Columnist Susan Snyder: Mobile home days have flown away

Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2000 | 8:39 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Tuesdays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@ vegas.com or 259-4082.

Don Burns remembers when walking across Tropicana Avenue to peer over the McCarran International Airport fence was easy.

Neither the road nor McCarran was so busy. Burns and his wife, Pat, could walk over from the Tropicana Mobile Home Park and have a look at whatever sat in the hangars.

"We didn't mind the aircraft noise. We knew when we moved here we'd encounter aircraft traffic," the 76-year-old man said.

Burns paused as a jet rumbled overhead and a living room lamp rattled on its table.

"But it was never like this," he said.

Nope. Never. Federal aviation officials say air carrier traffic hit a record high last year. More than 550,000 airplanes flew into or out of McCarran. That's about 1,500 planes a day.

Airplanes don't fly directly over Burns' home. They cruise over the vacant lots next door that used to be the Las Vegas and Treasure Lodge mobile home communities. Clark County closed them about three years ago when McCarran expanded the runway across the street.

Workers have hauled or plucked away all but a few curbs, slabs and trees. A sign in front of the Las Vegas park still touts it as "winner of all awards."

When that park opened in the late 1950s every lot had two elm trees. Mulberry came later, said 77-year-old Alice Shurtleff, who managed the park for 13 years.

Lots were large, and the homes were among the best money could buy, she said. Such parks offered middle-income retirees sunshine, swimming pools and a sense of community.

"These were not people who could have afforded a Sun City," said Renee Diamond, administrator of the state Division of Manufactured Housing.

"And at the time these parks were built there were no Sun Cities here. You had to go to Phoenix," she said. "These were our first such communities."

Burns recalled it as a time when casinos looked like they were for grown-ups, gambling wasn't "gaming" and Las Vegas wasn't a sprawling place.

"We got here in the days when it was a really fun town," he said. "It was gang-controlled then."

He laughed a little.

"Now one mob has just replaced the other."

Diamond says she doesn't keep track of when parks open, so she has no way of knowing how many of these aging parks remain. Most of that history is stored in the memories of people like Don and Pat Burns.

He recalled how Tropicana's residents used to have the time and notion to get to know each other.

"We'd all sit on the porches and talk. But those people all died or moved away," Burns said. "We're kind of an island here, now."

His wife recalls visiting longtime landmarks like the Sands for cocktails, dinner and a few laughs.

"We liked those old ones. It was a different type of town," she said. "We have never been to the Luxor or Paris. Every time we go out, we see something else that's new."

Another jet rumbled overhead. It's annoying sometimes, but it's not enough to make a person leave home, the couple said.

"We're just resigned to the fact," Burns said, "that we're going to be here until they plant us."