NEVADA STATE MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY LAS VEGAS, NEVADA THE LAS VEGAS I REMEMBER INTERVIEW WITH PEG CROCKETT Taken At KNPR Studios 5151 Boulder Highway Las Vegas, Nevada TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 2 MR. HALL-PATTON: All right. I wanted to start out talking about what it was like when you first arrived in Las Vegas, and some of the history of how your family decided to move here, and how your father and mother decided on this area. MS. CROCKETT: Well, Mother and Dad were living in Pasadena at the time. My father was an architect. And it was before the war, of course. It was a beautiful town then. It was a small town, but Mother and Dad were a little anxious to move out of the city area. And we had travelled Southern Nevada and some of the high desert in California. And there was a ranch they enjoyed that we used to visit on weekends frequently, and that gave them the idea of moving out of Pasadena and moving into Las Vegas. And they moved there in 1937 and bought some property south of town and built what was to become Hidden Well Ranch. And they opened that up about 1940. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. Now, was it already a ranch when they bought it? MS. CROCKETT: It was a private ranch. It was just a little farm place that belonged to the Cantrell family. They lived there, and I think he was in business. I think he had a cleaning establishment, as I recall. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. You talked before, when we were talking last week, about how they made the decision to TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 3 come to Las Vegas as opposed to Prescott and some of the other areas they looked at. Can you talk a little bit about some of the thinking that went into coming to this area. MS. CROCKETT: Well, they liked Las Vegas. It was a small town. It was friendly. There were probably 3,000 people in the whole valley at that time. And the climate is, of course, fabulous all year around. We're not too extreme in either direction. It was hot in the summertime, sure, but it was a good, healthy heat. And I don't know really what drew them. Just something that clicked, I guess. MR. HALL-PATTON: Understandable. When you say it was a healthy heat, that's something I think most people would think about moving over here from Pasadena, which is fairly cool and got ocean breezes and that sort of thing, to the desert in 1937 before swamp coolers and air conditioning. What was it like as a young person relocating over here and dealing with climatic changes, and going from a big city to a small town? MS. CROCKETT: Well, we moved here in the fall and that was a beautiful time of the year then. And I think probably we got acclimated through the winter. And going into summer, it wasn't exactly the same contrast as just driving from Pasadena to Las Vegas in June or July. It's a dry heat, and it's a totally different type of heat, so one needs more or less to adjust to it, but that doesn't take long. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 4 And I think when you live here during the summer months, you change your lifestyle a little bit. You're up early in the morning with the sunrise. And if you're working outside, you work outside until it gets hot and then you relax and are not as active. And then when the sun goes down, starts cooling off, then you get out and do your work again. MR. HALL-PATTON: That makes sense. Now, in terms of the guest ranch itself, Hidden Wells, we had talked about some of the people that had stayed there and how it became popular with the Hollywood crowd. Do you want to talk a little bit about what it was like, who came, who stayed, how they found the area? MS. CROCKETT: Well, the first people, as I recall, was probably of notability would be Lloyd Douglas finished The Robe there and started the Fisherman. Speaking of authors, Valentine Davies conceived The Miracle on 34th Street there. Alfred Hitchcock came and went several times. Oh, goodness. Alfred Vanderbilt (phonetic) stayed there. Benny Goodman was married there. William Powell was married there. Oh, I'd have to go through the guest book, Mark. MR. HALL-PATTON: Understandable. You also talked about, when we were talking about what it was like for these very well-known people, people with faces that a lot of people recognized coming to a town like Las Vegas that it was a little different than being able to go TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 5 downtown and that and how they were treated in the community. MS. CROCKETT: There were a lot of stars that used to come. Victor Mature, Brian Donlevy. Oh, I can't think of them off of the top of my head. But they were treated just like anybody else. And I think that's one reason that drew a lot of the Hollywood people here was because they enjoyed the freedom that the people in town gave them. They didn't bother them. They treated them just like home folk. And Las Vegas was very unique in those days. It was a friendly town. Everybody knew everybody. And it was a fabulous era. It really was. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, you opened the guest ranch in 1940. And the next year you met George Crockett. MS. CROCKETT: Um-hm. MR. HALL-PATTON: Tell me the story about meeting George. MS. CROCKETT: Well, George came over to the ranch one day, knocked on the door. And he said, "I guess I'd better introduce myself," to Mother and Dad. He said, "I'm afraid it's going to be a little noisy and dusty around here because I plan to build an airport right next to you." And he did. And that now is McCarran International Airport. The time in between is pretty fabulous. Pretty unbelievable what's happened to the town, what's happened to TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 6 the people, what's happened to the airport. It's fabulous. MR. HALL-PATTON: Let's talk about the founding of the airport. What brought George here? How did he end up choosing that location? Why build an airport in Las Vegas for somebody from back East somewhere? MS. CROCKETT: George was working for Stenson (phonetic) Aircraft and flying the country over. And he would fly into L.A. He'd fly into Salt Lake City, pretty much travel the West coast. And he decided there was no significant fueling stop between Los Angeles and Salt Lake. And I think that primarily is what got him started there. And he landed one day. And I think, as I recall, he landed out at Skyhaven, which, of course, today is, what, Northtown. And he visited the town a little bit and liked the town, and that's what gave him the idea. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. Trying to build an airport in the middle of World War II cannot have been an easy process. MS. CROCKETT: No, it wasn't easy. Getting materials, getting airplanes, getting parts, none of it was easy. But you have to consider what aviation was in those days. It was so totally, totally different than it is today. And for years we operated off of a little tiny dirt field. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, I just wanted to talk about how you got interested in flying, because you ended up as a TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 7 flyer yourself and ended up rather intermittently involved with the airport and its growth and changes. But what led you into flying? Coming out of the background as a city girl from Pasadena having moved over here and then being on a ranch, why flying? MS. CROCKETT: Well, Mark, I think I lost the city girl pretty quickly here because we got into horses and a totally different way of life, which I love or did at the time. I'm too old for that now. But this guy that knocked on the door came to dinner one time and was talking about flying, and he got me interested in flying. And he said, "Well," as a neighbor would to another, he said, "I'd like to show you what I'm doing." And so we went over to the airport one day, and one of the guests went over with us. And this guest happened to be a command pilot in the Air Force. And he asked George if it'd be all right if he took me for a ride. And George said, "Yes. But if you don't mind, I'd like to check you out first in my airplane." And of course, that was standard procedure in those days, and I suppose still is. And George felt that he probably needed to check him out because he was a big airplane driver, and we were looking at 50 and 60 horsepower airplanes. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 8 And the man said, "Of course, I don't mind. I wouldn't take your airplane if you didn't check me out." And they got in and started out to the end of the runway. And George commented later that he didn't feel that it was necessary just by the way the man handled the airplane. But he made the round of the traffic pattern, came in and landed. And he said, "Colonel, tell me how you're able to fly this airplane as you do, because most big airplane drivers want to bring it in a lot faster in a totally different way of flying." And the colonel said, "Well, George, I happen to be in command of the glider base in Albuquerque." So he was instructing in gliders, and that's why he could fly a little airplane as he did. And consequently, we went up. And I thoroughly enjoyed it and got so interested in it that I decided I wanted to fly. And I asked George how long it would take me to fly some of those big bombers that they were transporting across. And so I just started flying after that. Stayed on the airport ever since. MR. HALL-PATTON: True. There was a photograph in the collection of a WAFS class at the airport. MS. CROCKETT: Yes. MR. HALL-PATTON: Can you tell me a little bit about that? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 9 MS. CROCKETT: Well, during the war, they needed pilots, and they needed women pilots to do a lot of the ferrying. And so George started this class. And as a matter of fact, we had an ex-WAFS that was one of our instructors. Clarice Pasent (phonetic), and she instructed for us for a while. And we had a couple of other instructors, too. And several of the women that we taught to fly did go on into the ferry command. MR. HALL-PATTON: Do you remember any of the names? MS. CROCKETT: Oh, yes. There was Solange D'Hooghe. There was Clarice Pasent. Oh, my, not off the top of my head. MR. HALL-PATTON: That's all right. You don't have to remember them. I just have to ask when I hear something like that. MS. CROCKETT: Margaret Moore. MR. HALL-PATTON: Oh, okay. Just from a step-back sort of standpoint, what did the warriors do to Las Vegas? How did Las Vegas change with the military moving in here and the base moving in here and that? MS. CROCKETT: Well, it was, of course, a tremendous injection into the town as far as finance is concerned. It was a great boost to our community, I feel. And I think it still is. I think it's a very important part of our community. With the training base at Nellis, it got a little TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 10 crowded out there, and, of course, the airlines at that time were going into Nellis. And at that point, I guess it was still McCarran Field. After the war, they wanted to maintain the base for instruction purposes for the Air Force, and that's one reason that they considered moving the airport to another location, for commercial purposes. And George realized that our location was probably best suited because of the way the ground lay. It was the most level area anywhere near the town. And the location was good. And at that point, we had a 99-year government lease on a section of land that we had developed. And George felt that if they moved to another location, it would not be near as good a location for any kind of an airport in town. And so he agreed with the county that he would relinquish his right to the government lease in return for a lease on the airport. And then it started growing like topsy. MR. HALL-PATTON: It did do that. Now, postwar, you told me a great story about George and his friend going to the Flamingo. And I wanted to talk a little bit about what some of those early openings were like of the casinos, because I'm guessing those were something that everybody in town went to. MS. CROCKETT: Oh, of course. Of course, everybody in town might be how many hundreds of people in those days? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 11 During the building of the Flamingo -- what's his name? MR. HALL-PATTON: Bugsy? MS. CROCKETT: No, the guy that built it. MR. HALL-PATTON: Oh, you mean the contractor? MS. CROCKETT: Yeah. MR. HALL-PATTON: I can't remember. MS. CROCKETT: Who built the Flamingo? MR. HALL-PATTON: Del Webb? MS. CROCKETT: Thank you. During the time they were building the Flamingo, Del Webb used to fly in and land with us. And there again, our location was great. We were south of town, and it was easy for them to just hop in a car and go to their location. And we got to know the pilot real well. And one day he said, "Well, come on in and we'll show you the building while it's being built." And we went through the hotel. And of course, in those days it was really magnificent and the staging and the whole theater. The restaurant was nice. But up above the stage was a little hole in the wall. And George said, "Well, what's that's for?" And we were told that that was the hole that the lookouts were stationed at, and they could see from that vantage point. They were looking over the stage, over the restaurant through the casino and through the front door. They knew everything that was going on in that hotel and who TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 12 was coming in and who was going out, and that was their lookout point. I guess that was part of Bugsy's security. MR. HALL-PATTON: It makes sense. It hasn't changed much. They still have security in every one of these places. MS. CROCKETT: Oh, you bet they do. MR. HALL-PATTON: You also talked about the evening that Bugsy Siegel was killed, that George was there. MS. CROCKETT: That night we had a friend come in. And George was living at the airport at the time. At the time we weren't married. But Lew Cook came in. And George said, "Well, it's a lousy night and the wind's blowing. Let's make sure all the airplanes are tied down, and we'll go into town to dinner." And he said, "Let's stop in at the Flamingo. And we've got our $5 apiece. Let's put it on the tables, and if we win, we'll stay here and have dinner and see the show." He said, "If we'll lose, well, we'll go down to the hamburger place." So they went in and they won. They went into dinner. And I can't tell you who was playing at the time. But they got in on one of the center front tables. And next to them, George and Lew both remarked to each other what a solemn table that is. There's nothing but men there. There must have been eight or ten of them. They're not enjoying the show. And during the show, about at the end of it, a man walked in and went around the table to each one and whispered TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 13 to each one of them. And one by one they all got up and filed out. One went to the casino cage. One went to the registration desk. One went to the front door. One went to the security. They each had their stations. And George and Lew went back to the airport, turned on the news before they went to bed and heard that Bugsy Siegel had been shot in California. And that was the point where the hotel was taken over by the new regime. MR. HALL-PATTON: Interesting. It's a different time, a different way. You had also talked about how the casinos ran at that point and kind of alluded to it a little bit with putting money on the table and winning. But you talked about the fact that the dealers all knew everyone. MS. CROCKETT: Well, they were friendly in those days. They weren't the huge casinos that we have today that have to be run as a totally different business. It was friendly. It was small. You could talk to the dealers. The dealers would smile. They'd pass the time of day with you. Sometimes they'd forget to look at just exactly what you had in your hand and what they had in their hand because you were local, and I like you, and you help me, and I help you. And everybody helped everybody in those days. MR. HALL-PATTON: That's a little different from today's corporate casino world. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 14 MS. CROCKETT: Totally. MR. HALL-PATTON: In terms of the people that ran the casinos, obviously, some of them had less than savory pasts and that, but in terms of seeing them as a member of the community, how were they treated? MS. CROCKETT: For the most part, they were treated with the utmost respect because the gamblers in those days, it was a different breed of cat. They were gentlemen for the most part. You speak of Bugsy, I know what his past was. When he was in Las Vegas, every time I saw him or knew of him, and we flew him frequently, he was a total gentleman, always dressed to the nines, had the utmost respect for people. In those days the gamblers, if they were any good, their word was their bond. And they knew that gambling was legal in Nevada, and they treated that with respect. They had a good thing going because it was legal and it was an honest business. And if they ran it honestly, they were treated with respect. And a lot of them turned in to be good, good friends of our community and still are. MR. HALL-PATTON: That's a good point. Now, after the war, the community started growing. A lot of new casinos opening and that. What was the typical thing that people would do? What sort of leisure activities would they do, either for a day or for an evening? Was it normal to go out for dinner at a casino, or did you go riding, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 15 or what did people do here at that point? MS. CROCKETT: What did people do in Las Vegas? It depends on where you were. If you were at a guest ranch like Mother and Dad had, they always had activities for people. They'd go riding, play bridge, go in town for the evening, maybe have dinner. I remember one incident when Edna Best was here. She stayed with us when she got her divorce from Herbert Marshall. And then she married Nat Wolf, and they came up and had their wedding and so forth. We went in town after dinner, and as I recall it was the Kiva Club, where the Golden Nugget is now on Second and Fremont. And I've forgotten whether it was Johnny Hughes that ran the place then, but they saw us come in and knew that Nat and Edna had gotten married. And they shooed all of the customers out, brought our gang in, closed the doors, served champagne. And we gambled that night all by ourselves in our own little private club. The town was like that. It was friendly. It knew its own and welcomed newcomers too. But it's fascinating, and I was thinking this morning of all of the good friends that have maintained their friendships throughout the years in Las Vegas. Kids I used to go to school with. And they're in different areas of business today in town, and we're all still good friends. And it's still like a small town even though we've grown to, what, a million and a half in, what, 40 TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 16 years. It's still in essence a small town. And I'm just very thankful for the friends that we have. MR. HALL-PATTON: That's understandable. I've noted that myself in coming over here, that it is a friendly community. And you can get to know people very well, and you're easily accepted when you come in. I'm not sure that everybody sees it in those terms. MS. CROCKETT: It's grown so rapidly and there are so many people here now, you can't maintain the same structure that you used to have. But we're still a small, friendly town. MR. HALL-PATTON: Yep. I want to talk about your marriage to George and the transition from the ranch to the airport and living on the airport, all of that. MS. CROCKETT: Well, we were married in '48. And at that time we were in negotiations with the county for them to take over the airport. It took a while, of course, and they had a lot of building to do because we had just dirt runways. So when we came back from our honeymoon, we moved into the airport in a little, old gas shack. And we had outside plumbing, which was in another building. Totally interesting time. We weren't too busy. We didn't have any income at that time. We would take our little Jeep wagon and go over to the lake and go fishing because fishing was a lot TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 17 cheaper than going downtown and buying meat. And we could have a little fun doing it, too. And during this time they were building the airport. We still had temporary runways that we could operate from, so we were still doing a small amount of business. And when the airport completed their runways, then we started building our buildings, and we started to work. MR. HALL-PATTON: You also talked about one of the things that helped Alamo be successful as a business was the influence of Douglas Aircraft. And I want to talk a little bit about how it was that Douglas ended up coming in here with so many aircraft. MS. CROCKETT: During that time, the tax structure was such that Douglas would come over here and save the sales tax. And KLAM, Panagra (phonetic), a lot of the major airlines from all over the world would buy their airplanes from Douglas and take delivery on them in Las Vegas. And at that time, I was a notary public and did a lot of notary work for Douglas. Johnny Martin, who was a good friend, turned into a good friend in later years, would see that the airplanes left Douglas with just enough fuel in them to get to Las Vegas. And then he'd ask us to refuel them and fill them to the brim. And of course, that was a major source of revenue for us at that period of time, and it really got us going, got us TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 18 started. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, we're talking about 1946, '47 period here, or are we talking a little later? MS. CROCKETT: No, we're talking a little later. We're talking probably early '50s. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. One of the people that, obviously, you and George had a lot of contact with and a lot of involvement with is Howard Hughes. And people are always interested in him. And you have a different take on him than most people do, if they read the books about him and that sort of thing. And so I want to talk a little bit about Howard Hughes and Alamo Aviation and George. MS. CROCKETT: Well, Howard was a fabulous person. And it's too bad that people weren't able to get to know him a little better. He was a recluse. He was a genius. He was a fabulous man. He had a mind that was far elevated over anybody that I ever knew. He was eccentric. A lot of people didn't understand him maybe because they didn't have the opportunity to get close enough to him to understand him. He was a loyal American. Well, I was going to say honest. I think he was honest as the day is long. As far as his women is concerned, that's probably something of a different story, in a different light. But eccentric, yes, but a fabulous person. MR. HALL-PATTON: So how did you end up getting to TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 19 know him? Or how did George end up getting to know him? MS. CROCKETT: He used to fly into the airport, and he'd leave his airplane with us. He used our facilities. In fact, I'm going back a little further. I'll go back into probably 1950, late '40s. We were still living at the airport, had a little house on the airport. And some way or other, Howard got to know where we lived. And one day George was over in the office and the intercom started ringing, and he couldn't quite figure out what was going on. He couldn't make anybody talk. So he went over to the house, and there stood Howard trying to operate the intercom. And Howard said, "Well, George, I just got up." He says, "If you don't mind, can I make myself some breakfast?" And George said, "Well, sure. Sit down. Let me make it for you." "No. You go on about your work," he says. "If it's all right with you, I'll just make some toast and drink some milk and make a few phone calls." Well, he tied up our telephone all day long after that. And he'd always come in about noon and nobody would bother him. Of course, Katie was in her playpen. And it's too bad she doesn't know all of the things that went on in that house at that time, because some of the phone calls, I imagine were pretty interesting. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 20 But I think he knew he was in a safe haven there and nobody would bother him. And so he just made a habit of every noon he'd come. And I knew what he would eat from what he took the day before, and I just restocked the house. And then he'd leave whenever he got through. And I think because of all of this, he built up a trust in George. And consequently, George worked a lot with him, did a lot of things for him over the years. Rosalynn Russell (phonetic) was one of his properties. I guess she was incorporated in Nevada. And Howard didn't have an office in Nevada outside of our house, and so he would have phones installed at the hotels where he was staying. And George would handle the mail and would call Nadine Henley whenever he had mail that needed tending to. So it kind of grew. And Howard would come in and out. And to watch him work was fascinating because he'd rush out to the airport, and he'd say, "George, I'm getting ready to leave." He said, "I wonder if you'd do me a favor and call a few names for me, call a few numbers for me." And he'd rattle off numbers. He'd rattle off addresses and names. And he said, "By the way, maybe you'd better get a pencil." Of course, George was scribbling all the time and Howard didn't see him. But the things that he carried in his TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 21 mind, it was fascinating to watch him work. It truly was. MR. HALL-PATTON: That's one of the things, as I say, that, as we've talked before, seems to get lost with him. I want to talk about two things. One, what was it like to raise kids here? That's something that, you know, as you said, Katie was out there at the airport in her playpen, and Chris. What was it like to raise kids in this town? Tim is asking for -- and I think it shows the level of interest in Hughes -- he's asking whether you'd round out a little more why you would call Howard Hughes a genius. What was it about seeing him, working with him that engenders that response? MS. CROCKETT: Just the way his mind worked. For instance, in leaving an airplane here, he would want an armed guard on it, and left us the responsibility of taking care of the airplane. If the wind storm came up, we would move it depending on which direction the wind was. For example, he came in one day after a wind storm and knew exactly what we should do, if we had done it, how we had done it. He would know. I don't know how he would find these things out, but he would -- what's the word I want? He would research beyond any normal interest, and he would go out and look at his airplane and just look at it and know what had been done without asking someone. He was very keen. His mind was sharp. His research TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 22 was fabulous. Sometimes it was even difficult to talk to him as an average person because you talked to Howard about what Howard wanted to talk about. And it was a very high level, a high technical, interesting but not normal chitchat by any means. Very technical, very technical mind. MR. HALL-PATTON: Not into small talk at all? MS. CROCKETT: Not at all. Not at all. MR. HALL-PATTON: Tim is asking about examples of his eccentricities. You refer to him as eccentric at a number of points. MS. CROCKETT: I think that's a well-known fact, his eccentricities. The way he handled his women, the extremes that he would go to. And I don't remember all of the actual details, but he would come in and have a date with somebody, and to get out of that date, he would make an excuse. And to make that excuse, he would fly up here, take a piece of paper and write a note and give it to George, put it in the envelope, and have George take it downtown and mail it to some girl in Los Angeles that he was supposed to be having a date with. Some of the excuses that he would give, I mean, he would fly halfway across the continent to have somebody post a letter just to establish a basis for this excuse. Another reason why he had a fantastic mind, it just went on and on and on to almost being absurd. It was bizarre to watch him. It really was. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 23 MR. HALL-PATTON: I think in an earlier conversation we had talked about George taking somebody out to Spring Mountain Ranch when Hughes owned that. MS. CROCKETT: Hughes had Terry Moore out there, and George used to coordinate their rendezvous. He'd go out and pick up Terry when Howard was going to come in. Howard would say, "I'm going to fly low behind the outdoor movie theater." And he said, "You have Terry Moore there and then you come out to the airport and do these rendezvous." And so he was going back and forth out to Tule Springs. That's where she was staying, having her divorce. And they used to rendezvous out there. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. You also mentioned him as being a good American, Hughes. MS. CROCKETT: I think he was. Of course, he testified a lot at those hearings, which, of course, is well-known history. He would come in and, of course, never have any cash on him. I've forgotten how the tax angle came out, but in some of the bookkeeping that we would do -- and of course, Howard never saw any of the bills or anything. We would just send bills in or give them to Nadine Henley. And he would ask Nadine how she wanted this made out or to whom or whatever the situation was for tax purposes. At least the things that he was doing up here, I TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 24 don't know. Just his attitude in the country, it was -- MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, the hearings you were mentioning were about the Flying Boat in '46? MS. CROCKETT: No. Golly, the House Un-American Activities hearings. MR. HALL-PATTON: And what was his involvement there? MS. CROCKETT: I don't remember too much. I don't really remember too much. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, did George enjoy dealing with Howard? MS. CROCKETT: It was fascinating, kept him on his toes. You couldn't predict what he was going to do. But he enjoyed working with him, yes, thoroughly. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. They talked to Bob Maheu a while back in one of these interviews. And Maheu said two things about Hughes: One, that he had an inferiority complex; and the other, that he was a great humanitarian and that that often gets overlooked. And he did a lot of things, I guess, that weren't publicized. Do you have any take on either of those? MS. CROCKETT: I think he was a humanitarian. But a lot of times he was -- and I won't say thoughtless, because he wasn't thoughtless. He might have his mind preoccupied. One of the things that he had done that Nadine told me about was TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 25 when he had the accident with the airplane and landed in the golf course where he was so badly injured, there was a military man that pulled him out. I think he was a marine. I don't remember. Pulled him out, and I guess saved his life. And Nadine told me that he was taken care of for life, and nobody ever heard about that. I don't think anybody ever really knew who the man was. (End of side one of tape one.) MR. HALL-PATTON: I've heard that about other people that he was involved, the family of the FAA inspector that died in Lake Mead -- or the CAA inspector when the Sikorsky went in out there, and he took care of the family. The idea of the inferiority complex, was that something that you had ever -- MS. CROCKETT: I never thought about it that way. Maybe that's one reason he was eccentric. Maybe that's one reason he was reclusive. But I never thought about it that way. MR. HALL-PATTON: And nothing that you saw? MS. CROCKETT: No. I think I was so in awe of him, I never even thought of his being inferior. MR. HALL-PATTON: Understandable. I did want to go back to raising children here. Something that always fascinates me is what it was like to grow up here, what it was like to raise kids here, since I'm TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 26 in the process of doing that myself. MS. CROCKETT: Well, Mark, it's going to be very different, your raising kids here in this day and age than it was for me raising children here, for us raising children here back in the late '40s and '50s. There again, it was a small town. It was a friendly town. It was a gambling town. It was a wide open town. We had the Mob here, quote/unquote. But the Mob was certainly not looked upon as the Mob here because they ran clean businesses. But raising kids was, to me, I never even considered it. I think when you've raised children, you're the one that's raising your children. You're the one that lays the foundation. Everything was here for these kids to see. There was gambling. There were dance halls and so forth. I mean, there was a red light district. And I think if you raise your children to give them a healthy education and show them the right and wrong and give them a good moral standing, I think it's good for them. And thank goodness, my children certainly, I think, have a rounded education, understood what was going on and, thank goodness, were not in trouble. We had probably more Eagle Scouts here, more Boy Scouts per capita than most major cities throughout the country. At that point in time -- and I don't know what it is today -- but there were more churches per capita. I think it was a great way to raise children. They had all outdoors. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 27 They had opportunities. They had Lake Mead. They had parks in town. They had Mount Charleston for skiing and winter sports. There was everything here to do with, and you could do whatever you wanted to do with it. MR. HALL-PATTON: That's a good point. As I say, it's something that I have a personal interest in. MS. CROCKETT: Well, of course. I think everybody living here today has a personal interest in it. And I think it's important for us to raise our children as we feel they should be raised. We've got good schools here. We've got a lot of schools here. We've got a fabulous college here, a university. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, as we went through the '50s, there was a lot of growth, a lot of new casinos and resorts opening, and a significant increase in business at the airport. As the airport grew, what kind of an effect did that have on Alamo and on you and George? MS. CROCKETT: Well, we were growing right along with the town because we were handling a good part of the traffic that came in town. We started out from just a little mom and pop operation. And next we had to have a motel. And we brought that in from a little town down on the railroad. We bought some old buildings that Kaiser used to have. We hauled them in. And by this time we had our own construction crew, and they remodeled these buildings into the Beacon Inn Motel. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 28 A lot of people used to remark, peeking in at the Beacon Inn. But then, of course, we had a motel, we had to have U-Drive cars, so we bought a fleet of automobiles. Then we had to have a restaurant. And then we had to have a bar. Then we had to have slot machines. It just grew like topsy grew. And like George would say, in the final analysis, like having a tiger by the tail. He was ready to sell out because it got so big. And at one point we tried to lease out part of the operation and that didn't work. Finally, we had wound up with like 85 people working for us. And then it just got too much to handle. We were getting older and wanted to get out of it. But it was certainly an interesting time. MR. HALL-PATTON: So what did happen? MS. CROCKETT: George talked to several people. He was talking to Gates Rubber. He was talking to Paul Butler. He talked to Maytag. And he knew that Howard was interested in it, and we finally negotiated with the Hughes people. MR. HALL-PATTON: But not with Howard personally? MS. CROCKETT: No. Howard was here in town, but George was not one to call Howard. We negotiated with Maheu and, of course, their legal people. During the negotiations, George had his first heart attack. And because we were so deep in negotiations, I was thinking that perhaps Howard would make himself known. And Bob always used to say, "Well, you know, Peg, if anybody wants to get to Howard or has to get to TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 29 Howard, George can do it." And we knew that, but that was one of the nice things that George and Howard had going. They trusted each other, and George always felt if there was anything that Howard wanted to talk to him about, he'd come to him. And we never bothered him. I sometimes wish we had. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened. MR. HALL-PATTON: That's true. Let's see. I was going to ask you about other people that you might remember, other movers and shakers in town, or just people that worked for you or that you interacted with that might not be as well known to people today that had an influence on the community. MS. CROCKETT: Well, Mark, there were so many people here in those days that were coming and going. Wilbur Clark. Benny Siegel. Moe Dalitz. All these people. Of course, they're all known in town. I suppose they're being less known as time goes on. And as the town grows, there's so many new people coming in town. MR. HALL-PATTON: Tim is saying you mentioned Moe Dalitz, and he has very few stories about Moe Dalitz at this point. Did you know Moe Dalitz? Did you interact with him at all? MS. CROCKETT: George knew him, of course. And it seems like we flew him a few times. I think that Moe has, as TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 30 a lot of them did, kept a fairly low profile. Moe did an awful lot of good for this town. Charity-wise, he helped a lot of people, lot of people in this town. Other people I'm thinking of, Parry Thomas, for one. Look at the things they've done for this town. MR. HALL-PATTON: Jim Cashman. MS. CROCKETT: Oh, sure. People were doers in those days. I mean, you fought for your existence. Everybody here was pretty well self-made. MR. HALL-PATTON: That's a good point. And when you were talking about Moe Dalitz and his charities and helping people out, were there specific charities that he worked with? MS. CROCKETT: Oh, I don't know what his particular charities were, but I know he was a very charitable man. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. I've forgotten where I was going. Oh, yeah. Because you were out at the airport and that, you also got to know all of the different airport directors and some of the people involved in the airport. And I'm thinking specifically of people like Bud Barrett and Redd Murphy and Merle Taylor, and John -- MS. CROCKETT: Novak. MR. HALL-PATTON: John Novak, yes. Can you tell me about some of the people that, on the county's end, got involved with the airport? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 31 MS. CROCKETT: Well, John Barrett, I think, was airport manager. Wasn't he the first one? And he was running the airport during the takeover. As I remember, he was a military man, was he not? MR. HALL-PATTON: He had started out with Florence and Redd in founding North Las Vegas or Skyhaven and then went into the military. Apparently, I think, both he and Murphy went into the military and trained pilots down at Kingman, if memory serves. MS. CROCKETT: Could be. They probably were doing the same thing that we were doing at Alamo. Doing their training. And I can remember J.M. Murphy, when George came to town, he got to know the Murphys. And, of course, they were running Skyhaven at the time, and J.M. was working for the highway department. And you would think they would not be too happy with George coming and starting a new airport, but quite to the contrary. As the town was in those days, friendly and helped in any way we could. And one of the ways that I can remember that old Murph did, he had a blader out, I guess blading the shoulders of the old 91 Highway. And he came up to George one day while he was out at the airport and saw George struggling with an old, old tractor and a log chain trying to flatten out an area to land an airplane. And Murph said, "George, I've got a road blader out here." He said, "I'm going to leave it out here TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 32 for the weekend." He said, "I don't want to bother taking it into town. Is it all right if I leave it over here in the corner of the airport?" And George said, "Sure." And Murph said, "Well, I think I better leave the keys here in case you have to move it." So Sunday morning Murph drove out to the airport and saw George on the road blader blading the runways, took one look and turned right around and went back to town. That's what the town was like in those days. You helped each other with everything you could. MR. HALL-PATTON: Um-hm. Any of the other airport directors stand out in your mind in terms of their influence or what they were like to work with? MS. CROCKETT: We didn't work too closely with them because they had their area, so to speak, and we had ours. We were FBO, and, of course, they were with the airlines. We dealt with the county commissioners because we had a lease with them, and we had obligations and so forth. Mark, I can't think of anything in particular. I remember several of them. Oh, you mentioned Johnny Novak. He was a local businessman that was out at the airport for several years. There was Bob Matson (phonetic). Golly, who else? MR. HALL-PATTON: Gordon Miles. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 33 MS. CROCKETT: Gordon Miles. MR. HALL-PATTON: Earl Taylor. MS. CROCKETT: Earl Taylor came in from Phoenix, as I recall, Phoenix or Tucson, built himself a reputation down there and then came up here. Then of course, Bob Broadbent, I think, probably had the greatest impact. MR. HALL-PATTON: I want to talk about him a little bit and the founding of the museum as well. Sort of running a little chronologically here because that's where I'm heading. How about commissioners? You would have dealt with a lot of different county commissioners during the '40s and '50s and '60s. MS. CROCKETT: Constantly. MR. HALL-PATTON: Any of them in particular? I mean, there are names that I hear constantly that people mention. MS. CROCKETT: Yeah, there was old man Hugheswell (phonetic). He was county commissioner, and he was also our Texas company distributor. Helped George a great deal, because at that time he was older than George. George was a young man in those days, and I think he helped George business-wise a lot, giving him knowledge. George used to talk to him. He respected him as a businessman. I've got to think a minute. Got to think a minute. God, I hate getting old. The old Mormon guy, what the hell was his name? The county commissioner. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 34 MR. HALL-PATTON: Reed Whipple? MS. CROCKETT: No. Mormon. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, Paul would be later. I was thinking of Paul Christensen. MS. CROCKETT: Yeah. No, I'm going back. I'm going back. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, the early ones, I think the only one that I've done any talking to is Harley Harmon. MS. CROCKETT: Before Harley. MR. HALL-PATTON: We'll come back to it. One of the Bunkers? MS. CROCKETT: No. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. If you think of it, just stop me. MS. CROCKETT: Yeah. MR. HALL-PATTON: A name that comes up, and I don't know whether you want to talk about it or not, is Saylor Ryan -- no. Okay. MS. CROCKETT: I don't think so. MR. HALL-PATTON: Okay. I've heard some interesting tales about Saylor and the airport. How about Harley Harmon? Did you know Harley? MS. CROCKETT: We knew Harley. I wasn't dealing with them. George was the one, of course, that knew them. And I didn't know them too well because in those days we were living TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 35 out at the airport or at the ranch later and didn't come that much in contact with them. MR. HALL-PATTON: Let's talk a little bit about moving from the airport to the ranch. Why start the ranch? How did you get that property? Was it already part of the airport property? MS. CROCKETT: No, it had never been part of the airport. When we were living at the airport, the airport grew all around us to a point where we needed to move off the airport. We bought a small ranch east of town and lived there for two years while we were building the ranch that we finally moved to. We had been looking for a place to build, and we wanted some acreage where we could have a ranch and have horses and have animals, dogs, chickens and so forth because we were raising the kids at the time. And so we looked around for property. And we found what we called "The Hill" south of the airport. And it turned out to be ideal because we could sit up there and watch everything that was going on at the airport. Of course, George always monitored the radios. And anytime he heard any disturbance or anything that was going on, he'd pick up the telephone and say, "Hey, how come you aren't out there doing this?" And of course all of the help would wonder how in the world we knew what was going on at the airport and half of them didn't. But it was a handy spot because we could be over TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 36 there in a matter of minutes. And we could literally see what was going on and hear what was going on. It was like having an office on the airport almost. So we subsequently started building and moved out there. And as we could, we added on property around it and started raising horses. We had a herd of black Angus cattle out there. We had peacocks. We had pigs. We had chickens. You name it, we had it. And it was a wonderful way to raise kids in those days. MR. HALL-PATTON: Interesting. And then, let's see. That sort of leads us into the museum. After you had sold Alamo and the airport continued to expand during the '70s and '80 and '90s now, how was it that you ended up deciding to donate the material that started the museum? How did the idea of the McCarran Aviation Heritage Museum come about? MS. CROCKETT: Well, when we sold to Hughes and finally moved off the airport, George was still recovering from his second heart attack and was not in a very good position to move or to make the transition very mannerly. And so it was up to me and some of the help to pack, literally move files, which we did. And we had an underground, downstairs office. George had built it as a bomb shelter. In those days it was all the rage to have a bomb shelter, so George had to have a bomb shelter. And we made those into TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 37 offices. And we literally took the files and put them downstairs. Well, we had all kinds of memorabilia, pictures, photographs, files of things that we had to place, so we kept them at the ranch. And so George died in '90, and right after that, we discovered the county needed our ranch to build a connector, which is now the connector leading into the airport. And I had all this crap and corruption in the basement of collections of things that I didn't have a clue. I knew I was going to be moving shortly, and I didn't know what I was going to do with it. And I had some guest books. I had files and pictures that I knew shouldn't be destroyed. And I talked to several different people, a lot of people. I talked to the university, and they had some of the files for a long time. And they did a beautiful job in preserving some of the things. But the things that they were keeping for me like pictures, like record books, like guest books were not where anybody knew where they were. They'd have a fabulous filing system and a research area and this is where the things were. I felt they were lost there to a lot of people that were interested in it. It was fine for researchers if you knew what you were going after. And I thought maybe some of the history of the town would be lost in the archives. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 38 So I don't really know what led me to the idea of a museum. But I think maybe I talked to Pat, maybe a few of the people that were doing some of the museums here and decided that maybe there was a spot on the airport for some of this. And I talked to Pat Marchese. I talked to Mark Hall-Patton. I talked to quite a few people, and things just started to evolve. And I know some of the Rotarians wanted to do something in George's memory. And this idea seemed to evolve so that the Rotary Club, along with myself, got this thing off of the ground. And I think that's probably the start of what's now the museum at the airport. MR. HALL-PATTON: What was Bob Broadbent's involvement? MS. CROCKETT: Well, of course, he was director of aviation. And he and Marty Purdue, we did a lot of work with them. Bob, I think, is the one that gave us the space. And we worked with him and he enlarged the space, because when this museum was started, it was interesting to me because all of the different people came in. I mean, it was like a snowball. People would come into the museum, and they would say, "Oh, I've got something. Maybe they could use this." And it just seemed to bring all of the worms out of the woodwork, and all of this beautiful stuff started coming into the airport. And it's still growing, still expanding. MR. HALL-PATTON: Oh, yes. I just wanted to get that TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 39 history down. I wanted to back up a little bit. There's a couple of things that happened that are important in either aviation history or helped to define Southern Nevada, one of which that I'd like to ask you what your memories are of the nuclear testing up at the test site during the '50s. Were you on the airport at that point when they were doing some of the above ground? MS. CROCKETT: Oh, you bet we were. We handled a lot of the cam flights. We handled a lot of the military that were coming in and out. Some of the engineers and some of the people used to stay at the motel. Oh, it was a busy time in those days. We had a lot of military airplanes in and out. MR. HALL-PATTON: Do you remember any of the blasts themselves? MS. CROCKETT: Yes, very well. Of course, we always knew when they were coming because all these airplanes would converge upon us, and all of the scientists and everybody would be here. And it was no secret. And of course, it wasn't a secret, number one, because they didn't want any traffic in the air at the time of these blasts. So we had a two-story building at the airport. That sounds funny today, but in those days it was a pretty good thing. We'd go upstairs and watch it. And, yes, you could feel the rumble, you could feel the blast, you could feel the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 40 concussion. One time one of the blasts was scheduled, and it had been put off a time or two because of weather, one reason or another. And George and I decided we'd take an airplane and go over to Temple Bar and go fishing just for the night because no bomb was scheduled. Had been scheduled, but it had been delayed. So we got up early the next morning and got in the airplane and flew home. And the only communication, of course, in those days was the tower. And we called tower when we got into the appropriate area and gave them our location, and we asked for landing instructions. And the tower said, "You are where?" We said over Lake Mead. "Please land as soon as possible. A bomb is due to go off in seconds." Well, of course, there's no place to land on Lake Mead, and all we could do was continue our flight into Las Vegas. About that time the bomb went off. And even though we held our hands over our eyes with dark glasses and everything, it was just like daylight. It was awesome. It was awesome. But we landed. No problems, no nothing. But it was interesting to see it from the air. Or at least not to see it from the air because we were afraid to look. MR. HALL-PATTON: Were you ever invited up to the site? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 41 MS. CROCKETT: I think George went up one time. I was not. We were too busy on the airport. MR. HALL-PATTON: Another thing in the history of aviation here that I'm particularly interested in is the World Endurance Flight in 1958-59 which took off from McCarran and landed there. What do you remember of that flight? MS. CROCKETT: Well, we sold the airplane to Hacienda. We knew that they were working on this. And our mechanic, Irv Kenzie (phonetic), was taking care of the airplane. As I remember, they did not want to use the first engine that came in it. They wanted to, I think, do some modifications or something on a different engine, on a new engine, which they did. Started out with it, and I guess that engine failed. So they came back down and installed the original engine and took off. Yeah, we were, of course, there when they took off. In fact, I think George and Irv probably chalked the tires of the airplane so that they knew that the airplane -- they could do a fly-by, check the tires and know that the airplane had not been on the ground. Because I think there was a lot of controversy about this, you know. They're going to go over the dry lake and nobody's going to know they're there, and they're going to cheat a little. Of course, they didn't cheat. Speaking of the dry lake, it was interesting because TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 42 they had it rigged up where they were going to use a gas truck and a hoes. They were going to haul a hoes up to the airplane to refuel it. And they went down to the dry lake, and the gas truck malfunctioned for some reason or other and they needed gasoline in the airplane to keep it going. So George and Irv took our Thunderbird down to the dry lake and a bunch of five-gallon cans and hauled these five-gallon cans up by rope up to the airplane. They dumped the gas into the airplane and let the five-gallon can back down again, and they'd haul up another one. Well, that was a tedious job. And I can remember one time they missed, and somehow or other that gas can got away from them and splattered gasoline all over creation. But, yeah, that was fun to watch that. MR. HALL-PATTON: How about any of the fly-ins and conventions that you had at the airport? I know you had a number of them, not the least of which was the World Congress of Flight in 1959. But much earlier there was AOPA had a conference here and that. Any of those that you remember? MS. CROCKETT: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. We were all members of AOPA and used to go to their conventions. They had their plantation party here more than once. There were a lot of different fly-ins. There was, of course, the World Congress of Flight, which was a fabulous fly-in. NATA, AOPA, AAAE, a lot of them would come to Las Vegas for their meetings and so forth, for their conventions. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 43 George was president of NATA at one period. And it was fun to see a lot of their displays. And some of the aviation displays were fun because we'd fly our airplanes down to the convention center and land on the highway. MR. HALL-PATTON: Here? MS. CROCKETT: Yeah. Where would they land? I think they'd land in the parking lot. Of course, that was very early on when they had some of the conventions. I think one was at the Stardust. And if you could imagine, we would taxi our airplanes down the highway over to the Stardust and put them on display there. MR. HALL-PATTON: Not something I think we'll see today. And I'm not sure we could get an airplane down The Strip these days. MS. CROCKETT: I don't think we could. I don't think we could. MR. HALL-PATTON: Also, there was a particular plane that sat out at the airport for many years; that was the Constitution. MS. CROCKETT: Lucky Constitution. MR. HALL-PATTON: How did that come to be there? Why was that there? MS. CROCKETT: We bought that Constitution in, what, probably the latter '50s. And I don't remember whether it was a bid to the government. I don't know who George bought it TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 44 from. We had it on display. We used it as a billboard. At one time George thought it would be fun to make a restaurant out of it. That didn't prove very feasible. But I have movies of that landing at the airport. It was the largest propeller-driven airplane built by Lockheed. I think they built that for two carriers. There were two of them at the time that we bought ours. MR. HALL-PATTON: And that's actually all they ever built was just those two. MS. CROCKETT: I thought they built three. MR. HALL-PATTON: Just the two. MS. CROCKETT: Just the two? MR. HALL-PATTON: And so it just ended up being a billboard there. I know in talking with people, everybody remembered it. MS. CROCKETT: Yeah. MR. HALL-PATTON: The other thing that they remembered here is the car that they have on display that you alluded to earlier, the T-Bird. MS. CROCKETT: Oh, the Thunderbird, yeah. MR. HALL-PATTON: Can you tell us why a Thunderbird? How did you use it? MS. CROCKETT: George had that. I don't really remember why he bought the Thunderbird. It's not a car that we could normally buy for the U-Drive fleet. He may have TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 45 bought it for somebody and they didn't want it. Anyway, we left it in parking at the airport. George used to drive it around, and he got to using it as a ramp car. And as the need progressed, we -- it was fast. It was handy. We found that it would outrun anything else on the airport, including the fire trucks. And that is why he rigged it out with a two-way radio and C02 bottles. Because anytime anybody, a larger airplane would fire up, you'd always have a C02 bottle there. Well, we always send a man out there, so we'd just get in the Thunderbird, C02 bottle was there. We put out -- I can't tell you how many airplanes we saved just by having that T-Bird there. I can remember one instance when the -- I don't remember which airline it was -- came in for a landing and aborted or tried to abort the landing. The pilot evidently misjudged, and it was a big airplane. I don't remember which airline it was. But he tried to take off, couldn't, and crashed at the far end of the runway, went off the runway and broke and, consequently, broke all the gas lines. Here's gas spewing. Well, George could hear on the radio what was going on. And before the guy came in, he knew he was in trouble. And so he got in the T-Bird with another fellow, and they literally followed the airplane down the runway. And when he went off on the north side of the east-west runway, hit the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 46 dirt, of course, there was sand and gravel and dust everywhere. George was under the airplane as it went in. And when the gasoline started out, he had the C02 bottles there and was able to quell whatever was coming up. And it was minutes before the fire trucks got there. So it was an advertizing gimmick, yes, but it came out of pure necessity because that vehicle was well used and well needed on the airport, not only for the C02 bottles but for communications. When the presidents came in, we used to be right there with some of the security because we had all of the radios. We were talking not only to the airplanes, the tower, we also could talk to security. So it was a good command vehicle. We used it and used it well. So it was nice. It was fun. And I'm proud I could have donated it to the museum. MR. HALL-PATTON: It's a great piece on display. The idea of a fire engine red, two-door, '56, convertible T-Bird as the crash wagon for the airport is just... MS. CROCKETT: That was fun. Another vehicle I'd like to get -- George used gimmicks for publicity. He used whatever he could use for publicity, not that he would look for gimmicks, but he would use whatever was at hand. And one time old Wayne Kirch, who used to have a body shop in town said, "George, I've got a TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 47 limousine here." He said, "I don't know what to do with it." Well, one of George's workers had wrecked George's car, and George was without a vehicle, and Wayne knew this. Wayne had the car. Wayne knew this, and he said, "Well, you need a car while I'm fixing yours up." He said, "Why don't you take this limousine." Well, this 16-cylinder, Cadillac limousine came out to the airport while it was a dirt field, and George used that while his was getting repaired. And we got into the business of U-Drive cars. Really, this limousine was the start of it. We'd take people to town. And you know, anybody would come in, need a ride to town, we'd take them into town. Well, we didn't have the Mercury anymore. We had this 16-cylinder, Cadillac limousine. Well, of course, everybody loved it, and they picked it up. And finally some of the trade magazines picked it up, and George had to have a sign on the side. Needless to say, we kept the limousine, got a lot of wonderful publicity out of it. And I would love to be able to get that limousine back and have that in the museum, but I don't know whether I'll ever find it. But I'm looking. MR. HALL-PATTON: And it's a great image. I know the vehicle well from the photographs. That's all I had in terms of specific questions. Any final comments from the standpoint of having been in town since '37? In terms of watching the changes that have TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 48 occurred, being involved in a lot of that, just from your own standpoint? MS. CROCKETT: Well, Mark, it's such a unique town. There's nothing like it anywhere, never has been, never will be. I think location has a lot to say for it. We have everything in this town from weather to communications to transportation, recreation. There is anything here, in my mind, that anybody could ever want. I think that's one reason the town has grown as it has. And it's been fascinating to watch it and to be a part of it. It certainly has gone far beyond anybody's imagination. It's gone through its different stages. It's been interesting to watch these different stages. To my way, it went through tinsel town to boom town to a fabulous town. Look what we have in entertainment. We've progressed from a boom town into a big city. Today we have arts coming in. We have industry coming in. It's coming in very rapidly, and hopefully we can handle it. And I think we are. Never did I, in my wildest dreams, imagine this valley filling up, and it's filling up. 'Cause I can remember riding horses from Eastern across the airport to Warm Springs Road and never coming across a fence. And look what it's like today. I can remember going to high school here. There was no pavement beyond Seventh Street. Tule's. Picnicking. Well, you can do TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 49 it today, but there's different areas that we picnic in. The skyline is fabulous. It's beautiful. It's beautiful to watch. Our sunsets, when you get out of town and you look at the sunsets and you think what it used to look like when the valley was nothing but desert, and you get out on the outskirts and you look away from town, and you can still see this. You can still can see these beautiful sunsets and beautiful sunrises. And then you turn around and you see the valley floor below you with the skyline as it is today with this sunset on it, it's awesome. It's a wonderful area. MR. HALL-PATTON: Thank you, that's great. MS. CROCKETT: Thank you. MR. HALL-PATTON: That's a great conclusion. Do you have anything else, Tim? MS. CROCKETT: Sure. MR. ANDERSON: That's wonderful. MS. CROCKETT: Well, I'm sorry, my memory is getting some short. MR. HALL-PATTON: Don't worry about that. MR. ANDERSON: I think you did reasonably good. When you don't think about things for a long time -- MS. CROCKETT: And you don't. MR. ANDERSON: We all do that. MS. CROCKETT: And I'm sorry I didn't do more homework, but all of the sudden this past week has been TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 50 something else. MR. ANDERSON: On the subject, back on Howard Hughes, Florence Murphy and a number of other people say that with his entrance into the hotel business, he ushered in the corporate era. MS. CROCKETT: Um-hm. MR. ANDERSON: We were in a recession, and it looked for a while that, gee, Hughes is doing a lot to pump money into the town. This is great. But then the ultimate conclusion is that -- MS. CROCKETT: It was better to have the Mob here. The town was cleaner. There wasn't the crime. I don't know how much of this you really want to bring out, and that's why I slow down on some of your questions, especially about Saylor Ryan and people like that. The town was so much cleaner when the Mob was here. I think the town was so much cleaner when the Mob was here. And I don't really like the word "Mob," because they were businessmen when they were here. They knew they had a good thing going here. To my knowledge, they never did any of their whatever they weren't supposed to do in this town. If they had a casino, they wanted it run the way it should be run because not only the reputation would kill them, but they'd be out of business. I got off what I was going to say. Oh, the town was cleaner because if they didn't like TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 51 something, they took it out of the state. If you'll notice, Benny Siegel was not killed in the state of Nevada, and I think that's pretty typical. I don't mean they're murderers and things like that, but the point I would really like to bring out is that they knew they had a good thing going here. Look at Moe Dalitz. Look at Wilbur Clark. Look at all of these people. I don't know what their backgrounds were. I've heard. Whether I approve or disapprove is beside the point. When they were here, they were total business people. They ran their businesses as such. And they didn't stand any nonsense. And I think a lot of the hoodlums knew that and stayed away. And I think Howard with all good intent thought he was going to, I don't know, get into business, but in his giving Las Vegas a shot in the arm financially, by the same token there wasn't the intimidation, I suppose, of the Mob behind them. MR. ANDERSON: I've heard from at least one person that they looked at Howard Hughes as some kind of political appointee, that he was sent here to clean up or to displace these people. Do you have any sense of that? MS. CROCKETT: No, I don't think so. I've not heard that. I don't know that. MR. ANDERSON: I'm wondering if you have any memories of Helldorado. MS. CROCKETT: Oh, sure. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 52 MR. ANDERSON: What can you tell me about Helldorado? MS. CROCKETT: Oh, it was fun. MR. ANDERSON: What was it? MS. CROCKETT: It was Helldorado. It wasn't state fair. It wasn't county fair. It wasn't city fair. Well, let's see. Who sponsored it? MR. ANDERSON: The Elks. MS. CROCKETT: And rooten, tooten, shoot 'em up in those days. Everybody, everybody in town got into it. I rode in one, one year. In fact, I was going to be Helldorado -- not queen, but I was one of the candidates for Nevada Power. And I don't know what happened. I had to finally back out of it, and they got somebody else. But it was great. They created a lot of local spirit. Everybody joined in. MR. ANDERSON: That's another thing I want to talk about. Because when we spoke with you last week, I had to rush out and see Jim Cashman, Jr. And I'm getting this from a lot of people, incredible community spirit in this town. You know, I've always lived in big cities, except when I lived in Reno. And I think this is something that is foreign to a lot of people who live in big cities is community spirit. Try to explain why and how and what -- this phenomenon of community spirit. You said everybody got behind Helldorado. Everybody got behind the building of Cashman Field. And if you could TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 53 try to characterize and explain the community spirit that Las Vegas had back then. MS. CROCKETT: Tim, I think you answered it. If you haven't lived in a little town and experienced this, I don't think you can explain it. I think timing has everything to do with it. You take that period in time, it was a small town. We didn't have television. We didn't have a lot of things to occupy kids. We didn't have a lot of things to occupy anybody except our own businesses. And being a small, dusty town, it attracted people that did things. People don't do this today. I'm going to get into politics and I shouldn't. We had to do things on our own to get anywhere in those days. You don't have to do that today, I don't think. We've got so many subsidies. We didn't have them then. If you wanted something, you earned it. Nobody helped us build that airport. Nobody helped Jim Cashman. He had Unions behind him that were just knocking him out right and left, ruining his buildings. And by God, he'd set up another one. I mean, spirit comes from within. And when you put that with a group of people, things start to happen. We had a Live Wire Fund in those days. That got things going. MR. ANDERSON: What was that? MS. CROCKETT: What was it? Who was the Live Wire Fund? MR. ANDERSON: Max Kelch. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 54 MS. CROCKETT: Um-hm. There was Max. And I think that was a group of local people that formed this Live Wire Fund. And Max was an interesting man. He was a mover and shaker in a very, very quiet way. Jim Cashman can tell you a lot, probably has. But people did things in those days. They don't have the incentive today. They don't need it. They're doing different things. All they've got to do -- excuse me -- is push buttons, get on their computers. We didn't have any of that in those days. What you did, you got out and did with your hands. And people look at me and say, "You used to fly? Well, women didn't fly in those days." Well, I wanted to fly, so I did. Women's Lib. Give me a break. MR. ANDERSON: Well, I think you hit it on the head. There was no subsidy for anything back then. You didn't have Clark County Parks and Recreation. You didn't have city parks. MR. HALL-PATTON: Now, now, be nice here. MR. ANDERSON: Well, I'm not saying it's bad. MR. HALL-PATTON: No, no. I understand. MR. ANDERSON: I'm just saying that people didn't have those things, so if they wanted something, they got up and did it themselves. MS. CROCKETT: Exactly. MR. ANDERSON: You helped Skyhaven; they helped you. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 55 Jim Cashman called somebody, "Hey, lets do this." MS. CROCKETT: Exactly. MR. ANDERSON: You know, the town was going through a little bit of a recession after the dam, and they said, "Hey, we don't want this to happen. Let's get something going here." MS. CROCKETT: You didn't have a board that was formed that didn't listen. There was a bunch of politicians that did things their way. You had everybody pulling together in those days. I mean, you had to. Look at the El Rancho. What a fabulous place in those days. Victory gardens they had during the war. God, in fact, somebody was talking about that the other day. We were looking at one of those pictures that I had, and they said, "By God, there is a victory garden. Well, I donated something to the victory garden." Did you ever hear about a victory garden today during the war? MR. ANDERSON: Well, community gardens are making a comeback. MS. CROCKETT: Oh, I think they are, too. But I'm talking about the spirit behind it. MR. ANDERSON: Right. Yeah, I think you really hit it on the head there. You mentioned legal brothels. What can you tell me TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 56 about those? MS. CROCKETT: I didn't say that, did I? MR. ANDERSON: Yes, you did. You mentioned the red light districts. MS. CROCKETT: All right. MR. ANDERSON: So what can you tell me about Block 16? MS. CROCKETT: Block 16 was North First Street, and that was confined there to Block 16. They did have another one out at Formyle. Okay. We had guests on the ranch that used to drive through there. It was fun. The girls would wave. They'd come out and talk. Everything was friendly. No social life with them. But it was just a place to go and visit. I mean, not to visit, but I mean go and see. Maybe they'd go in and have a drink. I don't remember. I can remember one instance where there was a guy came out from New York to get his divorce, got his divorce, and he was going to get married. And his wife-to-be came out from New York, and some of the other guests on the ranch thought it would be fun to stage a little welcoming party for this new bride. So previously they went down to Block 16 and got a hold of a couple of these gals and said, "We're going to drive through here tonight and when you see this car driving down TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 57 the street, get a couple of guys to come out and say, 'Hi, Bob, how are you? Where have you been? We haven't seen you in a couple of days.'" This happened. The wife-to-be was in the car. And here come these gals out of these rooms, threw their arms around this guy. I'm going to tell you, they almost didn't get married. They almost didn't get married. It took a lot of explaining because, you know, they were very staid people at that time, and they just didn't think that was proper conduct at all. But we finally got the wedding going. MR. ANDERSON: A practical joke that turned out almost not to be very practical. MS. CROCKETT: Now, I can remember a few of those instances in this town. MR. ANDERSON: I've spoken with Oran Gragson. I'll be speaking with Richard Bunker soon. But I don't know if you have any memories of that campaign and election, because I think that that was a real anomaly in this town to have somebody like Oran Gragson elected. The story he's told us, and my impression of him, is that this guy I doubt -- I don't know this for sure -- but I don't know if he made it out of high school. MS. CROCKETT: Oran, I don't know whether he did either. MR. ANDERSON: He came here when he was 21 in 1932, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 58 spent five or six days on a box car, ate his first meal at the Busy Bee in several days, he said, and went to work on the dam a few days later. But do you have any memories of that campaign? MS. CROCKETT: Not of the campaign, no. Of course, we knew Oran well. Oran and Bonnie, we knew them well. And a fabulous man, but I don't remember the campaign. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. Because I guess Wendell Bunker challenged him to a debate, and that didn't go over real well. And Oran in his stuttering manner said, "Well, Dewey didn't challenge Roosevelt to a foot race," which was a great answer. MS. CROCKETT: Yeah. Well, he's got something up here that, like we were saying, goes back to people that are movers and shakers that don't have it today, have it in a different way. Thinking is different today. Of course, it's got to be. MR. ANDERSON: Well, the thing that struck me about Oran Gragson is just his absolute integrity. MS. CROCKETT: Um-hm. MR. ANDERSON: Absolutely honest. MS. CROCKETT: Yeah. MR. ANDERSON: And of course, he ran on a platform of anti-police corruption. MS. CROCKETT: Yeah. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 59 MR. ANDERSON: Because he was having trouble with the police personally, as were other merchants. And that really got people going. And he told me about his coffee claques campaign strategy and how that really worked. MS. CROCKETT: Um-hm. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. Water. I guess water's the last thing that I like to talk about to everybody, because when you came, Las Vegas still had this tremendous artesian water capacity. And I don't know if you remember anything about it or any of the history of the water or what your impressions were of this. Las Vegas means "the meadows." You'd hardly know that today. MS. CROCKETT: No. MR. ANDERSON: But what can you tell me about the water? MS. CROCKETT: Well, an awful lot of people in those days had their own wells, as we did. When we moved to the ranch, of course, we had two wells. We filed on any of the permits that we knew were available and then would transfer them to our own wells. I'm familiar with some of that because when the county took the ranch, we had a dispute over the permits that I had. And we're just finally settling that now. I know that the state is very, very strict in their permits and the ruling of them and how they're applied, which I think it needs to TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 60 be. They say we're running out of water in the valley. I don't know whether that's true or not because they're doing so many things at Lake Mead as far as bringing water in. I think it was unfortunate when the water was originally appropriated there was such a little population in this area at the time that I don't feel that we got our allotment. Whether they can settle that now, I don't know, with the population explosion, not only here but all down the line. MR. ANDERSON: Well, back when the Colorado Compact was signed, nobody in their right mind thought we'd ever need 300,000 acre feet. Nevada was nothing back then. MS. CROCKETT: No. And most people had their own wells. MR. HALL-PATTON: And it was based on agriculture and not population even there. MS. CROCKETT: Well, on your permits it was. MR. HALL-PATTON: Well, and in the allotment of water. MS. CROCKETT: From the river? MR. HALL-PATTON: Yeah. And Nevada wasn't going to have any agriculture. MS. CROCKETT: Yeah. MR. HALL-PATTON: We just grow people. MS. CROCKETT: They weren't going to have any people TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 61 either, but look what happened. MR. HALL-PATTON: That's right. MS. CROCKETT: Really. MR. ANDERSON: Well, that's it. That's just been great. That's all I've got. And every one of these interviews is so wonderful. It's like putting a little... MS. CROCKETT: It must be a lot of fun to put that puzzle together. MR. ANDERSON: It is. I'm having a blast with this. I've heard from so many wonderful people. MS. CROCKETT: Well, I'm thrilled that this is going on, because there are a lot of the oldsters in town, and I'm one included. Harmons are one. I know there are a lot of people that are interested in getting some of the original histories together. And there hasn't been, up to now, as far as I know, anybody that would do it because it takes funding. And if I'm going to put that money into it, I want to see some of myself put into it. MR. ANDERSON: Absolutely. MS. CROCKETT: So it's not going to be a totally unbiased input. MR. ANDERSON: Well, world histories aren't. And that's okay. Oral histories are subjective. MS. CROCKETT: Of course, they are. MR. ANDERSON: And they're personal. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 62 MS. CROCKETT: It's seen from one point of view. MR. ANDERSON: That's what I like about it. MS. CROCKETT: This is why it's fabulous that somebody outside of this, maybe somebody that came here two and three years ago, can put this together. And I think it's great. (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 ??