At first, we didn’t have any schools. There
was no schools in Boulder at all, and so older kids
had to go to Las Vegas to school, if they could get
in there. Then they used 3 of the first Six Company
houses built- -they were down fairly close to the
El Rancho Motel, down in there- -and they used those
for school buildings. Different women here in town
who had taught school before they had come to Boulder
City volunteered to teach. And people would pay a
dollar and a half- -I don’t know whether it
was a week or a month- -per child. (I think it was
a month.) And if they had 2 children, why, the second
child was a dollar. There were no books or anything.
They just had to do the best they could.
Then, of course, we all raised cain because we didn’t
have any school. But this was a reservation; it wasn’t
a part of the state of Nevada. And so then we did
get started to build a school. The first school was
a brick building, which is now our city hall, and
it didn’t get finished until the latter part
of September of 1932. The Six Companies contacted
the school district in Las Vegas, and they told them
what books they would need, and they kept them in
their store. The people had to buy books for the children,
and the school just didn’t have any equipment
at all. They had to do so much using the gelatin and
making papers from the books for the kids to study
from because there was never enough books in the Six
Companies Store for the people even to buy when they
could buy. It was about 3 years later when the state
bought the books back from us. But, at first, the
government built the building, and Six Companies hired
the teachers. But we did go by the curriculum of the
state of Nevada. |
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