Saturday, July 15, 2006 | 7:47 a.m.
.
As native Las Vegan Marvin Ray lay in a San Diego military hospital recovering from wounds sustained at the costly World War II battle for Tarawa, a fellow Leatherneck in the next bed struck up a conversation.
"So, where are you from?" he asked Ray.
"Las Vegas," Ray replied.
"What? Where's that?" the perplexed young Marine asked.
Ray, who was born in a hospital where the Fremont Hotel now stands and graduated from Las Vegas High in 1941, said that was not an unusual conversation for him to have during the war.
"Few people I talked to had ever heard of Las Vegas," said Ray, who plans to join other surviving members of the Las Vegas High Class of '41 on Sept. 15 at the Ice House for their 65th reunion. "I took on the job of protecting Las Vegas' image by telling people about it."
He would return to a dusty desert town, where the city limits did not extend too far beyond Main Street to the west, San Francisco Avenue (today Sahara Avenue) to the south, 13th Street to the east and the North Las Vegas town line near Owens Avenue.
Many streets were unpaved and the dazzling Las Vegas Strip did not exist.
Las Vegas in 1941 stood on the cusp of industrialized America as locals started enjoying modern conveniences that did not exist when they were children.
Electric refrigerators had replaced ice boxes in most homes and electric irons made heavy cast-iron flat irons obsolete. Still, the newfangled irons did not have steam.
"I remember watching my mother sprinkling our clothes with water to prevent scorching and make her own steam," recalled Bill Gildner, a '41 graduate who grew up in a modest home at Bonneville Avenue and Eighth Street.
While refrigerated air conditioning was still several years away, Gildner said nearly every home in town had swamp coolers in their windows that did "a fair job" keeping things cool.
There was no sewer system. Each home had a septic tank, he said.
"Most of us lived in homes that were a relatively easy walk to the high school," then at Seventh Street and Bridger Avenue, Gildner said.
As a teenager, Gildner loaded ice on fruit trucks at the Union Pacific Ice House on Main Street. Today, of course, fruits and vegetables travel to market in refrigerated trucks.
But as the 1940s dawned, and America moved from the Great Depression into war, few were bothered by the more modest circumstances.
"If we didn't have an awful lot back then, we didn't realize it," Gildner said, "because we didn't know any better."
Recovering Marine Ray knew only that he had to get home.
He returned to Las Vegas, worked as a handyman, built fireplaces, drove a truck and scrimped and saved. In 1967, he built the cinder-block and stucco four-bedroom home near Decatur Boulevard and O'Bannon Drive that he still lives in today.
Of the more than 140 graduates in 1941 from Las Vegas High - then the area's only high school - one in four is known to be alive, and at least 14 reside in Las Vegas, class reunion officials said. About 30 classmates are expected to attend the reunion.
The school that class attended today houses the Las Vegas Art Academy High School. Several years ago, Las Vegas High relocated to its present site in the foothills of Sunrise Mountain.
While unusual to find native Las Vegans from the World War II era or those who have spent more than a half-century of their lives here, such occurrences have become more common.
"In the 1940s there was more of a sense of something to come home to because of the growth in Las Vegas during the war," said Michael Green, a history professor at the Community College of Southern Nevada.
According to the 1940 Census, there were about 8,400 people living in Las Vegas. By war's end, the population estimate reached 15,000. Green said the growth spurt all occurred in 1941, and cited three factors:
"Many people who came here to work during the war stayed here because they realized they would not have to shovel snow or endure hurricanes," Green said. "And with the advances in air conditioning, the outdoor heat did not matter much to many of them."
And, Green said, many of those who were living in Las Vegas before the war were from families that began to lay strong community roots in the late 1920s.
"For me, Las Vegas provided a sense of comfort I did not feel in other places," said '41 graduate Bonnie Carner Rams, who came to Las Vegas with her family at age 2, returned after college and again after a stay in California from 1974 to 1990.
Gildner moved away after the war and lived most of his adult life in California before returning to Las Vegas in 1992. Before that, he visited frequently because of family ties.
"My parents stayed in Las Vegas and died here," he said. "I always loved this city, but I left because I saw better opportunities elsewhere."
Another class member, Las Vegas education pioneer Howard "Hecky" Heckethorn, said he never gave a second thought to living anywhere but Las Vegas.
"My mother was here, as was my grandmother, aunts, uncles - most of my family," he said.
"When I graduated from college, I had opportunities to teach in California, but I always intended to come back to Las Vegas and teach. I wanted to give something back to this town."
The Class of '41 also had some other notables who helped shape what would be Las Vegas' future.
Betty Whitehead Willis became a renowned local artist known primarily for her creation of the diamond-shaped "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign at the south end of the Strip. It remains one of the most popular tourist attractions and is seen annually by millions.
And the late Art Trelease, who served as city manager of Las Vegas from 1965 to 1976, oversaw the merging of the city's police department with the sheriff's office. As city building director in the 1950s, he helped establish the city's first uniform building code.
Not surprisingly, Rams, Ray, Gildner and Heckethorn say that while today's Las Vegas is impressive, they favor the Las Vegas of their youth. It was a quieter and slower time, they say, in Smalltown, USA.
"If I could have the power to change anything, I would have limited growth here," Rams said.
Ray, who admits to once drag-racing on Fremont Street at 80 mph, said, "If I could change anything, I'd rip the (Fremont Street Experience canopy) off so we could again cruise it on Friday nights."
Gildner said he'd go back in time to just before local officials approved the first of the neighborhood casinos and outlaw them.
One thing they all agree about: If they could do it over, they would have bought Las Vegas real estate in the 1940s when it was supercheap. Being children of the Great Depression, however, they were cautious about risking what little they might have had, they said.
"Back then, you could buy acres of land in Las Vegas that today is worth millions for nickels," Heckethorn said. "But, back then, who had the nickels to spare?"
archive
