anyone having business in Reno always flew with us. And most people did business out of Reno. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 32 I remember one time we had discovered that most of the members of the Legislature had never been to Las Vegas, and yet they were passing laws in which we were concerned. So we decided as a public service we would fly the whole Legislature down to Las Vegas so they could take a look. And we did that. We also took them on to Phoenix and gave them quite a ride. And I think they were appreciative. Most of them had never been down here. MR. HALL-PATTON: I would think so. Now, one of the things that I understand occurred in the 1950s with the flights up and down the state was when there was above-ground testing going on at the test site that there was actually a radiation badge carried in the cockpit. And was that something that you ever dealt with? MS. MURPHY: Yes. Well, that was after the bombs. This was way after the first bombs had been detonated out there. Of course, the early bombs were above ground. And we didn't realize that it was dangerous, that there was a lot of radiation there. We knew there was some radiation, particularly in the sky, because we knew that bomb had gone off and it went up in the air. And, so, there was some concern about pilots flying through that. But I was privileged to be out there one time. I was one of the guests that saw one of those things go off. MR. HALL-PATTON: Can you tell us how you got to go TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 33 out to the test and what it was like? MS. MURPHY: Well, I think there had been three or four that had been detonated. And we knew from just watching what was happening from here that they were of a great magnitude. And I had a friend who was in the process of selling fire equipment to the City of Las Vegas, and he was invited to go out. And he asked me if I would like to go too, he could get a pass for me. And, of course, I did. I wanted to go. And we all met down at the El Cortez. It took us three mornings of meeting before 1:00 o'clock before the atmosphere was right for the okay to come ahead that they were going to shoot the bomb off. So, I think, on the third morning, we all got in the special bus, went out to the test site. And there were folding chairs lined up for us to sit on. And we were seven miles away from the actual blast. Now, previous to the blast, they had built a mock city or a small town with houses -- they weren't put up very well -- and mannequins inside, and furniture inside of the houses. They wanted to see what the bomb had done to the outside and the interior of these houses. So, as I say, we were seven miles away. We were sitting on folding chairs. They had given us real dark glasses to put on and told us when the bomb went off that we TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 34 were not to be looking straight ahead at it. We were to turn our heads when it went off even with the dark glasses, which we did. The bomb went off. There was a terrific heat wave and then a shock wave. And the shock wave was such that some of us were thrown over backwards from our chairs, landed on the ground. Well, of course, that wasn't too bad. It was the most awesome thing I've ever seen. I never want to see anything like it again. We waited until things had settled down a little bit and then we went into the blast site and went into these houses to see what the damage was. And, of course, it was complete devastation. And we didn't realize that we were in radiation throughout that little trip through there. If I were to be invited again, I don't think I'd go. MR. HALL-PATTON: Do you remember any of the other people that were guests? MS. MURPHY: Some were from out of town, but they were like mayors of other cities. And, I think, we had a couple of doctors. They were handpicked. It was a handpicked crew. I was just lucky to be included. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, when the tests were going off, from the standpoint of the airline, were you notified as an airline not to fly at certain times? MS. MURPHY: Oh, yes. If they were shooting off a TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 35 blast, we were told about it and told to stay clear and not to be flying. And, then, of course, later on the test site was put off limits. We had to circumvent that. We used to fly right through there. And, then, we had to circumvent the test site after that. MR. HALL-PATTON: Did it make a terrific difference on your routing? Did it slow you down? MS. MURPHY: Not too much, no. You can make your own highway up there, you know, and it doesn't amount to that much. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, as the airline grew and became part of the community and part of the state, one of the things that you've talked about is the parties that the airline put on for the community. That's something that we don't think of as coming from an airline. Can you tell us a little bit about why you did it, when it was done, whether the community was involved? MS. MURPHY: Well, Mr. McNeil lived out on Rancho Drive. He had built his house and a house for his son, who was helping him with Basic Magnesium. They were big houses. And he put in a huge swimming pool and barbecue pit. So every year we would have an airline party out at the -- he called it a ranch. And Mr. McNeil and Mr. Converse and myself, all of the executives cooked the dinner for the town. And we'd invite everybody in town. And we'd have TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 36 tables set up all over. We'd have entertainment. Mr. McNeil used to fly watermelons in from someplace. I've forgotten now where they came from. And also steaks from Nebraska, from Omaha. And it was quite an affair. MR. HALL-PATTON: Did the town turn out? MS. MURPHY: And the whole town turned out. If anybody was missed, we were told about it because everybody wanted to come. MR. HALL-PATTON: So it was by invitation? MS. MURPHY: Yes, it was by invitation. But we knew everybody, and we hardly ever missed anybody. MR. HALL-PATTON: Was that an important aspect of becoming part of the community? MS. MURPHY: I think it had a good effect upon our being accepted as a new business in the community. And when I left Bonanza, we had over 400 employees. And, then, of course, it took off from there and really got big. Bonanza merged with Southwest. See, we were known as a feeder line. There was a feeder line called Southwest out of San Francisco and a feeder line called West Coast out of Seattle. So we merged with those two other airlines and became Air West. Then Hughes bought it and it became Hughes Air West. Then after a time, Republic bought it, and it became part of Republic's system. Then Northwest bought Republic, and now it's part of Northwest's system. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 37 MR. HALL-PATTON: And that Southwest had later become known as Pacific Airlines? It isn't the Southwest that we know today? MS. MURPHY: No, it isn't the Southwest we know today. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. In terms of business itself, you've talked about how small the airline was. When we tend to think of airlines, we tend to think of them as being very large corporations with lots of layers and that. In the early years, well, throughout the '50s, what was the company atmosphere in terms of working for Bonanza Airlines? MS. MURPHY: Well, we had a great bunch of people. It was like an extended family. Anybody that had problems, we heard about them. And also their successes, we heard about. We still have a lot of former Bonanza employees living here. One is Richard Hall. He was one of our first pilots. There are a lot of people still here who worked for Bonanza. And every once in a while they have a Bonanza reunion, and it's fun to get together with the people. We had a great crew of people. There were a lot of pilots who were fresh out of the war, and we hired those people. And we recruited from wherever we could find people that wanted to come here and work. MR. HALL-PATTON: And we've heard a lot about labor disputes with airline strikes, that sort of thing. Did TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 38 Bonanza ever have any strikes, any major disputes? You were involved with the personnel end and working up contracts and that. MS. MURPHY: No. But there is an interesting story. I think it's interesting. When I left Bonanza, it was because of a disagreement in policy with Mr. Converse. We had been on subsidy, started out on subsidy. And I've never been one to want to put my nose in the public trough. And on top of that, we were restricted to what we could make. The Aviation Authority subsidized us. And when we started out, they gave us $25,000 a year to keep us going. I didn't even like that. But then it got up to millions. And we were still restricted as to what we could make. Well, anybody can run a business if Uncle Sam picks up the tab. So I disagreed with that. I wanted us to be on our own, make what we could by our own hard work and not be subjected to the government and its restrictions. And, so, Mr. Converse, as I say, was a multimillionaire. And he'd never been in business before, and he liked the subsidy, and it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So we had a falling out over that. It wasn't too bad. I just didn't want to be a part of that anymore. And I had one of the negotiators from the A.F. of L.C.I.O., which is an international union, call me and say, "Florence, if you say the word, I'll call a strike on Bonanza." That's how I got TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 39 along with those people. I got along fine with the union people. MR. HALL-PATTON: That's got to be unusual. I'm sure there's a lot of personnel directors that would love to be able to say that today. MS. MURPHY: Well, I tried to be fair. And when I saw a discrepancy, I did not argue about it. If they didn't see it, I'd bring it to their attention. And that's the way I've always operated, and that's the way I hope I always will. MR. HALL-PATTON: So, now, when you talk about the subsidies, we should note that this was not peculiar to Bonanza. This was how all the airlines functioned? MS. MURPHY: Oh, no. All of them got subsidy from the government. As I say, anybody can run a business if somebody else picks up the tab. MR. HALL-PATTON: True. MS. MURPHY: I didn't figure that we could take any credit for that. And I wanted us to be self-sustaining, self-supporting so that we could take credit for it and be proud of it. MR. HALL-PATTON: I'm going to segue here again. You were telling me earlier about the notes that you'd found regarding some parties that you used to throw here in the early 1960s. I think that's an interesting sidelight on TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 40 community here. MS. MURPHY: Oh, yes. Well, the town was small. And I just found a record book that I used to keep all of my social activities in. Here is one. I've got my book open. Here is one. A Christmas brunch given at the Monte Carlo Room of the Desert Inn Hotel on December 13th, 1970. And I was one of the hostesses for 76 people. Then here's another one, a cocktail and buffet that another couple and I gave, and 72 people. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, did you then reciprocate or did other people reciprocate with similar parties? MS. MURPHY: Well, this is what we all did. Here's a cocktail and dinner party that I gave at my home in my backyard. Let's see. One hundred thirty-eight were invited and 104 attended. Now, we kept track of who had entertained us so that we could pay back. And I kept a record of it by designating whether it was a luncheon, a dinner, a barbecue or what it was. And here's another one that I gave with Mrs. Al Cahlan. Mr. Cahlan ran the Review-Journal. Mrs. Cahlan and I gave a luncheon at the Elks Club. We invited 92 people and 87 came. The community spirit here was very good. We were all friendly. We all liked one another. We got together frequently. If I entertained like this, you know that the others were doing the same thing. So hardly a week went by TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 41 that we weren't out at somebody's house or some gathering of all of these people who were our friends. It was a nice place to live then. MR. HALL-PATTON: As it's changed over the years, as it's grown, have you seen a loss or a gain in the changes that have occurred? MS. MURPHY: Oh, I think we have lost a lot -- a lot. I think when Mr. Hughes came in and took over the hotels, that was the beginning of the change, and it was not for the better. Because we used to dress when we'd go out on the Strip for dinner. It was a very nice atmosphere. The food was good. The service was good. It was just genteel, and now it's kind of a carnival. So I preferred it as it was. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, I want to ask you some more philosophical areas. All of the things that you've done in your life -- you've lived under some fairly primitive conditions, you have been first woman vice president of a scheduled airline, a number of things. What is it that you think fitted you for being able to take on these roles for such a wide variety of roles in your life? MS. MURPHY: I think it was as a result of my teaching at home when I was a child, my parents. My great-grandparents were converts to the LDS church, which is commonly known as the Mormon church. My great-grandfather on TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 42 my father's side came from Wales as a convert. On my mother's side, he was a Mennonite from Pennsylvania and heard about Joseph Smith and his new church. And the church was organized in 1831. My great-grandfather on my mother's side joined it in 1834. And he was a friend of the prophet. And I was taught at an early age what we believed in. In fact, it was drummed into me. It's had a definite impact most of the choices that I've made in my life. I was taught at an early age to be dependable, to be honest, and to dignify all people, and that means everybody. And I have tried to exemplify these early childhood teachings. But most of all, it has helped me to love and appreciate everyone with whom I've had the privilege of knowing and working with during my lifetime. So I hand it all to my religion. I don't mean to be preaching, but it's brought me a lot of joy and happiness because of the admonitions that I got as a child and that have stuck with me. MR. HALL-PATTON: That's good, and it's important to know what fits a person for the roles that they've played, not that you can think that you're yet off the hook for more questions. I'm going to ask you about some particular individuals, especially as relate to aviation here. First is George and Peg Crockett. Gorge founded Alamo Airport, which is today's McCarran International. And I'm sure that you knew TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 43 them. MS. MURPHY: We were instrumental in bringing George Crockett to this town. We were operating Skyhaven Airport, which is now North Las Vegas, and this fellow came in. I think he was in an open cockpit biplane. He came in and landed and said he was on his way through. He was going to spend the night. Well, we had an Aero Club that met out on the Boulder Highway at the Green Shack. And we met about once a month, and we were having a meeting that night. So we invited this person, who was George Crockett, to go to this Aero Club meeting with us. And we had a good time. You know, all of the aviation buffs were out there. And when he left, he said, "You know, I like this town." He said, "I think I'll be back." And sure enough, it wasn't long until he was back. And then he bought up the land which is now McCarran International. And we were friendly competitors. I used to fly airplanes from Wichita, Kansas, for George, ferry them out. I think I did it two or three times. So we were good friends. It was peculiar too, our altitude at Skyhaven was, I think, 2200, or maybe ours was 18 and his was 2200. There was a difference of that much in elevation of the two airports. And we used to get a kick out of talking about how the elevation varied, and we'd take our measurements and all that sort of TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 44 thing. We were always visiting one another back and forth. MR. HALL-PATTON: So was there any real competition between the two airports? MS. MURPHY: No, no. MR. HALL-PATTON: I know Alamo was founded at the beginning of the war as well. So you would have both been striving for scarce resources. MS. MURPHY: No. My husband used to help George Crockett with his engineering, whatever he needed. Yeah, we were good friends. There was never any competition or, you know, trying one to get ahead of the other as far as we were concerned. And I'm sure it was the same with them. MR. HALL-PATTON: Do you remember any of the other airports, any of the other small airports here? I know, that there was Sky Corral. MS. MURPHY: Hoot Gibson. MR. HALL-PATTON: Can you tell us about -- MS. MURPHY: Well, wait. There was -- MR. HALL-PATTON: Hoot Gibson had the D-4C. MS. MURPHY: Yeah, the D-4C, yeah. That was just one strip, I think. And that didn't stay too long. But I remember it was here when we -- MR. HALL-PATTON: And that was a private strip? MS. MURPHY: In early flying, it was here. I think I had been out there a couple of times. And, then, there was TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 45 one at Pahrump. We taught Roland Wiley how to fly. He was an attorney here. And he went out to Pahrump. After we taught him to fly, he bought an airplane. And he went out to Pahrump and had his own airfield and his ranch out there. And, incidentally, owned -- oh, I don't know how many hundreds of acres he owns out there -- he did. Roland died a couple of years ago. He built a very unusual place just before you get into Pahrump called Cathedral Canyon. And I wish more people knew about that because there are a lot of people in Las Vegas that don't know that it's there because the ground is flat. And you take the first paved road that goes to Tecopa, and you turn off to the left. You go about eight miles out. And there might be a little sign that says Cathedral Gorge. Well, you have to drive over to the right and here is this huge gorge in this level ground. And Roland spent over a million dollars in that gorge making a cathedral out of it. It's beautiful. MR. HALL-PATTON: Do you know why? What drew him to that site? MS. MURPHY: He just loved it out there, and he developed it and put lights in. He had music in. He tunneled into the side of the hill and put rest rooms in there. He brought in statuary from Mexico, from all over. It was gorgeous. And there is steps down into it. But there also is TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 46 a bridge across it that if you go across, you can go down and you can see Roland's ranch down there. But a lot of people don't know that is even out there, and I wish they did because it's something to see. I understand since Roland died that there's been some vandalism. They've taken some statuary, and they have wrecked the sound system and so there isn't any music anymore. But it's quite a place. MR. HALL-PATTON: Interesting. MS. MURPHY: Um-hm. MR. HALL-PATTON: Do you remember the first airstrip that was located at Sahara and Paradise, probably where you saw that plane come in, the first flight that you took? MS. MURPHY: Oh, yes. That's where it was, uh-huh. MR. HALL-PATTON: Was there anything out there other than the Strip? Was there any sort of ongoing structures? MS. MURPHY: There wasn't even a Strip out there then, as we call the Strip. There was a little runway or cleared off piece of ground there behind what is now Paradise Road, behind the Sahara. But there was no Sahara there. There was nothing out there. There was a Club Bingo close by, but I've forgotten. It was a little tiny place. And whenever anyone came in, if they didn't go out to McCarran Field, which is now Nellis, they would land on this little strip if the wind was right. MR. HALL-PATTON: Interesting. So they did continue TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 47 to reuse that strip? Because that was laid out in 1920 and the main airport shifted to what is now Nellis by 1929, late 1929, early 1930. MS. MURPHY: Yes. MR. HALL-PATTON: So this would have been nearly a decade later, and they were still using -- MS. MURPHY: Just occasionally, you know. It wasn't on any air map, I don't think. But people knew it was there, and they would land on it if they didn't want to go out to Nellis to land. Another interesting thing is that when Western Airlines flew in there, they had the franchise on serving Las Vegas. And TWA was flying at the same time, and the Western wouldn't let them come into Western Airfield to land. So they had to land at Boulder City, except in an emergency, you know. So when Carole Lombard was killed, it was a TWA flight, and they had been rerouted from Boulder to Las Vegas, to what is now Nellis, to land. And we never could understand why that airplane went into Potosi Mountain because the night was clear. It was not a bad night at all. And my husband and I got out our compass deals, and we rerouted the compass heading from Boulder City out over Potosi and from Las Vegas or from Nellis out over Potosi. And if you took the same heading, you went right into the mountain. So that, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 48 evidently, was the mistake that was made. When TWA was rerouted to the airport here, they didn't make the compass heading correction, used the same heading as they used from Boulder City and went into the mountain. MR. HALL-PATTON: This is 1942? MS. MURPHY: Um-hm. MR. HALL-PATTON: Did that crash affect the community? Were people very much aware of it? MS. MURPHY: Oh, I should say. My goodness. It was Carole Lombard. I think her mother was on board too. And there were a bunch of military people on the plane. I was working occasionally, just as a relief worker, down at the Justice of the Peace at the courthouse. And it was Mahlon Brown, who is still alive. And Mahlon was the Justice of the Peace. And I used to pinch hit for them down there once in awhile. And he asked me if I'd like to see the morgue of that. We called it a morgue, you know. And he asked me if I'd like to see the pictures. So I started to take a look. I didn't get through the pictures. They were too bad. They were terrible. It was gruesome, awful. I have maybe looked at two or three and that was it. MR. HALL-PATTON: Oh, yes, asking about the story about the naming of Skyhaven, how did you come up with that name? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 49 MS. MURPHY: Well, we didn't know what to call it when we were out there scraping off the sagebrush. And, incidentally, I was on a cat and blade out there with the men, with Bud and my husband. I ran one too. And we scraped off the sagebrush for a north/south and an east/west and one diagonal so we would have it all covered. And we said, "What are we going to name this airport?" So we thought about it and somebody -- I don't know who it was, whether it was my husband or whether it was Bud -- said, "Well, why don't we call it Skyhaven?" And I said, "Well, why don't we have a town get-together on this and ask the people in the town to name it?" So we did. We had some publicity about it. And the prize to whomever won the naming of the airport would be a flight over Boulder Canyon. So I had a friend here who was married to an attorney by the name of C.D. Breeze. And Clara Breeze was his wife. So I said to Clara, "Why don't you submit the name of Skyhaven?" And she did. And she won. MR. HALL-PATTON: Who was doing the judging? MS. MURPHY: The three of us. But we didn't want one of us to name it. We wanted somebody in the town to name it. So that's the way that happened. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, I understand there was also an airport, Sky Corral Airport, for a short time between the Strip and the railroad tracks right off the highway. This TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 50 would have been 1947, 1948 period. Do you remember that one? MS. MURPHY: I remember it, but I don't think I ever flew into that. Because whenever I was out, one of my favorite spots was to, if I were alone, was I'd go up on the top of Sunrise Mountain. I loved it up there. It was so pretty to fly back and forth because of the variation in coloring from the top. It's very beautiful. MR. HALL-PATTON: And there was a strip up there? MS. MURPHY: No. I'd just fly back and forth, and then I'd go over into Boulder City and land there. And that's where I took a lot of my passengers when they wanted to go for a ride. I'd take them from Skyhaven to Boulder City. But I never came down. It looked too remote or too out in the boonies for me to take passengers down there. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, this was during World War II that you were doing some sightseeing flights as well? MS. MURPHY: Yes, um-hm. MR. HALL-PATTON: I also understand that there was a civilian pilot training program that used Skyhaven. MS. MURPHY: There was, uh-huh. I can't remember the man's name now. He came from Orange County, from the Orange County Airport out of Los Angeles. And he needed facilities for a civilian pilot training program, so we invited him to use Skyhaven, which he did. Of course, my husband and Bud were down in Wickenburg about the same time. His name was TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 51 Hank Coffer. So he used our airport as a training spot. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, there was also a WAFS training, Women's Air Ferry Service training class that occurred here, I believe, at Alamo Airport about 1943. MS. MURPHY: There was a recruiting office, but most of the gals that were trained were trained at Sweetwater, Texas. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. MS. MURPHY: And there were not too many from here. Well, Helen Cannon came in later. But Helen Cannon, who still lives here. Martha Lundy, who did live in Moapa. I haven't heard from her for quite a while. And Solange D'Hooghe, who came later. And they all were in the training program. MR. HALL-PATTON: The WASPS, the Women's Air Service Pilots. MS. MURPHY: The service pilots, um-hm. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, there was also a contingent of WASPS at the Las Vegas Army Air Base, I believe. Did you ever have any interaction with them? I believe there were ten pilots there. MS. MURPHY: No, I didn't. I was all set to go and join them. And I'd even taken my physical. I'd gone down to Los Angeles, taken my physical, came back, was ready to ship out. But, unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I had a daughter who was only about two years then, three years old at TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 52 the most. And I had sent her up to my mother in Winnemucca to take care of. I called to say good-bye, and she started to cry, and said, "Don't go, Momma, don't go." So I didn't. I didn't go. MR. HALL-PATTON: So, then, she got to grow up at the airport as well? MS. MURPHY: Yes, um-hm. When she was a baby, I used to wrap her up in a blanket. We had a little baggage compartment behind the back seat. There was just a piece of canvas. And I'd wrap her up in a blanket and put her back there and away we'd go. MR. HALL-PATTON: She grew up flying? MS. MURPHY: Beg your pardon? MR. HALL-PATTON: She grew up flying? MS. MURPHY: Yeah, she grew up flying. She never wanted to be a pilot. I thought she would. But she decided when she was old enough she didn't want to do it. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, what kind of aircraft did you fly at that point? MS. MURPHY: Oh, they were J-3 Cubs, side-by-side Cessnas, Luscombes, Taylorcrafts. They were all small planes. We had a PT-19, which was an open air, low wing monoplane. And I think the horsepower on that was 145 or 165. But it was equipped with dual carburetors so you could fly upside down in it. It was a fun plane to fly. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 53 MR. HALL-PATTON: Did you fly it upside down? Did you do aerobatics? MS. MURPHY: Oh, yeah, sure, of course. It was fun to flip that over and hang on the belt. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, did you do these over the town? MS. MURPHY: No. We were careful. And we were restricted over the town. We couldn't fly under a thousand feet over the town. And we were very careful. When we were doing aerobatics or precision flying, spins, that kind of thing, we stayed out in our own territory and put a lot of air between us and the ground. MR. HALL-PATTON: Did you have people come out to watch? Was this something that was popular? Did people just come out? MS. MURPHY: Oh, yeah. We had people out there all the time watching. I had my mother out there one time. I was practicing for my instructor's rating, I think. And I had to do a lot of precision flying, which meant precision spins also. And that meant that when you're riding with the inspector, he might say, "Give me a two-and-a-half-turn spin or give me a three-turn spin or give me a three-and-a-half." And that meant that you had to go in on a point and come out on a point, whatever he asked for. It was called precision spins. And you could deviate ten degrees, that was it. Well, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 54 you wanted very desperately to pass those. So I had my mother out at the airport one day, and I went up to practice precision spins. And when I came down, she was as white as a ghost. She was frightened out of her skin. And I didn't realize that I was subjecting her to that. MR. HALL-PATTON: Were there a lot of women pilots here? Was that unusual for this town? MS. MURPHY: Very unusual. There weren't many women pilots here. MR. HALL-PATTON: Do you remember any of your fellow pilots? MS. MURPHY: Oh, yes, like Martha Lundy. Solange never flew. She came in later. But I mean out at the airport, Martha Lundy and I started out about the same time. But Martha's husband was a pilot, and he taught her. And so she didn't get her license until way after I did. Otherwise, we were about neck and neck as far as flying at the same time. And Peg Crockett took a few lessons. I don't think Peggy ever went on to get a license 'cause she and I used to fly together, and I always did the flying. We went down to Saint George one time. My husband and George Crockett went in one plane and Peggy and I in the other. And I was flying, and I wanted to come down. I guess I had to go to the bathroom. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 55 I had to come down for something, and I landed. We were going into Saint George, and there was a landing strip between here and Saint George up on a mesa, and we landed there. And there was a little office there of some sort. And that made us late. We had left here at the same time, both planes. That made us late, and when we got into Saint George and Peg and I finally landed there, those two men were really upset with us. We got a very big tongue lashing over that. They thought, I guess, that we'd come down someplace, had a forced landing. MR. HALL-PATTON: During World War II, with the influx of military personnel, what kind of an impact did you see on the community with the buildup of the Army air base, with the coming of the military and the coming of the war? You were, of course, in business at that time and dealing with it. But did you see a social impact on the community? MS. MURPHY: Yes. It made for a lot more people in the community because these men that were out at the base, most of them had families. A lot of them had families, and the town grew. MR. HALL-PATTON: Was there sufficient housing for them? MS. MURPHY: No, there wasn't. I remember in the early days, the Chamber of Commerce used to advertise, "If you have an extra bedroom, let us know. We would like to rent it TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 56 for a weekend." You know, there was nothing here, no housing, surplus housing. And so that's what a lot of us did. We'd phone the Chamber of Commerce and say, "Yes, I've got an extra room if you need it." And they'd send people to our houses because it was hard to turn people away when they came to town. MR. HALL-PATTON: Yeah, that's always the case. Now, a couple of last things. One, do you remember any particular organizations in the community that were clubs or groups that had a particular impact or that you were involved with? I know the Chamber of Commerce, and we talked about the impact of bringing the Lake Mead water in. But any other ones? Any social clubs, any religious groups, any business organizations other than the Chamber of Commerce? MS. MURPHY: Well, we had a group that's still in existence, the Business and Professional Women's Club. And I was president of that in 1952 and '53. It was composed of all of the women in business in town. MR. HALL-PATTON: Was it a significant organization for helping each other? MS. MURPHY: We helped each other, and we tried to help wherever we could in the town. MR. HALL-PATTON: What kind of involvements did it have? MS. MURPHY: Oh, mostly helping people to get TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 57 situated, giving them information about various problems or what they might expect in the town, and just trying to be helpful. MR. HALL-PATTON: Any social clubs? MS. MURPHY: There were a lot of social clubs. The men had most of them, though, like the Rotary Club and Kiwanis and those clubs. And they met regularly. We used to get invited to their dinner parties. Yeah, it was a very social town. MR. HALL-PATTON: Did you ever feel any concern about not being a member of any of those groups or not being able to be a member? MS. MURPHY: Oh, no, I should say not. I think that's the silliest thing. I really do. I think when men have a club, they should be entitled to it. They are entitled to it. And when women have a club, they're entitled to that. And why cause all of this fuss about "I want to be a Rotarian?" My goodness. I don't want to be a Rotarian. I'd rather be a Business and Professional Woman. But I think there's too much of that going on. And in these men's schools, where the women are trying to infiltrate, to me that's so stupid, if I may say so. They ought to stay where they're comfortable and let the men alone. MR. HALL-PATTON: That's valid. I was thinking back on something from our previous conversation. You had talked TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 58 about meeting one of the very early governors or senators when you played as a young child. MS. MURPHY: Oh, that was Senator Key Pittman. He was a brother of Vail Pittman, who later became our governor. But Key Pittman was a United States Senator and a very powerful one. He was the father of the Silver Act, I think. I don't know if that's what it's called, anyway a very able man. And he came through Winnemucca when I was a kid. And he was at the theater there, a rally for him. And I was just a kid, but I played and sang, "East side, west side, all around the town." It was the only music he had. But, you know, in a state like Nevada where you get to know people from all over the state, I've found that being registered in a certain party doesn't mean very much because we got to know the people who were running for office, and we did not vote party lines. We voted for the person. As I say, I voted for Pat McCarran. I voted for Howard Cannon, worked for him. I'm a Republican. If a good Republican came along and I knew he was good, I'd vote for him. But, otherwise, if the Democrat was the better one, I'd vote for him. And most of the people did it that way. MR. HALL-PATTON: I understand that the Democratic party was much more powerful here. MS. MURPHY: It was. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 59 MR. HALL-PATTON: As a Republican in the southern end of the state, were you among a minority or a majority here? MS. MURPHY: No, we were a minority. I ran for the Legislature at one time. And George Von Tobel, who was the only other Republican running -- no, there were a lot of Republicans running, but only one Republican was elected and that was George Von Tobel. Republicans were not elected from down here. MR. HALL-PATTON: What was it like to run? MS. MURPHY: It was fun going out on the speaking engagements, you know. Gorge Von Tobel told me once, he said, "Florence, you're doing it all wrong." And I said, "Why?" And he said, "Because you're telling them what you feel and what you believe in, and you don't have to do that." And I said, "Yes, I do, George. They have to know what I am or I don't deserve their vote." MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, when did you run? MS. MURPHY: Oh, when was that? I think it was probably in the '50s. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. You said also that you had run a second time or had thought about running, but had not run? MS. MURPHY: I was approached by the Laxalts about running for Congress as a Republican. And I found out that Nada Navokavich from Reno was going to run as a Democrat. So TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 60 I met Nada on the plane one time, and we talked about it. And I told her that if she was going to run, I was going to withdraw. Because I didn't think two women running for the same office -- one a Democrat, one a Republican -- I didn't think that was going to go over too well, so I withdrew. I didn't have any plans to go to Washington. MR. HALL-PATTON: Did she win? MS. MURPHY: No, she didn't. MR. HALL-PATTON: You touched earlier on the effect Howard Hughes had on Las Vegas. I wonder if you could expand a little bit on that. When he came in as a casino owner, not during his aviation period here, but when he came in and began buying the casinos, what was your view of his effect? And how was he viewed among your friends and business colleagues? MS. MURPHY: Well, I thought he had a tremendous impact on the town when he started buying up the hotels. And as far as I was concerned, it wasn't good because, as I think I told you before, we used to go out on the Strip and have dinner. It was a well-run organization out there. You could feel proud to take people out to dinner because everything was perfect. Everybody was well dressed. And, then, when he started buying up the hotels, it seemed to change. Oh, when we used to go out, as I say, the people were well dressed. The food was excellent. The service was good. And I think the idea was make that attractive, and they will TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 61 go to the gambling end of it, which I think is the proper way to look at it. When Hughes came in, it was every department has to make money, and it started to deteriorate. And, now, I think it's like a carnival out there. People can dress anyway they wish, and there's nothing classy about it anymore. That's my feeling about it. MR. HALL-PATTON: Did your friends feel that way? Was this a topic of conversation? MS. MURPHY: Oh, yes. Yes, lots of my friend felt that way. We heard it generally discussed that the Strip wasn't like it used to be. MR. HALL-PATTON: You knew Pat McCarran well? MS. MURPHY: Um-hm. MR. HALL-PATTON: In the Green Felt Jungle, that particular book, it portrays McCarran as being close to the mob, close to figures with mob ties and being involved with helping them get gaming licenses and that sort of thing. Was that something that you were aware of? MS. MURPHY: No, I never heard that. See, McCarran was a perennial runner for something up in northern Nevada for a long time. He ran and ran and ran and didn't get elected. And, finally, when he finally did make it, then he was set. But, no, my association with McCarran was more on the social level. I knew Eva Adams his secretary, took Eva out on boat trips. I knew his family in Starr Valley up around TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 62 Wells, the Weeks family. I just looked upon him as a friend, one of us. I never heard that about him. MR. HALL-PATTON: Um-hm. As a great supporter of the state, as senator, and going back there seeing him as powerful as he was -- MS. MURPHY: I felt he did a lot for the state, a great deal. I think we've had some very able representation. And McCarran, I would say, is one of those who represented us well. MR. HALL-PATTON: Um-hm. The fact is that there have been many women that have tried -- speaking about your breaking into a number of areas in a man's world, as it were -- a lot of women have tried that and have been unsuccessful. What do you think it is that you brought to your efforts, when you moved into aviation especially, which is a very macho, very male-oriented business? What was it that you think made it possible for you to move into that field without causing the sort of backlash and closeout that others found? MS. MURPHY: Gee, I have no idea really. I tried to let them know I was serious about it, that I knew what I was talking about. I had been there and I had done that. And I just met them that way, and I was sincere about it. MR. HALL-PATTON: Did you ever have a sense of breaking barriers? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 63 MS. MURPHY: No, really I didn't. When they made those first remarks about having to use better language and, you know, I just thought, "Well, that will pass," and it did. No, I didn't pay much attention to it. I just respected all of those fellows. I felt I could learn a great deal from them, and I did. And I think that they knew that when I was eager to learn and they could teach me, I got along fine with them. Now, if I had gone in there with an attitude, "Well, I know it all, and I'm going to tell you guys a few things," I don't think I'd have gotten to first base, I really don't. And I don't think that's the way it should go anyway. MR. HALL-PATTON: Were there any particular individuals in any of these groups, either in the unions or in the airline personnel committee, who you remember as being particularly helpful, who helped you learn the ropes and understand the processes? MS. MURPHY: As I recall it, anytime I asked for help from any of them, I got it. And I was asking for help a lot of times. MR. HALL-PATTON: And they were open, the men that you were working with? MS. MURPHY: Um-hm. As I look back on it, there wasn't anyone that I could say was using any scathing remarks about me. Now, maybe they did, but I didn't know it. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 64 MR. HALL-PATTON: That's all that I have. Just as a final sort of open-ended question, are there any incidents, people, things that we haven't touched on, people that made a difference to you or to the community that perhaps we should be aware of? MS. MURPHY: You mean that are still alive? MR. HALL-PATTON: No, not necessarily. Just people that you knew or knew of? MS. MURPHY: Mr. McNeil had a great impact on me. He was a mentor. I admired him very much. He was one of the most intelligent men I think I've ever been around. He could multiply, divide, and subtract in his mind faster than I could do it with a pencil or that anybody else could either. And I saw him demonstrate that many times. So he was like a father figure to me, and I admired him very much. He had a great impact on my life. MR. HALL-PATTON: Anybody else in the community, either in business or in society or among your friends, that you saw as having a great impact that we might not know or realize the impact today? MS. MURPHY: Oh, there were a lot of people that I came into contact with. Those people that I admired, I wanted to know better. I gained from everybody I met. And they influenced me, particularly in affairs of the town because I was proud to be a Las Vegan, and I wanted to see the town grow TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 65 and progress. So, Al Cahlan of the Review-Journal, I used to go and talk with him. Hank Greenspun, I used to go and talk with Hank. Hank was a very unusual guy too. MR. HALL-PATTON: In what way? (Interview interrupted by phone call.) MS. MURPHY: And I took him in to meet Hank Greenspun one time, and Rex Bell had just died of a heart attack. And Hank had just finished his column, "From Where I Sit," and it was all about Rex Bell and what Rex had contributed to the state. He was lieutenant governor then. And Hank started reading this column to Bill Wright and me. And before it was over, he was in tears. He was crying. And I thought this man has a lot of sensitivity. I always liked Hank very much. I remember when he came to town, he and his wife. I met him on the stairs of the Las Vegas Hospital as we were both going into the hospital. And I think he had taken his wife in. She was going to have a baby, and so was I. And that's how we met, on the steps of the Las Vegas Hospital over on South Eighth Street. It's not there anymore. But all of these people that I have met -- like Hank Greenspun, and Al Cahlan, and McCarran, and Senator Cannon, and Mike O'Callaghan -- I revere these people because I think they have been the backbone of this town. And everything they have contributed has been good. I admire them very much. MR. HALL-PATTON: Have you any social incidents, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 66 anything like that, that might stand out that we haven't touched on? Since you've talked about how social the community was, was there anything that stood out as sort of "the thing" to do every year, other than the Bonanza picnic? MS. MURPHY: When we did all of the cooking? We all wore chef's hats, and we cooked for the town. No, this town's been very good to me, you know, and the people in it. I don't have any family here anymore except a granddaughter, and I have a couple of nieces. The town has grown so and I've thought to myself, "Oh, I'd like to be in a smaller place," but I don't know where I'd go and be satisfied. I just seem to be here and that's it. No, I can't think of anything socially. MR. HALL-PATTON: We've talked about positive influences on the community. Do you remember any negative ones? Any bad guys, any people that you think influenced the community for the worse or were just not good people that you came in contact with? MS. MURPHY: No, because even the people that a lot of people thought were bad, I could see the good in them, like Doby Doc. Have you ever heard of him? MR. HALL-PATTON: I've heard of Doby Doc. MS. MURPHY: Doby was a very special friend of mine. And I guess he was one of the biggest reprobates that ever lived in Las Vegas, but I liked him. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 67 MR. HALL-PATTON: What was he like? MS. MURPHY: Oh, there aren't words to describe Doby. He used to be out in Pahrump. And he knew everybody in the state, you know. He was from Elko, and I knew him first in Elko. And he didn't have a very good reputation. He was known to have been involved in -- well, he had a couple of notches on his gun. One person was burned up in a house there out of Elko, and he had a bullet hole in his head also. And so I used to kid Doby about that. And I'd say, "Doby, everybody knows you did that." And he'd say, "Well, the so-and-so didn't deserve to live anyway." And at one time he even offered to do something to somebody I was having a problem with. And I said, "No, no, no." But I'd go out to Pahrump. Well, as I say, you knew everybody in the state. And so when the politicians would come down here, because they weren't very well known in Las Vegas, mainly because they were all from Reno, I'd take them out to see Doby, out to Pahrump. I'd take them out there. And he always greeted me with, "Well, hello, Murphy, you Irish so-and-so." And he'd give me a big hug, a big bear hug. A favorite saying of his was, "I'm closer to God out here than I could be anyplace else in the world." And I'd think, "Closer to God?" But anyway, I liked him. He built a little town out at the Last Frontier, the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 68 old Frontier. And he had a narrow gauge railroad out there with the cars, the engine and the cars and the rails. Well, it didn't belong to Doby. It belonged to an uncle of Judge Sexton, who was a judge from -- not Lander County, but a county up at Battle Mountain, in that area. And Doby had found that narrow gauge up there and just took it and brought it down here and put it up out at the Frontier. So I was a friend of Judge Sexton's too. So we went out to see Doby one day, the Judge and I. And Jack said to him, "Doby, that does not belong to you. That belonged to my uncle." And Doby said, "I know it. Do you want it? Come on out and get it." Jack said, "No, no, I don't want it." But that's the way he got a lot of the things that he had out at the old Frontier Village. He'd just see something, and he'd just go and take it. I think all of that was transferred up around -- going into Boulder City. MR. HALL-PATTON: Some of it was put there. There's actually some of the structures at the county museum now in the ghost town area there from the old Last Frontier Village. Any of the other casino owners that you knew? MS. MURPHY: Oh, I knew -- if I remember their names. The one that was in the -- oh, there's Ballard Barron, and Jake Kozloff. I knew Jake and his wife. And, in fact, they had a place over in Haiti. And I was over in Haiti, and I visited TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 69 with them over there. I'm trying to think of the name of the hotel where I stayed. But I could walk from the hotel to this big house that the Kozloffs had rented over there. It belonged to a native family. And in Haiti there's no middle class. It's very rich or very poor. Cliff Jones had some holdings over there. He was the lieutenant governor of the state. And Cliff had told me to look up Jake and Vera Kozloff when I got over there, so I did. It was a beautiful house, but three families could have lived in there for a year and never run into one another. So the Kozloffs had one area of it. There could have been two or three more families in there for all I know. It was a huge place. So I knew Jake and Ballard Barron. And I'm trying to think of anybody else I might have known out there. MR. HALL-PATTON: Wilbur Clark? MS. MURPHY: I knew Wilbur, yeah. MR. HALL-PATTON: Dalitz. MS. MURPHY: Moe Dalitz, yeah. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, what were they like? MS. MURPHY: Very, gentlemanly, very nice. They weren't the type that a lot of people depict those that were connected with the Mafia. Like Bugsy Siegel, he was very laid back, very quiet. MR. HALL-PATTON: Did you know Bugsy? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 70 MS. MURPHY: Yeah, I met him first at the El Cortez. You know, we all knew one another. Not just I, but everybody in town knew him. Yeah, he didn't look like a gangster, nice looking man. MR. HALL-PATTON: Were you at the opening of the Flamingo? MS. MURPHY: Yes, I was. MR. HALL-PATTON: What was that like? MS. MURPHY: Well, it was great. It was really fancy, except the menus were in French, and I couldn't read French. But everybody was dressed to the teeth. It was a formal affair and by invitation. And I went with my husband. He was invited. Was he city manager then? No, this was before that, I think. MR. HALL-PATTON: It would have been 1946, I believe. MS. MURPHY: Yeah, he was city manager then. So we were invited, and we went and didn't know how to order our meal. MR. HALL-PATTON: What was the town's reaction or your friends within the town? MS. MURPHY: We thought it was great. Yeah, we did. When El Rancho was built, the women were just delighted because then we didn't have to go down to the Fremont or the places downtown to have our lunches. We could go out to the new El Rancho, and we were just tickled to death. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 71 MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. (End of tape.) * * * * * 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 ??