Everything You Might Ever Want to Know About Sparks Can Be Found at the Sparks Museum & Cultural Center

 

   Often overshadowed by its sister-city, Reno, the city of Sparks has its own rich and fascinating history. That story, in fact, is well told in the Sparks Museum & Cultural Center (formerly known as the Sparks Heritage Museum), located in the community’s downtown core.

   The museum is housed in the historic former Sparks branch of the Washoe County Library and the Sparks Justice Court. The two-story brick structure with the red-tile roof was built in 1931 and designed by noted Nevada architect Frederic J. DeLongchamps. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

   Originally, the Washoe County Library was housed on the upper floor, while the Justice Court was in the lower part of the building. The library relocated to Oddie Boulevard in 1965 and the Justice Court, which had taken over the entire building after the library departed, moved out of the building in the mid-1990s.

   The historic structure, which reflects the Mediterranean Revival style of architecture, became the home of the Sparks Museum several years later.

   The museum, which now encompasses the entire building, offers a large collection of permanent and changing galleries that tell the community’s story.

   While the city was formally incorporated on March 15, 1905, its roots began a few years earlier when the Southern Pacific Railway Company decided to shorten and straighten its main line across Northern Nevada.

  The railroad rerouted its tracks along the eastern Truckee River corridor to eliminate several dangerous curves and grades.

  In about 1903, the railroad announced that as part of this realignment it would relocate its main division point in the region from Wadsworth to a site about four miles east of Reno. It originally looked at Reno for its new shops, but went east because of cheaper land.

  To entice its workers to move to the new site, the railroad made a generous offer—a tract of land would be set aside adjacent to a new roundhouse and the railroad would give each employee clear title to a 50-foot by 140-foot lot. Additionally, the railroad offered to transport any existing house in Wadsworth to the new community at no charge.

  Records show that in the summer of 1903, a drawing was conducted with employee names in one hat and lot number in another, and each was randomly awarded their lot. Some 67 lots changed title that day at a price of $1 per lot.

  The new town was called “East Reno” for a short time, then “Harriman,” after E.H. Harriman, owner of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Finally, in April 1904, Harriman decided to name the community in honor of Nevada’s popular Governor, “Honest” John Sparks.

  Over the past century, the railroad has become a less important part of the town’s economy but has remained an important symbol of the past. The Sparks High School athletic teams are called the “Railroaders” and the downtown’s “Victorian Square” development theme evokes the architecture and style of an earlier rail era.

  The importance of railroading to the development of Sparks can be seen in many of the displays in the museum. For example, dozens of historic photographs depict the railroad buildings and equipment used at the Sparks rail yard.

  In one room, you can find an original oak desk once used by the railroad, and still covered with the paperwork. Cabinets display uniforms, steam whistles, dining car trays, and an extensive collection of railroad lanterns.

  Other exhibits spotlight the Lincoln Highway, which passed through Sparks in the early 20th century, as well as the Nugget Casino, long a Sparks institution.

  Other displays contain handmade quilts, a vintage piano, talking and recording machines, radios, refrigerators and clothing from the late 19th and early 20th century. Against one wall, you can even find a switchboard like that used by the old Sparks Telephone Company. The facility also has an extensive research library, with helpful librarians.

  The Sparks Museum and Cultural Center is located at 820 Victorian Avenue. It’s open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (the research library is open 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.).

  For more information go to: https://sparksmuseum.org/.

Getting Away From It All At Sparks' Wedekind Hills Regional Park

 

   It’s easy to find solitude in the Wedekind Hills Regional Park in north Sparks.

   The 250-acre site, located adjacent to the Pyramid Highway, off Disc Drive, encompasses a portion of a once-active silver and gold mining area known as the Wedekind Mining District.

   While little evidence remains of that mining period, beside a few dirt mounds, the story of the district and its mines is a fascinating and lesser-known part of Washoe County’s past.

   The mines were developed in about 1896 by George Wedekind, a Prussian emigrant who had come to America to make his fortune. Wedekind, who was a piano tuner by trade, apparently plied his skills in New York and San Francisco before moving in 1880 to White Pine County, Nevada to raise cattle.

   By the late 1880s, he was living in Virginia City, working as a piano tuner and prospecting on the side.

   In 1895, Wedekind and his wife, Helena (they had married in 1856), relocated to the Truckee Meadows, where he maintained his piano tuning and repair business, while also continuing his prospecting expeditions.

   “During his leisure time while living in Reno he could be seen driving an old horse through the country on his prospecting trips,” noted the Nevada Historical Society (NHS) Papers, 1925-1926.

   “One day [in June 1896] while eating his lunch he casually kicked over a small rock which appeared a bit unlike others which lay about,” the report continued. “Upon closer examination he was convinced that it contained ore.”

   He had the rock assayed and it came back as being rich in silver ore. According to the NHS Papers, he then began the process of sinking a shaft on the site, which was about two miles north of what would become the city of Sparks, and removed ore that proved to be worth about $10,000.

   Words soon spread about Wedekind’s mineral strike in the hills that now bear his name and a small mining camp soon popped up, which was called Bryan City. Within two years of the discovery, the camp had close to 30 structures including a half-dozen wood frame buildings, clusters of tents, a boarding house, post office, miners’ hall, general store, machine shop, assay office, and a 147 by 155-foot mill.

   The Nevada Daily Journal reported on September 10, 1902 that a telephone line from Reno had been strung and the streets and principal buildings were “lighted by electricity.” Additionally, “an electric railway from Reno is not improbably within the coming year.”

   In 1901, prospects for the settlement and the mining district were so promising that Wedekind, who lacked the capital to properly work the mine, decided to sell out to wealthy cattleman John Sparks.

   The latter, who would be elected governor of Nevada in November 1902, had sold his cattle holdings in 1901 after a series of financial setbacks, believed the Wedekind district would be his ticket to new wealth. He paid Wedekind about $150,000 (about $5.5 million in today’s dollars) for the property.

   In addition to changing the name of the community to Wedekind City, Sparks invested significant resources to developing the district, including timbering the mine shafts, installing a steam hoist works, and hiring about 40 workers to operate the mill. Unfortunately for him, the Wedekind mines proved to be played out.

   Despite his successful run for governor (and reelection in 1906), Sparks was nearly bankrupted by the lack of success with the Wedekind district. When he died unexpected in 1908 at the age of 64, he had accumulated an enormous amount of debt. Despite that, he was extremely popular and the town of Sparks was named in his honor during his term as governor.

   As for Wedekind, he had great success in Reno real estate development (using the money he made from his mining property). He died in 1905, following an automobile accident.

   Visiting the site of all this activity, Wedekind Park, you’ll discover an open, nearly treeless landscape (wear a hat and sun protection on hot days) that offers several hiking trails (ideal for walking dogs off-leash). Trails lead to the top of the park’s two peaks, which have observation areas providing great views of the Truckee Meadows.

   The park has two trailheads, one off Disc Drive, and one off Fourth Street. Near the latter, which is adjacent to the Orr Ditch, you will find running water (in the ditch), a shaded area with picnic tables, a pavilion, and an amphitheater for presentations.

   Wandering the trails, it’s not uncommon to see dozens of lizards scampering over the rocks, and, overhead, circling eagles and hawks. The park is also home to marmots and the occasional coyote. But not too many people.

   For more information, go to: www.cityofsparks.us/business_detail_T71_R53.php.

Common Myths About Sin City

 

Last Frontier, 1945

   Everyone thinks they know Las Vegas. But over the years, the city has been the subject of many myths—some created by the city’s own publicists. The following are just a few of the more common misconceptions or downright falsehoods that have been spread over the years about the city:

   • Las Vegas was founded by the Mob—Anyone who has watched any gangster movie or TV crime show about Las Vegas, might get the impression this is a fact. The reality, however, is that Las Vegas was founded by Mormon missionaries.

   Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints established Sin City. In 1855, Mormon leader Brigham Young sent 30 men to establish a small fort and settlement in the Las Vegas Valley. Due to its isolated location and hot, dry climate, the colony struggled for two years before it was finally abandoned.

   A few years later, the fort became a ranch and trading post, which eventually grew into the city of Las Vegas. The fort, now a state park, is located just north of downtown on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and East Washington Avenue.

   • Bugsy Siegel created the Las Vegas Strip—If you watch the 1992 film Bugsy, starring Warren Beatty, you saw Las Vegas portrayed as a backwater town that owed its existence to gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.

   In the movie Siegel, in Vegas to check on mob interests, pulls off the highway, walks into a desolate patch of sagebrush and sand, and announces that he will build a hotel there. 

   The reality is that the first resort built on the Las Vegas Strip was El Rancho Vegas, which opened in 1941, followed by the Last Frontier a year later. Siegel’s Flamingo Hotel did not open until New Year’s Eve 1946. Siegel wasn’t even the father of the Flamingo—Los Angeles publisher and restaurateur Billy Wilkerson was the original owner. Wilkerson, however, ran out of money and partnered with Siegel and his mob pals to complete the hotel (although he was quickly squeezed out of the picture).

   Siegel also is not responsible for naming the Las Vegas Strip. That honor goes to Guy McAfee, a Las Vegas casino owner and former corrupt vice-squad captain with the Los Angeles police. In the 1940s, McAfee named Las Vegas Boulevard “the Strip” because it reminded him of Los Angeles’ famed Sunset Strip.

   • Elvis was always a big star in Las Vegas—It turns out that Elvis Presley was a flop in his first Las Vegas appearance, at the New Frontier showroom, in April 1956. His fans, largely teen girls, were too young to get into the casino to see the show, and the gambling crowd didn’t much care for rock-n-roll and thought he was too loud.

   However, when Elvis returned 13 years later, he began a long string of sold-out shows.

   • Big-name hotel entertainment was invented in Las Vegas—While Las Vegas resorts no doubt made popular the casino showroom and lounge, the first big-name entertainer to play a Nevada hotel was bandleader Ted Lewis, who performed with his orchestra at the Commercial Hotel in Elko on April 26, 1941.

   The first big-name entertainer to appear in Las Vegas is believed to have been singer Sophie Tucker, who performed at the Last Frontier in January 1944. The first star-studded entertainment event in Las Vegas history was the grand opening of the Flamingo in 1946, which featured George Jessel, Jimmy Durante, Baby Rose Marie, Eddie Jackson, and Xavier Cugat’s orchestra. Their appearance sparked competition between the city’s resorts, which continues to this day.

   • Las Vegas is the hottest spot in Nevada—It may seem that way sometimes, but the place with the hottest recorded temperature in the state is Laughlin, which reached a scorching 125 degrees on June 29, 1994. The hottest recorded temperature in Las Vegas was 117 degrees, which has happened several times including on July 10, 2023, July 10, 2021, and July 24, 1942.

Nevada Researcher Joyce M. Cox's Last Book Tells How Reno Put Itself on the Map

 

   Reno author Joyce M. Cox, who died in May at the age of 75, was once described as “a human version of Google decades before the internet existed.”

   Her agility in finding and recalling information was much appreciated by all who came in contact with her during her many years as a research librarian in California, Washington, and Nevada.

   That special ability is what also makes her last book, “Behind the Arch: The Story of Reno, Nevada’s Unique Chamber of Commerce and the Making of ‘The Biggest Little City in the World’” such a treat.

   Cox, who retired in 2009 after serving as the head reference librarian at the Nevada State Library and Archives, has taken a deep dive into the story of how the city of Reno has successfully marketed and publicized itself over the decades.

   The book, published by Eric Moody’s Nevada in the West Publishing of Reno earlier this year, begins with a short chapter describing how the then-fledgling community of Reno took its first steps to market itself by forming various promotional committees that eventually evolved into the first Reno Chamber of Commerce.

   Cox tells the background behind the creation of the city’s famous slogan, “Reno: The Biggest Little City in the World,” and the way the community utilized promotional booklets and magazine articles to spread the word about the community and its many attributes.

   Along the way, readers discover the various themes used in the city’s promotions, including its quality of life and recreational assets (“Reno Land of Charm”) as well as the tax advantages of living in Nevada (“One Sound State”). 

   Later chapters are devoted to the plethora of gambling-related promotional efforts, both private and public. These ranged from the iconic “Harolds Club or Bust!” signs to the Reno Chamber’s “In Reno It’s Fun Time All the Time,” promotions of the mid-1960s.

   The book is lavishly illustrated with historic photos and images of various promotional campaigns including posters, pamphlets, maps and brochures.

   Of course, part of the fun in reading the book is seeing how Reno’s promotional efforts evolved over time. In the beginning, the aim was largely focused on encouraging people from out of state to visit Reno to see that the city wasn’t some remote uncivilized community.

   Later, the efforts pass through a phase of promoting the city as a tax haven, then as the “quickie” divorce capital, and then as a skiing, special event, rodeo hub. In the 1960s, Reno’s promotors wrapped its identity around the gaming industry and then, starting in the late 1970s, pushed economic diversification.

   Cox’s book, in fact, proves to be more than just simply an account of the city’s promotional campaigns through the decades, but also is a good, solid history of the city’s evolution as a community.

   Copies of Joyce M. Cox’s book, “Behind the Arch: The Story of Reno, Nevada’s Unique Chamber of Commerce and the Making of ‘The Biggest Little City in the World,’” are available at the Nevada Historic Society gift shop at 1650 North Virginia Street, Reno.

Reno's Turn of the Century Scandal: the Sad Story of Alice Hartley

 

Murray D. Foley

  In late July 1894, Reno citizens were shocked when the local newspapers reported that a married Nevada State Senator and prominent banker, Murray D. Foley, had been shot to death by a woman who was not his wife, in her studio apartment.

  Beneath an understated headline that simply said, “An Awful Tragedy,” the July 27, 1894 edition of the Reno Evening Gazette wrote, “Shortly after the Gazette’s press hour last evening the town was startled by a report that State Senator MD Foley had been shot and mortally wounded, and was in the Drs. Phillips’ office, on the second floor of the Bank of Nevada building, in a dying condition.”

  The story noted that a Gazette reporter had learned of the shooting and gone to the scene of the crime only to find a big crowd standing in front of the bank building and little information. However, after hearing someone in the crowd say that a “Mrs. Hartley” had shot the Senator, he went to her third-floor apartment in the building, where she was standing with Sheriff William H. Caughlin.

  “The Gazette man asked Mrs. Hartley if she desired to talk with the reporter, or if she desired to wait until after she had overcome some of her excitement,” the paper said. “Mrs. Hartley replied ‘Oh, I am not excited. I have thought over this too much to get excited now. I have shot Senator Foley and hope he will die. He has ruined my life, and I am willing to stand the consequences. I only regret not having done it publicly.’”

  She added that the shooting had occurred in that room and that the sheriff now had the murder weapon. At that point, Sheriff Caughlin took the 38-caliber pistol from his pocket and showed the reporter that two shots had been fired.

  So, who were Senator MD Foley and Mrs. Alice Hartley? According to records, Foley was born in 1849 in New Brunswick, Canada. At the age of 19, he traveled to the mining camp of Hamilton, Nevada, to seek his fortune. There, he prospected and worked for a stage company.

  A year later, he relocated to Eureka, where he embarked on a successful career in real estate while continuing to be involved in mining. By the mid-1880s, he was a partner in thriving hardware stores in Eureka and Salt Lake City and then, in 1885, began investing in a Eureka bank. Within two years, he became president of the bank.

  In 1887, he helped establish the Bank of Nevada in Reno, and starting in 1882, was elected to several terms as a state senator from Eureka. In 1890, he relocated to Reno to serve as the Bank of Nevada’s president and was elected a Washoe County state senator.

  In 1883, he had married Minnie Griffen, a member of a pioneer Nevada family.

  As for Hartley, she was born in England in 1864 and apparently studied art. She traveled to Northern California sometime in the mid-1880s, where she met and married a prospector named Henry Hartley.

  The marriage was short-lived, with Alice Hartley separating from her husband in about 1890 (he returned to his mining in Meadow Lake and she relocated to Virginia City to paint portraits for money).

  Henry Hartley, who was considerably older than his wife, died unexpectedly in November 1891. Upon his death, Alice Hartley discovered that, contrary to what she believed, he had few assets and was virtually penniless.

  In September 1893, Alice Hartley had rented a studio in the Bank of Nevada’s new building in Reno and began offering art lessons and painting portraits. Shortly after, she was introduced to Senator Foley, who was immediately taken with her.

  According to Lake Tahoe historian Mark McLaughlin, Foley offered to help Hartley dispose of her late husband’s mining claims. On January 13, 1894, Foley showed up at her studio unannounced and insisted she join him for a late dinner.

  Hartley said she refused but agreed to share a drink with him. She claimed the Senator drugged her and she woke up the next day in bed with him.

  From that point, Hartley said she refused to see Foley again and even changed her locks. However, on February 26, she came home and found him inside her studio. She said he forced himself on her before leaving.

  At that point, she purchased a pistol and told the Senator she would shoot him if he ever came near her again.

  In late March, Hartley discovered she was pregnant and informed Foley. He demanded she get an abortion but Hartley wanted to have the child and move to Utah. She hired an attorney to draw up legal papers establishing Foley’s financial responsibility, which he said he would sign.

  On the evening of July 27, Foley admitted to Hartley that the legal papers had never been filed and the two began to argue. According to McLaughlin, Foley then picked up a heavy chair and swung it at Hartley, who grabbed her pistol and fired two shots at him, killing him.

  Services for Foley were held at Reno’s Trinity Episcopal Church and attracted a large crowd that included Governor R.K. Colcord and a host of other state and local officials. His casket was escorted to its final resting place by a full military escort.

  The trial lasted a few days and in spite of newspaper reports about Foley’s womanizing behavior, Hartley was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 11 years in the Nevada State Prison. She gave birth to a son two months later (in prison) and, after serving only 18 months of her sentence, the Nevada Supreme Court granted her request for a pardon.

  Sadly, seven weeks later her son, named Vernon Harrison Hartley, died in Reno of scarlet fever. She had earlier sought money from Foley’s estate to support the child, but, following his death, she lost her claim.

  Records indicate that after that, the distraught Hartley moved to San Francisco and, in 1899, remarried. She later appeared to suffer a nervous breakdown and died in Denver in 1908.

  It was a quiet and sad end to a tumultuous life.

Historic Bethel AME Church Has Deep Ties to Reno's African American Community

Reno's Bethel AME Church (Julia Moreno photo)

  The Bethel AME Church at 220 Bell Street in Reno has seen its fair share of changes. Built in 1910, it was the city’s first church for its black residents and played a key role in organizing Civil Rights efforts in Northern Nevada in the mid-20th century.

  The church was constructed by members of the African Methodist Episcopalian congregation, which had been established in Reno in 1907

   At the time, Reno was not only the state’s largest and most prosperous community, but home of the state’s largest black population, estimated to be about 225 people.

  To oversee construction of the church, the California Conference of the AME Church sent Reverend William Solley. In his report to the conference, Solley said a temporary wood-frame structure would be erected first so services could begin immediately. At the same time, work would begin on the permanent church.

  On May 29, 1910, the new church was formally dedicated. It was a small, rectangular, gable-roofed, clapboard structure. The most prominent feature of the new church was its four, Gothic-pointed-arch stained-glass windows.

  The church soon became the center of Reno’s African American community, particularly because AME teachings promoted the idea that individuals should improve their place in society by making positive contributions to their community.

  According to its 2001 nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places, church members “were active in community activities that sought to promote equality for blacks through example of good citizenship.”

  This perhaps was best illustrated by the role church members played in establishing the first Nevada chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1919.

  In 1941, the congregation had outgrown the small church and efforts were made to find a larger facility. After identifying a potential new home in northwest Reno (in Dania Hall at Seventh and Sierra streets), the congregation encountered racist objections from surrounding neighbors, who claimed a black church would lower their property values.

  Ultimately, the purchase of the Dania Hall was abandoned and the congregation, instead, decided to enlarge and remodel the Bell Street church. This new construction (built around the original church) included adding a basement with a kitchen and dining room, addition of three rooms for Sunday School instruction and an exterior brick veneer.

  In the 1950s and 60s, Bethel AME Church served as a safe space/gathering spot for local Civil Rights leaders seeking to end the discriminatory practices, especially regarding housing, employment, and even shopping at white-owned businesses, that were, unfortunately, then common in Reno.

  In the nomination form for the National Register, the church was cited for being the longtime home of the “longest operating black congregation in Nevada” and for its role as “one of Nevada’s most significant buildings associated with the history of its black population.”

  The congregation continued to use the enlarged church until 1993, when it acquired a building at 2655 Rock Boulevard in Sparks. The old church building was sold and converted into a homeless shelter for veterans. More recently, it has again served as a church, the Reno Assembly of God.

  In early 2024, Jacobs Entertainment, which is redeveloping much of that area into an entertainment district, requested abandonment of the right-of-way in front of the church. The church’s leadership, fearful that the move might ultimately lead to the demolition of the church, opposed the abandonment. The matter has been postponed for the time being by city officials and Jacobs.

  In the meantime, if you find yourself driving down West 5th Street and turn onto Bell Street (just past Beto’s Taqueria), check out the little church, which is the oldest surviving African American church in the state of Nevada.

  For more information, go to the excellent Reno Historical website, https://renohistorical.org/items/show/43, or read the cover story in the Historic Reno Preservation Society’s Winter 2005 newsletter, Footprints, https://www.historicreno.org/media/custom/docs/FPv8n1.pdf.

UNR Campus is Filled with Surprises

  With its tree-lined Quad and ivy-covered brick buildings, the University of Nevada Reno campus looks just like what most people would imagine a college should look like.

  In fact, in the 1940s moviemakers thought UNR was such a picture-perfect college campus that it was the setting for several films including, “Mr. Belvedere Goes to College,” and “Mother Is a Freshman.”

  Much of the credit for UNR’s classic college environment goes to the heirs of Comstock silver baron John Mackay. In the early part of the 20th century, the Mackay family donated more than $1.5 million to establish the Mackay School of Mining as well as to develop the Quad and many other campus buildings.

  Noted 19th century New York architect Stanford White’s firm designed both the Quad (short for quadrangle, which is the large rectangular open area in the center of the campus) and the Mackey School of Mines Building. White was also responsible for the design of the original Madison Square Garden in New York.

  The firm based the plan for the elm-lined Quad on Thomas Jefferson’s design of the University of Virginia Lawn, which is also an open expanse of grass lined with trees that serves as the heart of that university.

  Most of UNR’s most historic and picturesque buildings surround the Quad. In fact, that part of the campus has been designated as a National Historic District.

  For example, at the north end is the Mackay School of Mines Building, erected in 1908, and commissioned by Clarence Mackay, John’s son.

  The mining school is a beautiful two-story, brick and stone structure with Georgian details that boasts four 28-foot Tuscan-style columns of Indiana limestone.

  The building houses the DeLaMare Library, one of the world’s largest collections of mining books as well as the W.M. Keck Museum, which has more than 6,000 mineral samples and fossils along with historic mining tools and equipment.

  Additionally, it is also the home of the Mary B. Ansari Map Library, which contains some 136,000 maps, and a pair of public exhibition rooms displaying an old-time mining engineer’s office and pieces from the fabulous Mackay Silver Collection.

  The latter was designed in 1876 by the famed Tiffany’s jewelers of New York. The full collection includes 1,350 pieces crafted by 200 silversmiths over a two-year period, using 14,718 ounces of Comstock silver.

  In front of the school is a bronze statue of John Mackay that is noteworthy because it was created by sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who later carved the presidential faces into Mount Rushmore (from 1927 to 1941).

  At the other end of the Quad is Morrill Hall, the first building erected on the Reno campus after the state relocated the university to Reno from Elko.

  Constructed in 1885, the structure is named for U.S. Senator Justin S. Morrill of Vermont, who authored the 1862 Land-Grant College Act, which led to the development of the University of Nevada and other colleges throughout the country.

  Morrill Hall is a four-story brick building in the Second Empire architectural style. It originally housed the entire university offices and classrooms. The structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

  Other historically significant buildings on the UNR campus include:

  •Lincoln Hall and Manzanita Hall (both built in 1896), which both served as student dormitories for more than a century. Lincoln Hall was constructed in a late 19th century architectural style known as Eclectic, which incorporated several popular styles of the time including Flemish gables, a Colonial Revival cupola, and Neo-Romanesque arches.

  •Jones Visitors Center (1914), which was the university’s first library. It was designed by renowned Reno architect Frederic DeLongchamps, who was also responsible for the design of the downtown Reno post office and the Washoe County Courthouse.

  •Clark Administration Building (1927), which served as the university’s library from 1927 to 1962. The building is named after Alice McManus Clark, wife of William A. Clark, Jr., whose father was a U.S. Senator from Montana and namesake for Clark County, Nevada. Senator Clark was a wealthy 19th century mining and railroad magnate, who established the city of Las Vegas in 1905.

  •Mackay Science Hall (1930), a Georgian-style building that was also designed by DeLongchamps. The brick and stone-pillared structure represented the final gift to the university from Clarence Mackay.

  For more information about the campus’ historic buildings, check out https://renohistorical.org/tours/show/6.