1 NEVADA STATE MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY LAS VEGAS, NEVADA THE LAS VEGAS I REMEMBER INTERVIEW WITH LAURA BELLE KELCH 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. WRIGHT: Mrs. Kelch, you've been in Las Vegas a long time. And I think Las Vegas people would like to know why it is that you came and where you grew up and how it was you found your way to Las Vegas. MS. KELCH: All of that is very interesting to me. I'd like to hear that. No, I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, highly cultured community, universities and the libraries and museums and, oh, just terrific. From there I moved to New York City. MR. WRIGHT: And there's a little culture in New York City. MS. KELCH: Yes. And then New York City to Los Angeles. All these big cities of our country. I wouldn't have believed it when I was a child, but I enjoyed every minute of it. And we were working for a radio station, my husband was, in Hollywood, California, for Warner Brothers, KFWB. And they finally decided that they'd let the Union come in. And several of the men, the operators, felt that they didn't want the Union to tell them what to do. They wanted to run their own programs. So they got together and decided that they'd do a survey of the Southwest because the Southwest is where they thought the development was going to happen. So we came here in 1939, and we did a research and found that there was no radio reception here at all. Of course, the population was only 8,700 people. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 3 MR. WRIGHT: When you say you came here, you just visited Las Vegas for just a short time? MS. KELCH: No. We came to look at it to see whether this was the place that we would want to be established and decided, yes, this was the place. So we came in 1940. MR. WRIGHT: May I ask why you decided this was the place? Just the business opportunities or was there something about the community? MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: Okay. MS. KELCH: And we felt that the railroad, of course, was here so it was an old community, but they didn't have radio. The only radio they could get would be late at night listening to Salt Lake City or Denver. And so we thought, we'll just bring it here. So we applied for the license and we waited, of course. And finally they called and said, "Yes, we're granting you the license. We're sorry we can't give you the first call letters that you wanted." MR. WRIGHT: And what call letters did you want; do you recall? MS. KELCH: We wanted KENO because it's a word and it describes Las Vegas. It's a gambling game. But we were sure that the illustrious Federal Communications Commission would never grant a gambling game name. It had to start with a K, of course. It had to be four letters. That's still in TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 4 existence today. So we wanted KENO. But when we put in our application, we said, no, the second choice will be KENO. But that's what we wanted. And finally the Federal Communications Commission called early one morning and said, "We're sorry, but we've given your first choice to a ship at sea. We'll give you your second choice, KENO." We leaped in the air and danced and cried. And I went out on the terrace, and I looked over at the water barrel for our horses because the first thing we did when we came to town was buy a horse. Now, I was from Cincinnati. I didn't know anything about horsing, horses and horse riding. I didn't do it except when I went to a camp and they had horses, so then I rode there. So I looked over at the water barrel and on the rim of the water barrel was a mountain blue bird, and it's the blue bird of happiness. And that set it for us. MR. WRIGHT: That was your clue that this was going to be just the place. MS. KELCH: Yes. So we went on the air November the 1st, 1940. MR. WRIGHT: I want to talk to you more about the radio station in a moment, but I'd like to get some of your impressions for modern Las Vegans. What kind of town was this? You're used to the culture of Cincinnati and New York. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 5 What was your first reaction to Las Vegas? MS. KELCH: Oh, it was just a cowboy town, 8,700 people. Now, we could fit them all in one hotel and include our horses. But it was quite a challenge. The climate was great. And we felt that certainly that would be our home. MR. WRIGHT: What part of town did you live in? MS. KELCH: Well, at first, we lived right downtown in an apartment off of Fifth Street and Fremont Street. And then when we got the grant, we built our station at an extinct nightclub run by the Cornero brothers. This was east of town about where Montgomery Ward is now on the Boulder Highway. MR. WRIGHT: It was way out of town then, wasn't it? MS. KELCH: Yes, oh yes, because we had to have so much space for our tower, all the ground cover, all the wires that go in under there. And they came and they brought the horse. And they dug up all the ground so they could put all the wiring in. And the nightclub was extinct by that time, so we remodeled a portion of it for studios and all the controls. MR. WRIGHT: And this was The Meadows nightclub that you're referring to, I assume. MS. KELCH: That's right, The Meadows. So we lived there for a while. Then a man close to us, a neighbor, had a house that he offered us for rent. So we did that. And I remember when we were living in the extinct casino how cold it TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 6 was at night. Oh, we'd have to put hot water in hot bags and put them in the bed before we'd get in the bed in the winter. MR. WRIGHT: How about the summertime? It must have been a little the opposite in the summertime. MS. KELCH: Yes, it was. It was. So we moved in that house that they rented to us and had our horses right there. And we built a barn for the horses. And then we bought property west of town on Sunny Place off of Bonanza Road. And that was way out in the country also. But we moved the barn out there. We built that house. And I could ride downtown and do my shopping downtown on my horse, tie him up. They had railings in front of all of the establishments. You could tie your horse up. MR. WRIGHT: Did a lot of other people do that too? Did you see a lot of horses on Fremont Street? MS. KELCH: Yes, oh yes. Um-hm. And of course, Helldorado time, that was the big time of the whole year. MR. WRIGHT: Tell us what Helldorado was. MS. KELCH: Well, Helldorado was a rodeo really and all of the things that you would do at those. It was the one thing in the community that everybody was behind. It was fun. They had parades, and you'd have old style wagons down the Fremont Street, so that was the most exciting time. They'd have a jail cell on some of the corners, and they'd take the prominent people when they saw them and stick TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 7 them in that jail cell and not let them out. And then all of the friends would walk by and put money in to release them, please. It was very, very different and really exciting. MR. WRIGHT: What did Fremont Street look like during those periods? I imagined country western saloons with hitching posts, but maybe it wasn't quite like that. MS. KELCH: Yes, it had hitching posts, and let's see. What else? Trees. The women's Mesquite Club, they ordered and saved money and bought trees and planted cottonwood trees all down Fremont. And then they had to water them. So they'd have a great big tank on a wagon and pull that down the street. And a lot of the sidewalks were wooden. MR. WRIGHT: They had boardwalks down Fremont Street? MS. KELCH: Yes, boardwalks, yes. But I'd never lived under circumstances like that and it was most exciting. MR. WRIGHT: How about the cultural amenities? Did you miss that? MS. KELCH: Oh, yes. After Cincinnati and New York City and Los Angeles, yes. There wasn't anything here. So when I had the first opportunity, I joined the group at the Community College of Southern Nevada, and I still serve on that board. That's wonderful. MR. WRIGHT: Las Vegas has a good deal more of that kind of thing now. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 8 MS. KELCH: Oh, yes indeed. MR. WRIGHT: Thinking again just about the '40s, did you and your husband go out that much to hear entertainment? Now, Las Vegas is noted for its celebrity entertainment, but what did people do then? MS. KELCH: Well, they had them then too. And when we built our station on the highway finally and moved in with Tom -- what's his last name? MR. WRIGHT: Tom Hull? MS. KELCH: Tom Hull. He was in town, and he had a flat tire at Fifth and Main. And he stood there and he watched the cars go by, and he couldn't believe the traffic. He said, "I have to have a hotel here. I have to have a hotel." So he immediately got in contact with Tom Campbell, real estate, and they purchased the property on Las Vegas Boulevard. And he came to us and he said, "If I move your tower, all your equipment, build you new offices and studios, will you move to my new hotel?" We said yes. MR. WRIGHT: Just to orient people, where on Las Vegas Boulevard are we talking about? Way out where the Flamingo was? MS. KELCH: Well, on the property that was El Rancho Vegas. MR. WRIGHT: Um-hm. And that was sort of across from TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 9 the Sahara, wasn't it? MS. KELCH: And the Riviera. MR. WRIGHT: And the Riviera. MS. KELCH: And let's see. Yes, it's all vacant now. Everything's been torn down. But it's a marvelous piece of property. MR. WRIGHT: Tell us a little bit about KENO Radio. This was the first station that endured in Las Vegas. What was radio like in the 1940s into the '50s? MS. KELCH: Well, I can talk about my part of it because I had a program for women called "Listen Ladies," and it was an hour program every day except Sunday. I finally cut out Saturday because I wanted more time to spend with my family. But I would have agricultural agents come in and talk about what kind of vegetables you wanted to raise or how to start a lawn, build a lawn, and how to raise children, well, anything that I felt would be interesting to women. How to set tables and how to cook certain meals for them at what hour. But it was then, also, that we had a newscast every single day. At 5:00 o'clock it would start with music. So if you had your friends in, they would sit around and they'd probably start eating at, say, 5:00 o'clock. At 6:00 o'clock, everything stopped and they listened to the radio. That was the news. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 10 MR. WRIGHT: And this was network news or did you have local news and network news? MS. KELCH: This was local news, yes. Later when we joined the American Broadcasting Company -- we became an affiliate. Then, of course, we listened to the national and international news on our station. MR. WRIGHT: I suppose the news was a little different in those years, not three crime stories and a fire. MS. KELCH: No, no, it was most interesting. Yes, you could be happy sitting at the table and eating while you were listening to that. But all the years here were just absolutely fascinating. And as I said, the population was only 8,700 people. And a hotel now could put us all up including our horses. MR. WRIGHT: But a lot of things were happening in Las Vegas. Las Vegas was growing really rapidly during this period. MS. KELCH: Well, it was because of the war and because of Nellis coming into town and making this their headquarters and BMI. MR. WRIGHT: And BMI was -- MS. KELCH: -- was operating, yes. MR. WRIGHT: The Basic Magnesium, Incorporated. MS. KELCH: Yes, exactly. And Hoover Dam. Then, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 11 actually, we were declared a vital industry because had the Japanese, after bombing Pearl Harbor, come over and bombed the west coast of our country, the influx of people to Las Vegas would have been enormous. So we started programs about that. MR. WRIGHT: Yeah, I think, if I recall correctly, KENO even had a radio show dedicated to the air base, did it not? Where some of the servicemen would actually put on a show? MS. KELCH: Yes, right. MR. WRIGHT: So there was quite a community feeling, I would guess then, sort of cooperative relationship between the air base and the community. MS. KELCH: Yes, our radio station was declared a vital industry. And they refused my husband in the services. He wanted to join and build stations abroad where they needed them, but they said, "Absolutely, not. You are there. You're a vital industry." And we had to monitor a station 24 hours a day and, on a certain signal, douse our transmitter so the enemy couldn't fly in on our signal and bomb Hoover Dam, bomb Basic Magnesium, bomb the aerial gunnery school. So it was very, very touchy and was frightening, but we did it. Twenty-four hours a day we had to listen. MR. WRIGHT: And I understand, too, that Las Vegas had blackouts. And I suppose the radio station had to be set TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 12 up to give an alert in case of that sort of thing. MS. KELCH: You're right, yes. It was the only means of communication for the entire community. MR. WRIGHT: Everybody knows about the Las Vegas Strip. MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: And, in fact, your radio station was at the first hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. What was the rest of The Strip like? MS. KELCH: Nothing. MR. WRIGHT: Okay. MS. KELCH: We had a tree on our front lawn there. And tourists, as they drove in, would come in and say, "Oh, could we picnic under your tree on your lawn? Would you mind if we do that?" And we'd say, "No, make yourselves at home." And that was interesting, people from all over. MR. WRIGHT: A little further out the highway there was another hotel out there shortly after you arrived. MS. KELCH: The Frontier, yes. MR. WRIGHT: A little bit of a competition develop between those two hotels to see who could get the finest and biggest swimming pool, sort of like today? MS. KELCH: Well, I suppose so, yes, of course. That's business competition. But I remember I'd never had bees, a bee hive. Oh, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 13 no. But I had a Girl Scout troop then, of course not until 1940, after that when my daughter was born. She was born in '44. MR. WRIGHT: What about after the war? Las Vegas had gone through a tremendous period of growth because of the Basic Magnesium that you mentioned and because of the air base. Now the war is over, people started drifting away. I understand your husband had a little bit to do with sort of putting Las Vegas back in the news. MS. KELCH: Much to do with it, right. Yes, because he was here during all of that. He was president of the Chamber of Commerce. And he said, "We've got to keep this traffic coming through Las Vegas." So they started a Live Wire group, and the Live Wires were out to get people to come to Las Vegas. They'd travel all over the country and publicize Las Vegas and brought all these people in here because if you have tourists come in, they don't take anything away but they leave a lot. They leave their money. They leave their enjoyment of the community, which they can share with the rest of the country. So my husband convinced the Chamber of Commerce board that this was the thing to do. They hired an advertising agency, West-Marquis was the one. And they just brought this town up, up, up. It just kept going, and it hasn't stopped yet. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 14 MR. WRIGHT: I suppose we ought to mention your husband was Maxwell Kelch. MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: I don't think we've mentioned his name. MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: But he also, I think, was he not, instrumental in helping to create the news bureau and sending all of these stories out? MS. KELCH: Yes, right. Now, he had worked his way through college by doing radio remotes. So he had a good background in that, and that's why when he came to this place and saw what it was like, he had this dream, and that's what started it all. And then when they refused him in the service because he was more important here, he could see. He looked to the future, "What can we except in the future?" and decided that this is tourists. It's on the railroad. The highways come right through here, nothing to stop it. Let's start the growth. And that worked. MR. WRIGHT: So I suppose then it's fair to say with your husband and people like Tommy Hull, who built the El Rancho, that these were the people who had the vision of what Las Vegas could really become. MS. KELCH: That's right, yes. MR. WRIGHT: Who were some of the other community leaders that you might recall during this period that also TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 15 helped promote Las Vegas? MS. KELCH: Oh, my goodness. Pop Squires, Al Cahlan. MR. WRIGHT: Tell us who Pop Squires was. MS. KELCH: Pop Squires was the editor of The Age, the newspaper, the oldest newspaper here. He came when they were allocating lots to people to buy so many years ago, and he was so interested in the community. And what a dancer he was. Oh, we'd go to our Rotary meetings or Chamber of Commerce, and if they'd have music or if it was a dinner and you'd dance, he would dance and dance until you drop, but he'd keep going. MR. WRIGHT: And he had a few years on him at that point. MS. KELCH: Yes, he did. I should say. But Tom Campbell also was very important in the development of the community. He was in real estate. I have a list of people that I can remember, but I can't now. Bob Russell was another one. He was the manager of the Apache Hotel. MR. WRIGHT: And they called him Colonel Bob Russell. Why was that? MS. KELCH: I don't know. But he was a member of our Frontier Riders group. We had an organization that the president was Bob Russell's wife, Matilda Russell, and she was TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 16 of the Beeman family, the chewing gum family, Beeman, wealthy, wealthy people. And here she was president of the Frontier Riders. And every week we'd gather and ride out to some place way out in the desert all of us and maybe be out to a bar somewhere. We'd stop in there and then all come home. And one year we planned a trip to Hoover Dam on horseback. So riding through the desert, and I can well remember that, you were sore. MR. WRIGHT: I'm sure. MS. KELCH: And I did ride over. And you'd go up and down and up and down and up and down until you're finally there. And I said, "I'm not going to ride back." So there was a young man, a neighbor of ours, and he had driven over there with his family, and we got him to ride my horse back. MR. WRIGHT: Well, riding horses takes me back again for a moment to Helldorado. Helldorado had quite a number of stars associated with it, did it not? MS. KELCH: Oh, yes. MR. WRIGHT: And I'm sure you got an opportunity to meet some of them. MS. KELCH: Yes. And the parades, oh, they were so well attended. The Fremont Street and the wagons and the outfits that the people wore. MR. WRIGHT: Didn't Roy Rogers come to town for one TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 17 of the Helldorados? MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: And Hoot Gibson, wasn't he a fixture in Las Vegas as well? MS. KELCH: Yes, right. MR. WRIGHT: And Rex Bell, who was a cowboy movie star, so Helldorado was a very big deal. MS. KELCH: I have so many files at home. I tried to get through them. MR. WRIGHT: Okay. The air base, as I understand it, closed for a time right at the end of the war and so did the magnesium plant at Henderson, but we still have them. MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: Would you like to talk a little bit about how those industries were saved? MS. KELCH: Well, I would say mostly it was due to the Chamber of Commerce. They were told by these leaders of the community that these are things that we have to watch because we want the world to come here to Las Vegas, and we need to have these facilities also. MR. WRIGHT: And that sort of also reminds me of the issue of transportation. Las Vegas was a railroad city for a very long time. MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: But the airport didn't used to be where TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 18 it is now. MS. KELCH: No. MR. WRIGHT: If you flew into Las Vegas, normally, where would you land? MS. KELCH: Well, you'd land at the airport. MR. WRIGHT: The municipal airport during the years that you first came here was also at the air base. But you had an airplane later, you and your husband, but you parked it at a different airport. And you might want to tell us a little bit about that one. MS. KELCH: Well, we parked at our big airport. And the Crocketts were operating the private part of it. And we'd always leave our plane there. And we finally moved it out to the North Las Vegas Airport. MR. WRIGHT: And where was the Crockett airport? I think people would be interested to know. MS. KELCH: Well, that was the big airport there now, yes. MR. WRIGHT: And then you moved your plane out to what's now the North Las Vegas Airport. MS. KELCH: Because it was closer to where we were living, yes. MR. WRIGHT: I wanted to ask you, too, about some of your involvement with the community in other ways. I know one organization that's a very old one and has performed a lot of TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 19 service to the City of Las Vegas, and that's the Mesquite Club. MS. KELCH: Right. MR. WRIGHT: Maybe you could tell us a little bit about your involvement with the Mesquite Club. And I know you had one project in mind that you thought was very special, recalling that a number of local community leaders, including your husband, who took a very active role in getting the air base reopened. Can you sort of tell us a little bit about that? MS. KELCH: No, I can't. MR. WRIGHT: Well, I thought maybe there was something about traveling to Washington or something or was that -- MS. KELCH: Well, that, of course, was incorporated in the Chamber of Commerce as everything else was. MR. WRIGHT: Oh, okay. MS. KELCH: And the fact that my husband was a flyer, a pilot, kept his interest in that. MR. WRIGHT: Okay. You had mentioned the bond issue to build the McCarran Airport, which was out where the Crocketts had their airport. MR. WRIGHT: Yeah, just again about the early days of radio station KENO, you had some partners when you came. MS. KELCH: Yes. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 20 MR. WRIGHT: Did they stay with you on that? MS. KELCH: No, they did not. They couldn't see any future in this at all. So George Foster was one who remained with us; and the other men left, went back and got jobs with the national networks, which was all right. And finally George Foster didn't see any future either. But my husband certainly did, and it has worked out successfully and exactly what he was thinking. MR. WRIGHT: I think that's pretty amazing that -- not so surprising after all, I suspect -- that somebody would not see a future in this little, tiny desert town of 8,000 people, but your husband had the vision to see what the possibilities were. MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: Anyway, I would like to talk again just a little bit about the Mesquite Club. MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: Tell us, first, what is the Mesquite Club and what kinds of projects have you been personally involved with and your activity with the Mesquite Club? MS. KELCH: Well, the Mesquite Club is a group of women, the oldest club in the state, I guess. And they actually put the trees down, as I said before, on Fremont Street. And they also said, "Why don't we all put the books TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 21 that we have in one person's home. We'll call that the library." And you could go down there anytime you wanted. This was before my time. And yet, when I came -- because I came from these communities where libraries were very, very important, and they were all my life. Because I'd ask my dad something, Dad why is about this, and he'd say, "Go look it up." And I'd go look it up in his books, encyclopedia, and then I'd go down to the library in Cincinnati right by my school. So libraries are very important. And I was asked to be on that committee, and we built the first downtown library. MR. WRIGHT: And where was that, may I ask? MS. KELCH: That no longer can be there now. It was behind the courthouse. And then the freeway came in, took over part of it. We had a rose garden there. We had a lot of lawn. And I had a commercial photographer come in and take a picture of the building when it was all completed. And I had them made into penny postcards, a penny, and took them around to all the -- there weren't very many -- but to drugstores that had the circular card indexes that would sell the cards. And when tourists would come and they'd look for a card to say "I'm here in Las Vegas," they'd choose that card. So libraries were in my heart, that's for sure. MR. WRIGHT: Didn't you have a motto that you put on correspondence? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 22 MS. KELCH: Well, I have to say how that started. I was elected secretary of the library association, and I had to send letters of thanks to all the organizations and all the individuals who sent money for us so that we could build that downtown library. And I wanted a quote to put on the stationary, and I couldn't gather one. But Dr. Lloyd Douglas, the author of The Robe, was at our house visiting one night. And his son-in-law and daughter were partners of ours in several businesses. And I asked him, I said, "Lloyd, could you think of something I could put on the bottom of the stationary?" And he called me the next morning and he said, "Laura Belle, what do you think of this? 'A well-equipped public library is every man's university.'" And we used it. So every letter that went out had that at the bottom. And people began to flow in there. We had a big children's part in the library and, of course, we didn't have too many books there. We kept adding to it. And we would rent out some of the rooms to organizations that were having their annual meetings, and they'd come down there. I remember the water company, the power company did that, the gas company, in particular, I guess, for years had their board meetings there. MR. WRIGHT: And I recall reading sometime that a substantial percentage of the city population had library cards -- TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 23 MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: -- in those years. MS. KELCH: Oh, yes. MR. WRIGHT: That was a very big central project for the community. MS. KELCH: Yes, it was. MR. WRIGHT: Now, you and your husband didn't stay in the radio business forever. You went on to other kinds of business opportunities. What kinds of things did you do after selling -- and, first, when did you sell the radio station approximately? MS. KELCH: Um-hm. MR. WRIGHT: I was thinking about the Foodland Markets, and you told stories about how -- MS. KELCH: Yes. Well, my husband felt that, when we had a daughter and a son, that it was very important that we could continue to support them and send them off to schools and colleges eventually. And so he said, "I think we should build an apartment house." And then he made me the manager of it. So that was quite an interesting experience. And Vail Pittman was one of our occupants of the apartment. MR. WRIGHT: And a lot of people have come here since Vail Pittman. You might explain who Vail Pittman was. MS. KELCH: Well, he was very important in the state. Well, that was fun. And then my husband decided what TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 24 we needed to invest in were things that were concerning people -- food. People had to have food. And they were building, and they had to have building materials. So we invested in the Foodland chain of stores eventually. We built one in Boulder City, one in Henderson, one in North Las Vegas and, of course, the big one here on Fremont Street. And the building materials was Cind R-Lite. And we owned a cinder cone up in Beatty, Nevada. And we would transport the cinders down here and make the cinder bricks. And it didn't absorb the heat, and all the homes then were being built with cinder blocks. So those were all wonderful things. He was so smart to get us into things like that. MR. WRIGHT: There was one other gentleman that you mentioned, perhaps you could talk a little bit about him, a fellow by the name of Bob Baskin. MS. KELCH: Bob Baskin had a bakery here, right downtown. And he was a councilman in town. And they'd have their council meetings there. And he said that, yes, he wanted to have a spot on the radio but for Max not to send the bill to him. He said, "You come down and I'll give you the cash." So of course, my husband said, "Laura Belle, you do that." So I went down every week and collected the money, and he would give me a big suit box full of leftover bakery, probably freshly baked also because it lasted and fed us for a week. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 25 MR. WRIGHT: Did you say that the city commission actually held their meetings down at Bob Baskin's? MS. KELCH: Yes, I think so. Well, everybody was talking there. Yeah, if you wanted to know anything about what was going on, you stopped at Bob Baskin's bakery. MR. WRIGHT: That was the in place to find out what was happening. MS. KELCH: Yes, right. Of course, we met Sam Lawson. MR. WRIGHT: This was a Bob Russell story about catching the first fish in Lake Mead. That was a Bob Russell ploy about planting the barracuda instead of buying a barracuda in San Pedro and catching it at Lake Mead. We were talking about the Live Wire, and I should have asked you: How was the money raised for conducting that campaign? MS. KELCH: Well, the speeches, of course -- the Chamber of Commerce members to them -- and told them how much this would raise and what it would be applied to, to bring people into Las Vegas. And people did it. They wanted to help. I've forgotten what the amount was, but something like $10,000 a year if the company could contribute that. MR. WRIGHT: I think when we were talking before, Mrs. Kelch, that you had mentioned something about water and the state engineer. Perhaps that was in the article as well. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 26 MS. KELCH: Suddenly faced up to the facts of life and about the state water engineer, Alfred Merritt Smith, who told them that the city was depleting its underground water supply, and he was considering a ban on any new well drilling. Well, we were warned that the town could dry up and blow away. That really shook us up. Archie Grant was appointed to head a study of water needs and resources. And out of that came the organization of the Las Vegas Water District and the Southern Nevada Water Project bringing in water from Lake Mead, which we still do. MR. WRIGHT: So this was one of our perennial issues and was with us as far back as the 1940s. MS. KELCH: Yes, water was always the most important. MR. WRIGHT: One thing I did want to ask you, and I touched on only briefly a few moments ago, when you first came to town, not a lot of places were air conditioned. MS. KELCH: No. MR. WRIGHT: How did people and how did you and your husband, in particular, cope with summer weather? MS. KELCH: Well, we heard stories about people that were over by the lake. They'd go over there for the daytime and take their families, and then at night they would just take a sheet and dip it in the water and crawl under that. And as that evaporated, they kept cool. What did they call TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 27 that stuff that they would put in an air conditioner? MR. WRIGHT: Burlap? MS. KELCH: Yes, burlap, right. And we even had one in the car, a little tank that you'd fit in on the passenger side of the car, roll the window down and put this on, roll the window up, and then it had a trough in there that you had to keep water in, and burlap sacking around a coil that would turn around when you pulled a little rope. So if you were driving across the desert, you certainly needed one of those. MR. WRIGHT: And there were places one could escape to, were there not? MS. KELCH: Oh, yes, so long as there was water there, yes. MR. WRIGHT: I understand a lot of people, for example, would spend the summer at Mount Charleston? MS. KELCH: Oh, yes. And we looked at a place up there too because we thought that's where we'd want to be. Just beautiful. MR. WRIGHT: And I've also been told that a lot of people, especially in the summertime, if you had to stay in Las Vegas, you would often send your family to Southern California for the summer or to California. MS. KELCH: Yes, I'm sure they did. MR. WRIGHT: And I think you and your husband spent some summers, did you not, in California? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 28 MS. KELCH: Yes. We trailered our boat down and then navigated over to Catalina Island. And for 25 years we had a mooring over there at the isthmus at Catalina Island. And my husband would fly back. We had our own plane then and he'd fly back, but I'd stay over there with the children on the boat. Oh, wonderful, wonderful years. And close to us here. Not too far for people to drive to. Well, if there was water anywhere, a little lake anywhere, that's where the whole crowd would be. When we built the house that I just moved out of after 42 years, we had a swimming pool, of course, and all the children in the neighborhood and their parents used that pool. But you'd go out to the lake, of course. MR. WRIGHT: You and your husband occasionally would go elsewhere for the summer, would you not? MS. KELCH: Oh, mostly Catalina. Oh, yes. MR. WRIGHT: You told me that before. Could you just sort of tell a little bit about spending the summer in Catalina and then flying back to Las Vegas? MS. KELCH: Yes, but I had a troop of my own. I mean, I was the adult leader. And we planned a trip to Europe for three months. I didn't plan it. A friend of mine, who had her own troop, and those girls were working trying to raise the money to go to Europe. And when the final date came, her daughter had to have surgery and she was unable to TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 29 go, so they had to find another leader. And they called me and I said, no, because my mother and father were living with us. And my mother had a stroke and she needed help constantly. But they kept pressuring me, pressuring me because the girls wouldn't be able to go after planning this for three years. They would do all the shopping for their families and then they'd get paid for that or they'd do cleaning for anybody or wash windows and get paid for it, and they saved the money for this trip. Well, they couldn't get anybody else to do it so my husband said, "I'll take care of our son if you can go." And the woman I then had to take care of my parents at night said, "I will take care of your parents, Laura Belle, if you're willing to undertake this." So I said yes. And I could take my daughter. Well, we visited nine countries. We were gone for three months. MR. WRIGHT: How large a group of Girl Scouts did you have with you? MS. KELCH: It was a group of ten. Well, it was exhausting, very exhausting, but the experience I had was just wonderful, just wonderful now that I look back. And many of the girls have gone back and maybe even gone to school there in Europe, one of the countries there. And I remember Paris so well. The chief of police TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 30 came with our group and took us -- well, we drove down -- no, I'm getting ahead of myself because this was a year later that I went over as a family. But they were all so kind to us in all these countries, Girl Scouts everywhere. So it was a wonderful experience. MR. WRIGHT: Was that kind of a once in a lifetime thing? MS. KELCH: Yes, yes. MR. WRIGHT: It is? MS. KELCH: Yes. But we, as a family, went back the very next year to those places and met the same people. And the people over there that we met have come over here and visited us in Las Vegas. MR. WRIGHT: Anything else from your many years in Las Vegas that I haven't asked you about that you think -- MS. KELCH: Well, of course, in Boy Scouting -- I'm Boy Scouting. MR. WRIGHT: Tell us about that. MS. KELCH: I'm on the advisory board of the Boy Scouts and go to all those meetings. It's inspirational to see these men who are behind an organization such as the Boy Scouts. It's wonderful. We need that, our young people. MR. WRIGHT: Referring to some of the items that we've talked about before and some of the people that you've met in Las Vegas, I believe you indicated once that you'd met TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 31 Sally Rand in Las Vegas. MS. KELCH: Oh, yes. At our station, when we built the station on Tommy Hull's property, we offered our sound studios to any of the entertainers who were entertaining at the hotels to come and do their rehearsing in our studio. And that was when I got to meet her. MR. WRIGHT: And what kind of an act did Sally Rand have? MS. KELCH: Oh, dancing, fan dancing. MR. WRIGHT: Fan dancing. MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: I heard a wonderful story about her, maybe you could confirm it, that she actually donated surplus balloons to the war effort during that period as part of her bubble dance. MS. KELCH: I believe that's right. Yes, yes. And getting way back there, I'm thinking about the first home that we built that was leading just off of Bonanza Road. It was leading into that Bonanza Village development, which was one of the first really nice developments in town. And my daughter was young, and I wanted to have chickens there because I felt that she had to have fresh eggs. So I did. We went out and we bought six Rhode Island Reds and then told my friends that we were selling eggs. And Sam Lawson of the water and power company said that he wanted TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 32 a dozen eggs, and he would like the brown-shelled ones, which the Rhode Island Reds laid. And so I delivered to his office, which was one of these little houses downtown, a dozen eggs every week. Oh, we had a chicken coop that we built that was about six feet square. It was two floors. So when they were on the bottom, they could scratch in the dirt, and then we had a ramp that led to the next floor. And that's where we had the nests that they could get in to lay their eggs. And that was accessible from the back of each one of those little cubbies. MR. WRIGHT: And this wasn't way out in the country either. This was quite close to downtown. MS. KELCH: That's right. And I used to ride my horse every single day. The first thing we did was buy a horse, a 16-hand horse because my husband was very tall. And I'd have to take my foot with my hand to reach it up into the stirrup to get up in the saddle. But after my program, I'd go out and look for the horse and go riding every day. And one day when I came back, Max and our chief engineer, Ralph Dow, were standing there in front of the station, and they said, "Did you want to come back?" And I said, "No, the horse brought me back." And Max said, "Here," and he took off his belt and he said, "You go out and you train that horse. Go around the brush in the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 33 desert here, and you get that horse to do what you want him to do." So I did. And thereafter I was the master. Then I rode out with a friend of mine, a woman friend, because Rex Bell and Clara Bow had a ranch here called the Walking Box Ranch. And they had invited us to ride out there sometime, so we decided that we would do that. So we rode out of the Walking Box Ranch. MR. WRIGHT: That's quite a ways away, isn't it? MS. KELCH: Yes, it is. And the superintendent's name -- this western, truly western man -- his name was Percy O'dette. I couldn't believe it. But he said he'd teach me how to use the lasso or riata, a lariat. So I bought one -- or I guess he bought one for me, and he showed me how to use it. MR. WRIGHT: Now, Rex Bell's wife's name was Clara Bow. MS. KELCH: That's right. MR. WRIGHT: Probably a lot of younger listeners might not be familiar with that name. MS. KELCH: Oh, no, but I was. MR. WRIGHT: And who was Clara Bow? MS. KELCH: Oh, Clara Bow was one of the top women actresses in Hollywood. And my grandmother in Cincinnati owned a picture theater, and we'd go down there. Every week we'd go down and TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 34 clean her apartment for her, have dinner there, and then go over to the theater. And in those days the whole front of the theater had an organ, and the organist sat there before the show started and played the organ. And then all during the performance of the organ because there was no sound, no speaking. She would play and whatever happened to be on the screen, the music coordinated with that. Can you imagine that? But Clara Bow was one of my favorite, and Rex Bell too. MR. WRIGHT: Speaking of theaters, where did one go to a movie in Las Vegas? MS. KELCH: Oh, right down on Fremont Street. MR. WRIGHT: Everything was on Fremont Street it sounds like. MS. KELCH: Yes, yes. You met all of your friends there too. MR. WRIGHT: Were there clothing stores on Fremont Street? MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: Any one in particular that -- MS. KELCH: Well, Miss Fanny Soss, Fanny's Dress Shop. MR. WRIGHT: Tell us about Fanny's Dress Shop. MS. KELCH: Oh, well, they had the most beautiful TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 35 dresses there. Anybody going to a special event would go to Miss Fanny's. I know I was trying on dresses and I couldn't find exactly what I wanted, and I finally said good-bye and I left. And she came running out after me, "Oh, I've got one here. Come back in. I want you to try this one." She didn't let a customer escape. And she started out just selling hosiery in a little slot of a place between two buildings, very narrow, and then she was selling hose there and then she developed this beautiful, beautiful dress shop. MR. WRIGHT: And didn't she open branch stores later on as well? MS. KELCH: Yes, and her son took over. MR. WRIGHT: Her son Maury. MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: I understand she had designer clothes from Paris. And here in the little cow town of Las Vegas you could buy a Balenciaga. MS. KELCH: Yes, right. MR. WRIGHT: So it wasn't quite as uncultured as -- MS. KELCH: Oh, no. And it grew. It grew rapidly. It was exciting and it still is. Of course, one of the problems now is the big traffic. But I like to drive, so I don't mind. And the freeways are great. And the streets are great to drive on too. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 36 MR. WRIGHT: Yeah, I suppose you've lived in Las Vegas going on 60 years now, not quite 60 years. Did you like it better then, like it better now, a little of both? MS. KELCH: No, I liked every one of them, every one of them because it grew and grew and grew. Universities and community colleges and high schools everywhere. Performances going on almost every night in the week now, beginning to start up again for the fall. MR. WRIGHT: So you're not one of those that says, "Oh, too much growth, too many people, too much this -- MS. KELCH: No, no. But you do have to be careful how you control it. But don't ask me. That's a responsibility. MR. WRIGHT: Yes, it is. MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: Suggesting, and quite rightly, that women played a very big role in the development of Las Vegas -- and we've mentioned that a little bit with specific reference to the Mesquite Club -- would it be true to say that women played a very big role in the growth and development of Las Vegas in which you maybe have some instances of that, other kinds of things that women did? MS. KELCH: Yes, anything cultural was brought in here by the Mesquite Club, the women there. And as I said before, the trees down Fremont Street, and they had to water TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 37 them. But they'll never stop. They have speakers from every walk of life come into their meetings every Friday and keep us knowing what's going on in this community and letting us help. So this library thing that I worked on for them when they made me the chairman of that was a wonderful thing. I'm so proud of it. And they were so great the way they helped promote it. MR. WRIGHT: There's one thing about the trees that I've heard and maybe you could confirm that they planted cottonwoods. MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: And didn't they become a nuisance? MS. KELCH: Oh, yes, right. And you just chop off a branch and put it in the ground and build a fence around it from that, using that as a fence post, and then they'd start growing again. Oh, cottonwoods were very, very important and willows too. MR. WRIGHT: I think it's amazing to look back and think that Fremont Street was a tree shaded boulevard. MS. KELCH: Yes. Yeah, just a couple of streets. MR. WRIGHT: You were talking about children in particular and how Las Vegas was to grow up in. You had a daughter, and did she go to schools in Las Vegas? MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: There weren't that many schools early in TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 38 Las Vegas. MS. KELCH: Las Vegas High School. MR. WRIGHT: That was it? MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: That was about it? MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: And then she went down to Southern California to Pomona College, and then she got her master's degree at Stanford University. And she's been into politics for years. That's been very exciting. MR. WRIGHT: I know you didn't grow up in Las Vegas but looking back a little ways, can you give us some idea of what it was like, maybe through your daughter's eyes, to grow up in Las Vegas? What young people did, say, teenagers of that time? MS. KELCH: Well, they'd go downtown, of course. And I can't remember the name of the place that they had that they would be able to go in there and dance, and the city provided that. MR. WRIGHT: That wasn't the Wild Cat Lair by any chance? MS. KELCH: Yes, yes, exactly. So you remember. MR. WRIGHT: I'm remembering from things that I've read. It's as though I lived it, but I didn't quite. MS. KELCH: Yeah, that was very nice. And, of TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 39 course, Girl Scouts, that kept them busy also. MR. WRIGHT: And maybe at a little older age, didn't they occasionally take the folks' car and go down to Fremont Street? MS. KELCH: Oh, I suppose so. Yes, they did. MR. WRIGHT: I recall, even in my time in Las Vegas, that Fremont used to be something of a drag street. MS. KELCH: Exactly. MR. WRIGHT: Sort of driving up one side, making a turn at Union Pacific Park and coming back up the other way. MS. KELCH: Yes, yes. The Rotary meetings were held down at the train station and then they moved to the Apache Hotel, as I recall, and then all around town. Now we're in the Desert Inn out on The Strip. And I'm the first woman member of that. They invited me. MR. WRIGHT: That's very important to note that you were the first. MS. KELCH: And I haven't missed a meeting, not a meeting except when I had a heart attack and then I couldn't go. But I've been to every one. I never miss. MR. WRIGHT: Well, Rotary has certainly played a very key role, has it not, in the growth and development? MS. KELCH: Very, very, I should say. All these men that I mentioned and that are so important were Rotarians. Of course, there are other organizations, too, like Kiwanis. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 40 MR. WRIGHT: Did your husband belong to a number of those organizations? MS. KELCH: No. MS. KELCH: Chamber of Commerce, that was the most important to him. And Rotary and, oh, I can't name them all to this date. They looked at Tucson and Miami and Palm Springs, Southern California, to see what we could do to publicize this community here. And after looking and listening and sifting, the Chamber of Commerce decided that sunshine, warm winters, clear skies, and the beauty of a desert rimmed with mountains of every changing color, sunsets and sunrises made southern Nevada ideal for tourist enterprises. Well, he sold that to the people here. But you had to bring the people here, so that's how they started the Live Wire Fund. People would contribute to that. And the hotels and the casinos agreed to match certain amounts up to $50,000 to raise -- and the population, when they started this, was about 25,000 was all. Well, they decided that they'd better get into Time magazine. And the pitch was, "After the war, you'll need a rest. When you can get gas and find the time, get in your car and go to Las Vegas." So that's what we did. We had people hired especially for the public relations, and J. Walter Thompson, the advertising agency from New York City, worked for us. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 41 So putting everything together, the postwar slump never developed. We just kept moving on. And retail sales actually increased. Well, that impressed the population, the men here who were in business. Well, do you remember Earl Brothers and Bob Griffith? Well, they were early people. Carl Hyde, he was in charge of the Chamber of Commerce then. Carl Hyde developed Hyde Park. MR. WRIGHT: Bob Griffith played quite a role too -- MS. KELCH: Very. MR. WRIGHT: -- in getting the air base here, I understand, in the first place. MS. KELCH: Yes. And he was postmaster at one time also, as his father was, I believe. So there were very interesting people that I got to meet. So it made this a home for me, vastly different, vastly, vastly different. MR. WRIGHT: Las Vegas is a very different kind of community in a whole lot of ways. One thing that we haven't talked about, and maybe you'd like to say something about, during the period right after you and your husband came, some other types of individuals were coming too. The rest of the world knows them as mobsters. Did you ever have occasion to meet any of these individuals? MS. KELCH: Yes, we certainly did because our first station was on the property of The Meadows. The Cornero brothers -- TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 42 MR. WRIGHT: And did you meet the Corneros? MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: Can you tell us a little bit about -- was Tony and -- MS. KELCH: Yes, I didn't get to know them too well. Bugsy Siegel, we knew. And he enjoyed coming out to the station. MR. WRIGHT: Was he as charming as everybody has suggested that he was? MS. KELCH: Yes. Yes, he was. And I remember when we opened the station on the grounds of the Hotel El Rancho Vegas, he sent us a beautiful, beautiful tree for our lobby, which was very nice rather than flowers. MR. WRIGHT: And Clark Gable was here, was he not, on a very unfortunate occasion? Do you recall that during the early years here? MS. KELCH: Yes. Clark Gable's friend, the actress -- MR. WRIGHT: Carole Lombard? MS. KELCH: Carole Lombard. And her plane crashed when she was leaving here. This was an airline and it crashed up at Mount -- MR. WRIGHT: Mount Potosi, I believe. MS. KELCH: Yes. And I remember we quickly got out our water canteen because there were a lot of cowboys, a lot TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 43 of our friends, who had horses. You could only get up there to that location on a horse. And they needed water canteens. And I remember that we gave them one of our water canteens. I wouldn't be surprised if it was still around here somewhere. MR. WRIGHT: At a slightly later period, a fellow by the name of Hughes came to town too. Did you have a chance to meet Mr. Hughes? MS. KELCH: I certainly did, yes. Yes. MR. WRIGHT: Do you retain any impressions at all of Howard Hughes? MS. KELCH: Well, I didn't really get to spend many hours with him, that's for sure, or even talking a long time. But I've read about him. And his mother had a great influence on him, and she was so afraid that he was going to die of something that he would catch, an illness of some sort, so she was very particular about what he ate and what he did and really put her thumbs down on him. Well, he developed into a very intelligent person. And the development of the community, later than what I've been talking about now, depended upon him. And the men that he hired to work for him -- who was the man that represented him here? My memory at my age is -- MR. WRIGHT: Oh, an attorney, you mean? MS. KELCH: No. No, he worked for -- MR. WRIGHT: Oh, Robert Maheu perhaps? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 44 MS. KELCH: No, no, before him. MR. WRIGHT: My memory isn't all that swift sometimes myself. MS. KELCH: That's exasperating. Oh, I want to call it. I want to call it. But Howard Hughes was a very interesting man. Nothing to do with the public, oh, no. But he was so good for Las Vegas. All these people who owed money, he would support them and get them to pay off. MR. WRIGHT: Las Vegas was just the kind of place where you could walk down the street and bump into somebody like Howard Hughes or see them at a hotel, or Bugsy Siegel. MS. KELCH: Um-hm. MR. WRIGHT: Any of the other hotel operators of that era that you recall meeting or knowing? MS. KELCH: Bob Griffith, I mean, out at the Frontier Hotel. MR. WRIGHT: It would have been R. E. Griffith. It was R. E. Griffith, yes. But was it Robert Griffith? I get the two Griffiths mixed up myself. MS. KELCH: Well, Bob Griffith was a neighbor of mine for many, many years right across the street. And he came with his father and mother. And I guess they came in a wagon. MR. WRIGHT: They came in a wagon? My goodness. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 45 MS. KELCH: That was just at the beginnings. MR. WRIGHT: Okay. When you first came, Las Vegas was, as you've said, still a very small town. Did you and your husband go out? Were there places that people would meet of an evening, dining, dancing? MS. KELCH: The railroad station, that's for sure. MR. WRIGHT: That's an odd place to go and meet people. MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: Why the railroad station? MS. KELCH: Well, the Rotary used to meet there too many, many -- well, before we even came here because it was the only place that could serve the food and had the large enough place for the whole group. And then the Apache Hotel. MR. WRIGHT: And where was the Apache? MS. KELCH: The Apache was just off of Fremont next to the police station. MR. WRIGHT: Actually the Apache is still there, but it has a different name now; am I correct? MS. KELCH: Yes, right. MR. WRIGHT: And it's now Binion's Horseshoe. MS. KELCH: Yeah. A lot of people used to ride out to Losee Ranch. There's a lake out there, and they'd go out there and take picnics and sit on the lawns and watch the ducks on the water. It was a place that divorcees -- of TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 46 course, Las Vegas was publicized as a divorcee center. And Cliff Jones and Buck Blaine would go out to the Losee Ranch also and use their lariats and play with the horses. MR. WRIGHT: People might know the Losee Ranch by a different name. It had two or three names, but might be interested in knowing what it's called now or where it is. MS. KELCH: Was it the Boulderado Ranch, the Boulderado Ranch then to Losee? And a lot of people went out there and lived while they were waiting for a divorce. Yeah, this was a divorce center, quickly you could get a divorce. MR. WRIGHT: Were there other divorce ranches around town that you were aware of? MS. KELCH: No. MR. WRIGHT: Just the Boulderado? MS. KELCH: Yeah. MR. WRIGHT: How about in town? Of course, The Meadows was closed by the time you came, but were there other nightclubs for night life or did people just tend to stay home pretty much in the evening? MS. KELCH: No, they'd go down to Fremont Street, just walk down Fremont Street, stop in the little ice cream bar with little wire chairs. Oh, we always did that. And you'd go down to the railroad station, see your friends, walk back, say hi to everybody, first name. MR. WRIGHT: The restaurant at the railroad station TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 47 had a nickname, didn't it? Isn't that the place they called The Beanery? MS. KELCH: Yes, you're right. MR. WRIGHT: So that was one of the places where people tended to go? MS. KELCH: Uh-huh. That was an early place, a little before us, yeah. Well, it grew. From the time we came with 8,700 people in 1940, it grew to 20,000 in '44. It was 8700 in 1940 when we came and then in '44 it was up to 20,000. That's because of the war. The Army/Air Force's flexible gunnery school, which was what it was called, it's now Nellis, and Basic Magnesium. MR. WRIGHT: Very good. That sounds very good. I think we've covered everything on all of our sheets and some interesting stuff as well. MS. KELCH: Yeah, the hotels that were downtown, as I recall, were Fremont Street, the Apache, the Northern. The Boulder, the El Cortez, and the Las Vegas, and Frontier Hotel out on The Strip. MR. WRIGHT: The El Cortez was a pretty new place when you came to town, wasn't it? MS. KELCH: Um-hm. Still going. MR. WRIGHT: And still going. It might be the oldest hotel in Las Vegas that still looks pretty much like it did TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 48 back in the 1940s. MS. KELCH: Yes, and you know the names that come to mind, like Cahlan. MR. WRIGHT: Now, who were the Cahlans? MS. KELCH: Al Cahlan, well, they had the newspaper. MR. WRIGHT: Which newspaper was that? MS. KELCH: The Review-Journal. MR. WRIGHT: Um-hm. MS. KELCH: And Bob Griffith was one of the early ones. And Guy McAfee, he was into the gambling, and Colonel Bob Russell. MR. WRIGHT: Las Vegas had two newspapers. Then, as now, Las Vegas had two newspapers. But they were very different in their orientations, weren't they? MS. KELCH: Yes. MR. WRIGHT: You mentioned Pop Squires earlier. MS. KELCH: Uh-huh, with The Age. Um-hm, and the Review-Journal with the Cahlans. MR. WRIGHT: Did you know Al and John Cahlan well? John and Florence Cahlan? MS. KELCH: Yes. Florence with her articles in the paper were great. MR. WRIGHT: She was the first woman journalist, I believe. MS. KELCH: Um-hm, right. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 49 MR. WRIGHT: Unless there are some other stories that I didn't prompt you to tell or something that occurs to you, I think what we've got is really good. MS. KELCH: Well, I'm so happy. Yes, this should all be kept, I know. But you can't do everything. MR. WRIGHT: True. MS. KELCH: But I was very fortunate to be able to come here and young enough to say I can do it. We can go there and we can do it. And we can make changes in our own lives, which certainly transpired. MR. WRIGHT: I think that's a great ending point right there. (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 ??