Former city manager, fire official Trelease dies at 75

Tuesday, Nov. 3, 1998 | 11:28 a.m.

Former Las Vegas City Manager Arthur Richard "Art" Trelease was a true son of Nevada in both life, which began in Las Vegas three quarters of a century ago, and in death, which occurred Friday just a few miles from his birthplace.

As a Las Vegas Fire Department assistant chief in the early 1950s, he organized the city's fire prevention bureau. As city building director in the late 1950s, Trelease persuaded the city to adopt its first uniform building code. As city manager from 1965-76, he oversaw the merging of the city's police department with the sheriff's office.

Trelease's death from a respiratory ailment at Columbia Sunrise Hospital came a half hour before the 134th anniversary of Nevada's admission to the union. He was 75.

"It was appropriate that my husband died so close to Nevada Day." Carolyn Trelease, Art's wife of 54 years, said Monday. "He wanted to be remembered simply as a dedicated public servant who loved Las Vegas and Nevada and was a true patriot."

Trelease also was the son of William Trelease, the first Clark County fire chief, and the brother of Nadine Ronnow, who in 1936 became the first Helldorado beauty queen and still resides in Las Vegas.

Services will be 11 a.m. Saturday at Palm Mortuary-Jones. Interment will be at the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery.

"Art was firm but fair -- which is all I ever asked of him," said Oran Gragson, a four-term Las Vegas mayor who now is 87. "He did excellent work in matters involving law enforcement and streets and highways. He was honest and dedicated."

Ken Bouton, a longtime newspaper columnist who served as an administrative assistant to Gragson when Trelease was city manager, echoed those sentiments.

"After covering city hall beats in Colorado, Oregon and here (for more than 50 years), I can truthfully say that Art was by far the best public administrator I ever knew," said Bouton, a 77-year-old columnist and editor emeritus for Nevada Senior World.

"He ran the city at a time when the entire budget was less than $30 million, and that included the old Las Vegas Police Department. Art could account for every dollar that was spent."

In a Nevada Senior World column, Bouton once wrote that Trelease "served in a most critical period in the city's development -- a time when the entire Las Vegas Valley officialdom was slowly emerging form its cowtown mentality and awakening to the fact that we were destined to become one of the world's fastest growing and best known cities."

Longtime Las Vegas attorney George Dickerson called Trelease a "humble and honest" man who shunned personal glory and worked only for the betterment of his community.

"He was not beholding to any office-holder and he judged projects that came before the city on their merit," said Dickerson, who will deliver the eulogy for Trelease. "Art believed in the master plan and would not deviate from it unless the proposed project benefited the public. He was his own man."

Trelease was born Feb. 11, 1923, in a two-story wooden hospital at 2nd and Fremont Streets, where the Fremont Hotel now stands.

The youngest of three children, he grew up in a house on 5th Street -- now Las Vegas Boulevard -- where the Rancho Market has since long operated. When Trelease was a youngster, the land west of 6th Street was nothing but desert.

"There were less than 2,000 people here when I was born," Trelease told the Sun in a story that was published the June 28, 1990, editions.

"The Huntridge subdivision was the first subdivision in town ... There was nothing between (the) Huntridge subdivision and the city of Henderson but the Green Shack (restaurant) and (the small East Las Vegas communities of) Whitney and Pittman."

As a child, Trelease played in the excavation pit that became the foundation for the Apache Hotel, where Binion's Horseshoe now stands. His father worked as a butcher when he was not running the area's volunteer fire department.

Trelease attended the Fifth Street Grammar School, which today is a county building. He played football at Las Vegas High School, where he graduated from in 1941.

That year, Trelease joined the Nevada National Guard. Three years later, while at Army boot camp in the South, he called his childhood friend Carolyn (nee Thompson) and asked her to be his wife.

"He said he soon would be going off to war and he wanted to get married," Carolyn Trelease said. "I was only 17 so I had to run away to Mississippi to marry him."

As a corporal in the Army's famed Fighting 69th Division, Trelease served in the European Theatre during World War II. He was awarded the Bronze Star for valor and was among the U.S. troops to meet up with Russian allies in Germany.

Trelease returned to Las Vegas in 1946 and joined the LVFD, where he rose through the ranks from fireman to engineer, to captain, to battalion chief, to assistant chief.

After starting the fire prevention bureau, Trelease instituted safety policies that are still in effect today.

In 1955, Trelease was appointed building and safety director.

"By establishing the city's uniform building code, Art performed a vital a service to this community," Dickerson said. "From then on all of the buildings in town had to meet the more stringent safety features."

In 1961, Trelease became assistant city manager. The Las Vegas City Commission -- now called the City Council -- appointed him city manager in January 1965.

In 1973, Trelease helped oversee the merger of the Clark County Sheriff's Department and Las Vegas Police Department into the Metropolitan Police Department, which earlier this year celebrated its 25th anniversary.

Trelease also was manager when the city acquired Tule Springs -- now Floyd Lamb State Park -- and Lorenzi Park, which has became a major recreational and cultural center for the city.

Also during his tenure at the helm, the old War Memorial building was torn down and Las Vegas City Hall was built on its site at 400 E. Stewart Ave. Trelease's name appears on the dedication plaque that is affixed to the outside of the building.

After leaving the city manager's post in March of 1976, Trelease returned to the city fire department to end his public career. He served as a battalion chief in charge of the Central Alarm Office until July of 1977, when he retired after 31 years with the city.

A year after the devastating 1980 MGM fire, Trelease was hired as fire safety officer for the reconstruction of the hotel that today is known as Bally's. He retired two years later.

Trelease spent his retirement years reading various national magazines and local newspapers. He once said: "At City Hall, you read the Review-Journal to see what was happening and you read the Sun to see if you dared come to work."

He also enjoyed gardening and was very proud of the 65 rose bushes in his yard.

In 1992, Trelease was diagnosed with prostate cancer, but he survived it. Two years ago, however, Trelease developed heart and respiratory ailments and his health steadily declined.

He was a member of the Las Vegas Country Club, Downtown Lions Club, Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Association of Retired Persons.

Trelease was preceded in death by a brother, Bill Trelease.

DONATIONS: In Trelease's memory to the UNLV library.

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