Remember when … A look back at the city before the boom

Whether it was cruising on Fremont Street or catching movies at the MGM Grand, North Las Vegas natives discuss the things they did as kids to stay entertained and examine how they think the Las Vegas Valley has changed the most.

More family entertainment

The son of, in his own words, a staunch conservative Mormon mother and a father whose family was in the casino business, David Salmon of North Las Vegas said the city was quite different when he grew up in the 1960s and '70s. His father and much of his family worked at Anderson Dairy and passed down photos and stories of Salmon's grandfather's days as a part owner of the El Cortez.

His parents met at Las Vegas High School in the 1950s, and Salmon was born in 1968, living in a house near Boulder Station, where, as a young boy, he could watch the drive-in movies from his treehouse.

"If you listened, you could even hear it," Salmon said. "My mother, being the strict Mormon that she was, kind of put the kibosh on that."

But there was still plenty for Salmon to do as a child, he said. He and the neighborhood kids would split into teams based on blocks and have water balloon fights.

He and his wife, Celise Salmon, recalled when they moved to North Las Vegas 12 years ago, and there was nothing nearby. Now, she said she can't believe the growth and traffic.

"There's nothing between my house and the mountains, and I'm just waiting," she said.

She said when she turned 16 in 1989, her father told her she could get anywhere in town within a half-hour, which is not true now. Celise Salmon, a Valley High School graduate, said trips to Mount Charleston seemed to take forever, but now it feels like a stone's throw away.

"Bob Taylor's Steakhouse used to be the only thing out here, and now you can hardly find it," she said.

David Salmon said he misses the live music. His high school band teacher would take him and some classmates to the Strip to play music with musicians preparing for their gigs at the casinos. He said he's not aware of that kind of access to musical talent today.

"It's just too big, especially when you remember the way it used to be," Celise Salmon said. "Back then, you could just wander, and when streetlights came on, you came home."

When Celise Salmon would visit her father in Virginia, people would ask her in which hotel she lived. When her mother chose to move with her three little girls to the city of sin when Celise was 8, Celise said her mother's parenting skills were questioned.

Both Celise Salmon and her husband said they wish the city was more family-oriented. She said she'd like to see "less smut all over billboards and taxi signs."

David Salmon said he misses the Wet 'n Wild water park and would like to see more family entertainment.

"They should make more family-friendly places - there are enough people here now that they don't need to try to market to the tourists," he said.

Their oldest daughter plans to go to college next year and doesn't want to come back and live in the Las Vegas Valley, Celise Salmon said.

David Salmon added, "What I want is a stand-alone, family-friendly amusement park - not a place where you can drop off your kids while you can gamble - an amusement park so we don't have to go to California." He said he'd love to see a major professional sports team, too.

They couple met after he spent a year at Brigham Young University and her sister introduced them at a singles' night at a Mormon Church event. They have four children.

She said when people come to visit, they usually want to see what they would see on television - Bellagio's fountains, the lions at the MGM Grand and the Treasure Island show.

When David Salmon's grandparents married, they argued over where to build their new house. His father wanted to build on the "way outside of town" on Las Vegas Boulevard South along what is now the Strip. They lived near Seventh Street and East Charleston Boulevard. Salmon said the family kicked itself later thinking about how much the property could have been worth.

Donald Williams spent his youth on the motocross track

Like many of his peers, Donald Williams was bused across town to attend his sixth-grade center, which was separate from junior high, now known as middle school. He was bused to Madison Sixth Grade Center School on the west side and attended Las Vegas High School when he reached 10th grade.

For Williams, the growth of the city has been a lifeline. He said that nearly 70 percent of his law practice, Williams & Associates, deals with construction law.

"Watching the boom has been both fun but obviously challenging. Traffic has gotten considerably worse," he said.

He said it seems there are a large number of born-and-raised Las Vegans. His parents fell in love at age 14 and married at 20, and Williams, born in 1966, has three older brothers and an older sister who would spend their spare time at the family's motocross track, the Las Vegas Motocross Club, off Craig Road, where a golf course sits now.

His parents ran the course until 1978, and Williams and his siblings would help promote the bikes. They still ride today.

"It wasn't until high school when I got my first taste of what being a normal kid meant," he said. Still, there was plenty to keep him occupied, he said. He would ride his bikes all over town, go to the movie theaters and work. Starting in sixth grade, he had a paper route, and by eighth grade, he worked as a dishwasher at Marie Callender's and then as a bagboy at Lucky's Supermarket. Eventually, he learned his father's plumbing trade, too.

In high school, he said he would cruise Fremont Street in his 1974 Super Sport Nova that he bought for $700 and blast Rush from the car.

Williams moved to North Las Vegas in 1996 after graduating law school.

Williams said he believes his children, some away at school, will live back in Las Vegas eventually. "... when it's all said and done, they talk about coming back to Vegas," he said.

He got engaged to his wife in two weeks and married in three months.

"It was fun to move out to North Las Vegas; we got to watch it really grow," he said.

To Williams, the Stratosphere is the one spot in the Las Vegas that feels like home. The neighborhood behind it is where he grew up - he would go to the Sahara as a kid to eat at the buffet and ride his bike up and down the Strip trying to jump into the pools in the days before hotel key checks.

He said, with his own kids, he might allow them to still go to Fremont Street but wouldn't permit them to ride their bikes around town as he did.

He said he misses the carnivals and state fair but thinks there's plenty to do with kids. He takes them to Bonnie Springs, Mount Charleston and Lake Mead.

"I love Nevada; I love North Las Vegas," he said. "It has been very, very good to my family, and it's just a great, great city."

Leslie Ewing

The fourth of six children, Leslie Ewing, 51, grew up near South Decatur Boulevard and West Charleston Boulevard and spent her early childhood playing in the parks. When she got older, she would cruise Fremont Street after a dance. She and her friends went to the movie theater inside the MGM Grand where they would sit on couches and watch old movies while eating the earthquake eight scoop ice cream dish with her friends.

She said that many of her high school friends are still here, as are two of her siblings.

She said the biggest change she's seen is growth. "The city went from being what was kind of a small town where you knew people all across the valley to almost too big," she said.

As a consequence, she said she wasn't as comfortable just sending her kids off to play as she was allowed to do as a kid. She kept her boys involved in Boy Scouts and then Eagle Scouts and church missions, which made it easier to keep them out of trouble, she said.

Her family moved to the El Dorado neighborhood in 1990 because it was so far out in the "middle of nowhere" that the house was affordable. She said she marked the neighborhood development by how long it would take her to drive to the grocery store. Originally, it would take her nearly 15 minutes to get to the closest grocery store on some unfinished, small roads. Now, it's just around the corner from her house.

"Some areas are probably more lavish, but I really feel like this was the best place to raise my kids how I grew up," she said.

When family comes to visit, she said she'll take them along the Strip to see the Bellagio fountains, but because her family doesn't gamble, she'll show them some of the valley's highlights, including Red Rock Canyon, Hoover Dam, Valley of Fire and Boulder City.

"There's not tons to do if you're not a gambling person," she said. "The city went from trying to be an adult playground to family-oriented, and now it's back to adult again," she said.

She said that growing up, outsiders always wanted to know if she lived in a casino, but she said that as a native, she spends little time on the Strip, and the only natives she knows who do are people who work at one of the casinos.

"It's not as big a part of your life as people think it is," she said referring to the Strip.

"It's been a good place to be overall. Sometimes I wish people could see what old Vegas was like," she said.

A time when people dressed up

After Donna McNulty graduated from Western High School in 1974, she worked at the Dairy Queen across from school and later went to work at Vegas Village's snack bar. When she married, she lived on East Sahara Avenue and South Eastern Avenue, but she grew up in North Las Vegas until she was 15. Her brother was killed, so she attended a different school than her brother's Rancho High School.

"We all knew everybody on the block. We hung out together in the desert and played, and we weren't afraid of anything back then," she said. She and her friends would ride bikes to church and walk to school. They cruised on Fremont Street in a 1962 Ford Falcon and a 1969 Ford Firebird that was bright orange with a white top.

She said she remembers going bowling at College Park Lanes on Eastern Avenue and East Lake Mead Boulevard and would eat at Hilda's restaurant after bowling.

When she went to Tule Springs with her family, it would be a day trip because it was so far away. When they went to Lake Mead, they would camp there for a week.

She said she remembers the race riots hitting North Las Vegas in 1969 and being confused. "I didn't understand what the issue was or why I or my brothers were being beat up on," she said. She was beaten up a couple of times, she said. "We actually came from nothing; we didn't have any other opportunities that anyone else didn't. I didn't understand why we got entangled in it."

She said one of her favorite parts of living in the valley was that she saw entertainment acts before they got big - when she was 16 years old, she saw Elvis Presley perform at the Las Vegas Hilton. She said she misses how people used to get dressed up to go to a show.

When her now-husband Wayne McNulty would visit Las Vegas in the 1970s from Illinois, he would bring three suits and a pair of Levi's with no casual pants. He said he misses people getting dressed up for big events.

They said they would like to live somewhere with a small-town feel that's still close to family and are considering Boulder City.

"This place is so big, there are so many people coming and going," she said. When she was younger, she said she had closer relationships with the neighbors, and younger people would check on the elderly in the community.

Her brother's grave in North Las Vegas is in a neighborhood McNulty is no longer comfortable with. "I won't go visit my brother's grave because it's in such a bad neighborhood," she said. "I just don't go down there. It's just changed so much; it was a whole different childhood."

As a teenager, she'd sneak into drive-in theaters with her friends in the trunk of a car. When family comes to visit, she doesn't take them to the Strip often. Instead, they spend time at Hoover Dam, Red Rock Canyon, Mount Charleston and the Bellagio gardens. If they want to see more of the Strip, she said she'll give them her car keys and tell them to have fun.

Las Vegas was a great place for family

North Las Vegas native Jerry Faircloth attended school at Rancho High School but switched to Southern Nevada Vocational-Technical High School in his junior year to study drafting. He graduated in 1968.

He lived with his six younger siblings at 1925 Giffords St. near East Lake Mead Boulevard in a house the family bought in 1954. His four kids with Joan Faircloth also went to Rancho High School, and the couple met through church.

He still has a sister and three brothers in the area. "I can visit a place, but I always want to come back here," he said of North Las Vegas. He said he's still shocked by the growth. He spent his childhood exploring Mount Charleston and fishing on Lake Mead, habits he said he showed his kids too.

He would cruise Fremont Street in a 1966 El Camino roadster that had an upgraded engine and fancy tires and wheels. After LDS Church dances, they would hang out at Pizza Hut.

After living in an apartment in North Las Vegas, they moved to Las Vegas to buy their first house on the east side but returned north later.

"We both grew up; I guess it was just a kind of deep-rooted connection thing," he said. "We stayed in the area that we knew."

The Faircloths said that when family come to visit, they avoid most of the Strip except for the Bellagio gardens. Otherwise, they show them Red Rock Canyon, Valley of Fire State Park, the Springs Preserve, Hoover Dam and Mount Charleston.

"When I used to go away, people thought that we lived in hotels," Joan Faircloth said.

"The freeway system can't keep up with the traffic; it just doesn't have a small-town feeling anymore like it used to," her husband added.

He said when he grew up, East Craig Road to the north and East Tropicana Avenue to the south were the limits to the city.

"North Las Vegas has a lot of parks. I think that if people go out and look, they can find lots to do with kids - Tule Springs, Sunset Park and Springs Preserve," he said.

"I think it's pretty well-balanced. If you grew up here, you know where to go, and it's easy to entertain."

His wife has lived in the area for almost 50 years after her mother came to the valley to get a divorce. "We had such great success raising our own kids here, and it's been a great place to live," she said.

"... I can't imagine living somewhere else."

Contact Centennial and North Las Vegas View reporter Laura Phelps at lphelps@viewnews.com or 702-477-3839.