K: One of the provisions of the charter, for lack
of a better term, of Boulder City. . .no, it’s
not even a charter- -it was written into the contract,
when the contract for the construction of the dam
and of the city was originally let- -was the concept
of creating a racially homogeneous community. It was
intended that the city be inhabited primarily- -in
fact exclusively, as I interpret the documents- -by
white people of American descent. Did you see any
evidence of that? Think back.
M: The only evidence that I know of is that we just
didn’t have any black people here. Not for a
good many years.
K: Can you recall any Chinese or Mexicans or anything?
M: No. I don’t remember any Chinese, now that
I think about it. . .in the early days. And I’m
not even sure about Mexicans here then, but I know
there was no blacks. But I didn’t know whether
that was because they didn’t want to come. There
was quite a community of them in Vegas at the time.
I mean, a small community on the west side. I suppose
I presumed it was just because they didn’t want
to come.
K: Well, there was another stipulation that was written
into the contract, and that was that veterans would
[be] given preference in hiring.
M: Yes.
K: Were you aware of any prevalence of veterans?
M: No. I know Dad had been a veteran, but I don’t
think that’s why he got the job. He got it through
my uncle, and I suppose it could have been that they
might have been preferred over. But I know that the
fellow that did the hiring, he really screened them.
He was the big wig, and if he said, “You’re
on,” you’re on; if he said “You’re
not,” you’re not. |
K: I suppose that the next logical thing to discuss,
since we’ve been talking about religion, is
morals. And this, as a planned city, had its morals
planned for it as well. The documents are very clear
on that. [While it was under federal administration,
Boulder City had ordinances forbidding gambling and
the sale or consumption of potent alcohol. Other ordinances
regulated a broad range of activities and were intended
to insure an orderly society. - -ed.]
M: Yes. That’s right.
K: Let’s forget about the documentation for
a moment and talk about the reality of living here
in Boulder City.
M: There was just young people all over. There was
not supposed to be any drinking, but at the dances,
during the intermission, boys carried flasks. And
there was a few sips outside in the dance hall. There
was none on the dance floor. But there was liquor
brought into Boulder City during our days when we
couldn’t have it, until we decided to have liquor
in the city. There was always liquor in the city.
There was always some. I don’t know how it was
brought in or anything, but they didn’t search
all of the cars. But what they’d do was they’d
stop the car, and if you’re inebriated or they
thought you were too drunk to drive, why, you’d
have to sit out in that car for a while until you
became sober. And I’ve heard them talk about
that. But if you had a few to drink, if they thought
you could drive, you were allowed in. It was just
the ones that were figured too drunk to drive, why,
they're not going to drive. But I'm sure that people
brought it in. In fact, I’ve had quite a few
drinks at times, you know, in the town. So they did
have it.
K: Was anybody in town known to be selling it?
M: No, I never heard about them selling it. The way
the police got around, I don’t believe that
they could have. But you could go out to the outskirts,
well away. I believe Klinger’s was there then
with that store; they were in later years. I’m
not sure when they started selling liquor there. That’s
below the pass, but you could buy it in Vegas and
I’m sure a lot of people brought it in with
their groceries, because you did most of your grocery
shopping. . .you went to Vegas to do a lot of it. |
Saturday night was the big night. That was the dance
night. And other than that, why, you made your own
recreation. Had your games to play.
K: Well, spend a little time and tell me about that.
What kind of things did you do for recreation?
M: I can’t remember. Of course, I worked for
quite a while at Smith’s root beer stand. [laughter]
And a lot of that was evening work. I don’t
know really what we did do. Have to think about that.
In fact, in going through my pictures, I found an
awful lot of them that we had pictures up on that
lawn. And different ones. I told Carl, I said, “I
must have had a hundred pictures up on the government
lawn and down at the airport.”
K: What was the attraction at the airport?
M: They had that nice building. We just walked around
town. We did a lot of walking, I’m sure.
K: Did you have anything like a promenade?
M: No, I can’t remember having anything like
that.
K: Well, where did boys and girls go to meet each
other?
M: The dance and the theater.
K: And, of course, you were a car hop for a while.
Was that a pretty big operation?
M: Smith’s root beer stand, they had one in
Vegas and one in Boulder, and especially on payday
night you got quite a few tips. Root beer, I think,
was 5¢, and beer was 10¢. You got a dollar
a day for being a carhop. Big wages. But on a good
night, you could probably make $5 or $6 in tips, which
was good then. That was usually on payday, because
the day after they probably wouldn’t have any
money left.
But there wasn’t an awful lot to do. Of course,
we went to Vegas quite often. And, like I say, there
was the Twin Lakes. They had a swimming pool out there.
You could go out there.
K: Of course, Las Vegas was a pretty small town, too.
M: Oh, yes. It was smaller than Boulder City, population-wise-
-there were about 5,000 or 6,000. It was over 10,000
here.
K: So what would you do in Las Vegas when you went
in?
M: I had these friends, the Ullom sisters and the
different ones that worked at the Smith’s in
there, and we went to the picture show and we went
shopping. That’s just about what we did is shopped,
go in there and shop. We didn’t go into the
gambling places very much. Later on we did. We could
play bingo. They didn’t have bingo like it is
now; it was a sort of a different bingo, and I remember
going in there and playing that. But there wasn’t
too much in Vegas, either, at the time. Not in the
first years. Later on, of course, it began to grow
and grow. By 1935 or 1936 it was getting to be a pretty
good sized place. |
K: Can you describe for me the society of Boulder
City at that time? I am particularly interested in
whether there were any distinctions made between different
types of people within the community.
M: I do know that the higher-ups in the government
were sort of out of reach, you know. The rest of us
[were] common folk, just working people. And if you
got to see Mr. Crowe, why, that was really something,
because you knew he was one of the ones that was the
boss over everybody. [Frank T. Crowe was the construction
superintendent for the Six Companies, Inc.- -ed.]
I wouldn’t call it a caste system, but there
was sort of a separation between the working class
and the others. Naturally.
K: Would that be between the working class and the
government, or between the working class and the white
collar class in general?
M: There had to be some difference. There was about
at least 10 men to each woman here- -and perhaps even
more. The men, naturally, the younger ones, stayed
in the dormitory. There’s some pretty rough
characters, and I suppose there had to be that separation
somewhere along the line. But everybody seemed to
get along all right together, except that the government
people sort of kept together pretty well, and the
workers on their side. There was a separation of sorts,
but it wasn’t intentional. The workers were
used to being together and the government workers
together in their work. There was a separation there,
and that’s probably the only separation. |
|
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