Henderson passes Reno to become Nevada’s second-largest city

Wednesday, Dec. 1, 1999 | 9:37 a.m.

The state demographer's office says the booming Las Vegas suburb beat the burg known as the world's biggest little city by 120 people - about a weekend's worth of new arrivals in Henderson.

Henderson was 177,030 strong as of July 1, compared with Reno's 176,910, according to the official state population count released Tuesday.

The news was warmly received in Henderson, a former World War II magnesium center.

"I think it's great that we're No. 2," said candy store manager Helen Ripplinger. "Now we have to get ourselves up to No. 1."

But some residents decried the breakneck growth driving Henderson up the list of Nevada municipalities.

"It's been an invasion, a massive invasion of Californians," blackjack dealer Darlene Amalfitano said as she scanned rows of vehicles parked outside a shopping mall. "I can't even find my car anymore."

Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson has called the city Nevada's unofficially second-largest in almost every speech he has delivered in recent months.

"It's something we've expected would happen this year. Clearly it establishes us as a real player in the state," Gibson said. "We've become a major city in our own right."

City officials in Reno, which fifty years ago was Nevada's largest city, said the area's natural beauty is more than adequate compensation for its drop in the rankings.

"We get the trees and the snow and the mountains and the skiing," Reno City Councilman Dave Rigdon said. "It's kind of like the difference between the Bay area and Southern California. The Bay area's a nice place to live."

The annual population estimates determine how much sales tax revenue and federal funding is distributed by Nevada to individual cities.

Officials with the state demographer's office cautioned that the 120-person difference between Henderson and Reno is small enough to be insignificant.

"When you get down to that small number of people, these numbers go to hell in a handcart," said Brian Kaiser, a state analyst who helped prepare Tuesday's figures.

The estimates are based on state employment figures and individual counties' tallies of housing units.