Closing a chapter: Frank Wright prepares to take his place in local history

Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2002 | 8:27 a.m.

State historian Frank Wright will be history on Feb. 2.

The popular curator of manuscripts for the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society in Las Vegas has decided to retire from the job he has held for 21 years.

During those years Wright, 63, says he has answered too many questions to count.

"I think we have a good batting average in answering questions," he said.

However, there is one question he refuses to answer. It comes up every year.

"Around Halloween I get the same question about haunted houses," he said. "I refer them to someone interested in the subject."

Among the most frequent questions posed are those about the death of actress Carole Lombard in a plane crash near Las Vegas in 1942, and about the renegade Indian Queho, whose body was found in a cave in the Valley of Fire in 1940 almost 30 years after he disappeared.

Wright also gets questions from trivia buffs, people wanting to settle bets and from novelists. "I get a lot of calls from novelists," he said. "I got one once from an English writer who was setting a novel in the American West in 1914. He was having his characters go east to San Francisco and he wanted them to detour to Las Vegas.

"Nobody would have heard of Las Vegas in 1914," Wright said, "and gambling was illegal."

Sometimes Wright can't answer a question because of the way it's asked.

"It may be phrased so badly there is no way of answering," he said. "Like, 'What was the first casino in Las Vegas?' It's impossible to answer a better question would be, 'What was the first licensed casino after (gambling) became legal?' "

Wright's primary interest is the history of Las Vegas prior to the 1950s, especially the 1930s and 1940s.

"By the '50s and '60s, my interest peters out," he said. "By the time you get to the '70s, I don't know one hotel from another."

Media's friend

Wright says he will continue to work.

"I'm expecting to be just as busy," he said. "I will be doing some consulting, and working on projects that I don't have time to do now."

Wright has been a valuable resource for reporters all over the world, and he said he will continue to help when he sets up a website (though he does not know a completion date for the site).

He says he has many research and writing projects planned, and will continue to serve on the boards of a number of organizations including the Neon Museum.

"I will be involved in some historical and museum kinds of projects, if they are fun," Wright said. "I've got a lot of stuff crammed in (my brain), and it's not doing me any good. I have to get it out."

Lamar Marchese, general manager of public radio station KNPR 89.5-FM, described Wright as a major asset for Las Vegas.

Wright created a series of history-related radio shows for the station over a period of 15 years. The program, which no longer airs, was called "Nevada Yesterday."

"Since so many people in Vegas are so new to the area, they have no sense of history," Marchese said. "We felt it was important (for Wright) to say, 'Look, this place goes beyond Bugsy Siegel.' "

Wright's retirement will come about a month after that of Myram Borders, former bureau chief of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority's news bureau, who retired about two weeks ago.

Their paths crossed frequently during Borders' news career, which also included several years with United Press International.

"Frank is a fountain of knowledge about this area," Borders said. "He knows a lot of things right off the top of his head. I saved myself a tremendous amount of time checking with him for information."

She said she referred members of the media from all over the world to Wright for information about historical facts.

"Vegas is such a hot topic for national and international media," Borders said. "His presence was certainly important, and he will be missed."

The executive director of the state Department of Cultural Affairs, Peter Bandurraga, said Wright will be "sorely missed."

"He's been the resource in Southern Nevada for at least 20 years, especially in things related to historic preservation," Bandurraga said.

Bandurraga said he will always "have an image of Frank sitting quietly, smoking a cigarette and thinking about stuff. He knows a lot of things, and he tells great stories."

Bandurraga noted that Wright's counterpart in Northern Nevada, Phillip Earl, retired two years ago.

"All the media know where both of them are," he said. "Phil still takes a lot of phone calls, and he's in (the office) a lot, just as I think Frank will be."

Bandurraga said historians such as Wright give context to events.

"They know where the event fits in and can explain things so much better," he said.

Personal history

Wright was born and raised in Salt Lake City, where he attended the University of Utah and received a degree in political science, specializing in the politics of the Middle East. He moved to Las Vegas in 1968 to teach at Nevada Southern University, which became the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Wright taught at the university for five years and then moved to Washington state in 1973 to teach at a community college near Seattle.

"Then I went back to Utah," he said. "I was going to finish up my Ph.D., but I never got around to it."

Instead he tended bar at a private club before moving to Southern California in 1976.

The following year a friend got Wright a job as a night auditor at Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas, and Wright worked his way up to hotel manager.

"I was there a couple of years, and then the job of curator of education for the Nevada Historical Society opened up" Wright said. "Basically, it's the same job I have now, although the department has changed names and the job title has changed."

He said the took the job because it allowed him to use his research and writing skills.

During his first seven years with the Historical Society, Wright produced historical materials for Clark County School District students, primarily those in junior high school.

As time passed, Wright graduated from creating pamphlets, lectures and contests for young people to a broad range of research that often put him in the spotlight.

His name has appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times and he has been interviewed for countless news shows.

"I once got a letter from South Africa from someone who had seen something I had said in a magazine they read while (traveling) on Air Malaysia," Wright said.

Wright-ing wrongs

Wright said he hopes to clear up misinformation in at least two areas after he retires.

"My two favorite myths that I hope to spend some time exploding are the myths of Las Vegas as a hick town in the '30s, and the myth of Bugsy Siegel."

In fiction, Siegel is often credited with making Las Vegas a gambling mecca and for bringing in organized crime.

"Siegel was a colossal screw-up," Wright said. "This wasn't his vision, and I would like to make that clear."

In fact, he said, organized crime had little to do with Las Vegas.

"I stopped using the phrase 'organized crime' a long time ago," Wright said. "I call it 'disorganized' or 'semi-organized crime.' "

He said the impression is that Mafia ran the casinos. However, some were run by gangsters, not necessarily part of the Mafia.

"They were Jewish gangsters, for the most part," Wright said.

He also noted that the people who developed Las Vegas into a destination location in the '30s were not the "hicks" everyone thought they were.

"I've come to know quite a lot about Las Vegas in the '30s, about prohibition and the early gamblers," Wright said. "The conventional story is that Las Vegas was a hick town, but those were very sophisticated people who owned nightclubs and casinos. The idea of it being a hick town was a publicity invention."

Wright on ...

"One of the things I've gotten involved in is surveys and studies of historic neighborhoods and buildings," Wright said. "There are some really fascinating buildings in Las Vegas.

"The one I've had the most fun with is the Moulin Rouge. It's not a particularly old building, but it played such a key role in Las Vegas history.

There are lots of requests for information about the Moulin Rouge. They are always talking about movie projects and other things, but they never quite get done."

Moulin Rouge was a venue for black performers and guests at a time in Las Vegas history when the town was segregated. The facility opened in 1955 but closed about six months later. During that time it attracted some of the top entertainers in the world, both black and white.

Wright did the research that helped place the Moulin Rouge on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

One of the more interesting locations Wright researched for Las Vegas was the residence built by Frank Wait, who was chief of police from 1914-27 and again in 1936.

"He spent 10 years building this house made of stone," Wright said. "He put in stalactites and stalagmites and petroglyphs and semiprecious stones."

Wright said the house is not open to the public, even though it is on the city's registry of historic sites.

"It's in a deteriorating neighborhood," he said. "I'm not sure who owns it now, but it used to be owned by a gentleman who had a dance studio."

Now that he's retiring, Wright will have time to dance, and to play the piano, too, if he so chooses.

"I have a lovely grand piano at home," he said. "I need to learn how to play it again."

He's also thinking about writing a novel.

"Everybody wants to write the great American mystery novel," Wright said. "I would love to write one set in Vegas in the '30s or '40s."

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