University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada 89557 USA
Copyright 2015 by University of Nevada Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Design by Kathleen Szawiola
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moreno, Richard.
A short history of Reno / Richard Moreno. Second edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-87417-984-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-87417-985-9 (e-book)
1. Reno (Nev.)History. I. Title.
F849.R4L35 2015
979.355dc23 2015013920
Frontispiece: Postcard of Virginia Street looking south, Reno, Nevada. Private collection.
Preface
There are places in Reno that belie the stereotypical image of Reno as a hedonistic haven where the bars never close, gambling is a civic duty, and a person can get married or divorced at any time of the day or night. Neighborhoods like Old Southwest Reno and Newlands Heights, with their shaded, narrow streets and stately mansions and bungalows, arent anything like the Reno depicted in films such as Sister Act or Pink Cadillac or on the TV show Reno 9-1-1in fact, nothing in that show actually looks like Reno since its filmed in Southern California.
But as Nevada historian Jim Hulse notes in his book Forty Years in the Wilderness: Impressions of Nevada, 19401980, The tourists occasionally assumed that if the social vices that had made Reno infamous were somehow enclosed in an average-looking city with prosperous homes, a picturesque little university, and numerous churches, it couldnt be as bad as it had been represented in the sensational press. Its location in a beautiful valley at the eastern edge of the Sierra enabled Reno to provide an attractive, almost deceptive, wrapping for a package of dubious content.
So what is Reno? Is it the Sodom of the Sierra or Little House on the Truckee? Or is it perhaps a bit of both? Maybe the best way to begin to understand the self-described Biggest Little City in the Worldyet another obvious contradictionis to examine the stories of its past.
When I arrived in Reno in 1980 to become the city hall reporter at the Reno Evening Gazette and Nevada State Journal (they hadnt yet merged into the Reno Gazette-Journal), I recall a friend telling me that I was lucky to get a job there because Reno was a good news town. He said it was the kind of community where interesting things always seemed to happen. And he was correct. Reno was and is a good news town. Its a dateline that people recognize no matter where they live. In fact, throughout its history, Reno has had an uncanny knack for making itself the center of attention, whether its as the site of the Fight of the Century or as the Divorce Capital of the World or as the home of the Taj Mahal of Tenpins.
I am indebted to Myrick (Mike) and Barbara Land, who in the first edition of A Short History of Reno so elegantly described the rich and vital history of the Biggest Little City in the World. Ive long felt a personal connection to this book. More than two decades ago the late Mike Land called me to ask my help in finding a publisher for the original A Short History of Reno. They had completed the manuscript for a company that had gone out of business and were looking for a new place to get it published. At the time, I suggested they contact the University of Nevada Press, which readily agreed to publish the book.
With that shared history in mind, I jumped at the opportunity to update and reenvision the Lands book. I especially want to thank Barbara Land for her help and advice while I was working on this edition and for allowing me to take it in my own direction.
I would also like to thank Matt Becker, acquisitions editor at the University of Nevada Press, for trusting me with this project.
I would also be remiss if I didnt credit and thank all the talented writers and historians who have previously explored aspects of Renos storyoften with more depth and in greater detail than I could in a short history bookincluding Alicia Barber, Patty Cafferata, James Hulse, Ronald M. James, Dwayne Kling, Elizabeth Raymond, Mary Ringhoff, Guy Louis Rocha, Elmer Rusco, Edward J. Stoner, John Townley, and Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Also, a big thanks to Reno journalist Dennis Myers for his last-minute assistance.
Finally, thanks to my wife, Pam, for always being there.
Introduction
Reno sits here upon a river-meadow with her back against the High Sierra and her face towards the Great Desertand does not care what people say of her.
Reno has not cared for fifty years. Sixty years.
She neither affirms nor denies.
Her living depends on mystery. Her living depends on having people talk about her.
MAX MILLER, Reno, 1941
Reno has always been a little bit larger than life. The Biggest Little City in the World has long had a certain cachetan ability to attract attention not afforded to similar-sized places like Garland, Texas, or Glendale, Arizona. Its image has far exceeded its reality. In popular culture, Reno has been the subject of numerous songs, books, movies, and television programs. For example, in the classic tune Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash famously growled, But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die (despite the fact that Folsom is a California state prison, so anyone who committed murder in Reno would be unlikely to end up in a prison in a neighboring state).
In movies, Reno has been depicted as a dark and sinister place, such as in The Pledge, a 2001 murder mystery directed by Sean Penn and starring Jack Nicholson, and also as one of the last outposts of personal freedom, as in the 1961 drama The Misfits, which starred Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, and Montgomery Clift. Its said to be a place filled with offbeat characters, as in Kingpin, a 1996 farce about competitive bowling (filmed at Renos National Bowling Stadium), and it has been mocked in TV shows like Reno 911! a Comedy Central spoof about a clueless police department that is mostly known for not actually being filmed in Reno despite its title. Reno has long fascinated writers ranging from Sherwood Anderson and Walter Van Tilburg Clark, who penned odes to the city in the mid-twentieth century, to Willy Vlautin and Tupelo Hassman, two contemporary writers who have found the city to be fertile ground for colorful misfits.
So why is Reno so fascinating to so many? Perhaps it is because its a relatively young city located in the American West, a land that still conjures romantic images of lawlessness, freedom, wide-open spaces, and limitless opportunities. No doubt its also because early Reno was also a permissive place that tolerated vices not always embraced by polite society in other communities. In his 1982 oral history, longtime gambling executive Silvio Petricciani, who was born in Reno in 1917, described his hometown as always more or less what we might call a wide open town insofar as even during ProhibitionI mean you could always get a drink if you wanted it. And it didnt hurt the town any. It was a place that seemed to turn a blind eye toward scandalous behavior, a place that was as easy to admire and admonish as it was to whisper and gossip about.
