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Henderson tavern to toast 50-year milestone

History doesn't last long in Southern Nevada. It's imploded and rebuilt.

A rare exception to that rule will be celebrated Saturday in downtown Henderson when the Gold Mine Tavern marks its 50th anniversary.

For those not born in Las Vegas, the tavern on a quiet section of Water Street reminds people of their hometown bar. There's nothing visually inside the tavern that stands out except an 80-foot long wooden bar.

The Gold Mine has flat screen televisions where customers can watch a game and two tables where they can shoot pool. There's video poker, and an outdoor patio added in 2011 makes it a gathering point to listen to bands on the weekend.

What makes the Gold Mine special is its people — customers who view it as a hangout away from home and bartenders who know everyone's name — not unlike the bar on "Cheers."

People have met and married there. Newlyweds have celebrated there and friends lost are remembered in death over a drink. It's a place for local charity events and has served as a gathering point for the Henderson community.

Co-owner Tim Haughinberry, who bought the bar in 2006 with Brandon Keith, called it a place where people come after work to tell stories and come on the weekend to blow off some steam. It's often a gathering place for both friends and family before they go out to dinner.

"What makes it special is that three generations of people still go there. It's the neighborhood bar," Haughinberry said. "It's Henderson. I'm not talking Green Valley Ranch, Anthem or Seven Hills but Henderson where it all began — Boulder Highway, Water Street and Lake Mead. Everybody knows the Gold Mine Tavern. The grandparents, the parents and kids come by, and everybody has a story. The people coming in who are 21 to 31 say my grandma used to work here or my mom used to hang out here from sock hop days."

In the 1950s, the building housed a laundromat and over the years, it eventually transitioned into what it is today. There was a pool table and package liquor component to the laundromat. Former Henderson Councilman Giles "Bud" Franklin opened the bar in 1965 amid fanfare with champagne flowing and Cadillacs outside, Haughinberry said.

Franklin, who died in June, sold the bar in 1977 and through one of its transitions before current ownership, it was once known as a biker bar. Today it's a place Henderson residents claim as their own, said manager Stacey DeMarco.

"There's definitely a lot of Henderson locals who've known each other since high school and have worked together," DeMarco said. "We see people who come at happy hour and meet and are now friends and participate in each other's lives outside the bar as well, including weddings. We have those moments where people walk through the door and everybody in the bar turns and says 'Hi' to whatever their name might be."

Count Monica Souza among that group. The 35-year-old first-grade teacher who moved to Henderson nine years ago, said she enjoys the camaraderie and listening to bands play on the weekend. She even participates in painting parties that the bar hosts on a Saturday every two to three months.

"The way I describe it to other people when they ask me why I go there is, it's very much a feel like a 'Cheers'," said Souza, a San Diego native. "I have never walked into that bar and not felt welcomed. I know if I go there after work, I'm going to see certain people that I'm friends with both from the work and the bar. I have made friends there with people in other professions and walks of life that I would have never met."

John Stites and his wife, Robin, found the Gold Mine by accident. The 62-year-old Stites, a former Los Angeles County sheriff's sergeant who retired to Henderson, has been going to the bar for more than five years. He said he and his wife were driving around and saw the place, walked in, talked with a friendly bartender and have remained loyal to it.

"It's a family situation. Everybody knows everybody," Stites said. "It's the strangest thing. We went to a pizza place down the street, ran into someone we knew from the Gold Mine and picked up news on a friend who was in the hospital. It's that kind of place where everybody keeps an eye out for each other."

Haughinberry said he and his partner bought the Gold Mine as a real estate investment but wound up owning a bar. To be the third owner of an establishment that's never closed spanning six decades is special, especially when six five bars within a mile-and-a-half have closed within the last six years, he said. There's a reason it's still in existence, he said.

"These days you don't make it to 50 without getting blown up in Nevada," Haughinberry said. "It's not easy to keep a bar open 50 years no matter what the theme is and no matter who is walking through the door. I see no reason why the Gold Mine Tavern would ever leave. You can't get rid of the Gold Mine Tavern. It has to have had a reason it's successful. It's not just because of my 10-year run. It had a need to fulfill something for the community for it to stay there that long."

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