The Family Business, the Neighborhood, and Our Full Lives
By Joanne Blystone, Las Vegas

I was three months old when we moved to Las Vegas in January of 1951. My father, Joe W. Blystone, had come here to run and then to buy Blystone Equipment Company, a company that his father and brother had founded in the late 1940s.

Blystone Equipment's first location was at 1711 E. Fremont, a very lucky address we thought. We specialized in construction equipment and were the first dealer for Ford Tractors, Ingersoll Rand Compressors and Tools. At the time we were the first to rent construction equipment in the valley.

Later the business expanded with many other dealerships including Case Tractors and Champ Forklifts. We had three other locations on Fremont Street (which was also known as Boulder Highway.) The last location was 3184 E. Fremont, on property where we built the office and shop.

The majority of our business came from the construction going on in town, but a lot came from the mining industry. Many times our weekend entertainment would be to haul a compressor out to a mine somewhere in southern Nevada. I remember it being so hot that I thought the front had melted off the truck. That always made my father laugh as we were in the snub-nose Ford.

We did a lot of business at the Nevada Test Site. Father sold a 600cfm compressor to Reynolds Electric & Engineering Company, the site's prime contractor. This was the largest compressor sold west of the Mississippi at the time.

We were also the only dynamite dealer in Las Vegas valley. Our "magazine," which is the name of the building where dynamite is stored, was located at the base of Frenchman's Mountain in the middle of the desert. It only had a padlock on the door, but no one ever broke in. I can't imagine that now! I've not checked lately, but I'm sure there are houses or a strip mall there today.

The atomic test site became one of our biggest dynamite accounts. I know there were stories about how my father transported the dynamite to the test site. One has him hauling dynamite out there in the trunk of his car. Many years later, I asked him why he did that, and he said because they didn't want it known they were using dynamite out there. But I'm not sure that was the real reason.

In later years, I was part of construction industry tours of the test site. On one of the tours, the guide was late getting onboard the bus. Finally a man in an Air Force uniform boarded and said he was substituting for the regular guide. That day we took a tour like no other I'd ever had. He took us back in tunnels, through side drifts, back to the framework, and showed us where the detonation would occur-a spot which appropriately had "ground zero" spray-painted on it.

Tests were part of life growing up here. I can remember standing in our backyard just blocks from downtown and watching the sky light up when they put off a test. They used to provide warnings before underground tests so that people would not be in precarious positions. There would be count downs on the radio, then after the count down, I remember making my own count down to see how long it took before the ground moved where I was sitting. Before they widened the road to the test site it had several names-- Rancho Rd., Tonopah Highway, and then the nickname "The Widow Maker." Many workers were killed in car accidents traveling back and forth along that lonely two-lane road.

The first few years we were in Las Vegas, my grandparents also lived here. Their first residence was at the Thunderbird Hotel. I remember playing on the lawn in front of the hotel where their room looked out on the grass so they could keep an eye out. Then they bought a home on Peyton Place near Eastern and Charleston. The backyard was covered in grape arbors, but the grapes I remember were small and sour!

We spent a lot of time on Lake Mead. Most of the hotels kept boats at the lake, so my grandfather would arrange to use the boat owned by the Thunderbird. I believe it was a Chris Craft or something similar, as I can remember all the beautiful polished wood. I also remember attending the shows at the hotels. Brenda Lee and Teresa Brewer were my dad's favorites. Many times there would be a waiting line, but we would go to the front where the maitre d' had our name on "the list." My father would shake his hand passing along a few dollars. Then another maitre d' would seat us. And as we walked along, Dad would quietly give him a few dollars also. So with luck and a few dollars, we'd get the table that we wanted.

Many times we would sit at the long tables that ran straight out from the stage. The waiters would come put a large platter on a high stand in the middle of the table. The platter was filled with fresh seafood, lobster claws, shrimp--all on a bed of ice. It was also a special occasion when you had your picture taken at the table and it was ready before you left. That was amazing in those days!

Cruising Fremont Street with Mom and Dad and seeing all the lights was something to do at night. Later on, cruising with a boyfriend would also be something to do! We'd see Vegas Vic waving, the bear (I forget what hotel that was on) nodding. After passing the light on Main Street, we'd circle around the entryway to the Union Pacific Train Station and go back up Fremont.

An odd occurrence happened once when we had a locust infestation. The locusts blacked out the lights downtown so that Public Works had to turn them off. So we had to go downtown and see what it looked like with everything all dark!

Summers were spent at Twin Lakes (now Lorenzi Park) as often as Mom would take my friends and me. I learned to swim in the big pool there, swimming from the edge to the fountain in the middle. You could ride in rowboats around the island, or you could ride horses into what was then the countryside. I always seemed to get the horse that didn't want to leave the stables.

Even the phone numbers were different then, as they all started with the first two letters of a word that designated the part of the city the number was located. Ones I remember were DU for Dudley, RE for Regent, EV for Evergreen.

When I was two or three we bought our first home at 1600 Maryland Parkway in the Huntridge Development. I had a chance to see the inside of our old house a few years ago. It still had the same yellow and burgundy tile in the kitchen, and the concrete my dad laid was still there. But what was so surprising was how small the house and yard looked. I'm sure it was bigger when we lived there!

Our house was about three doors from Oakey, so Mom and I could walk to the adobe building that housed St. Anne's Catholic Church on the corner (where Gorman High School's parking lot is now). In my mind's eye, I can still see Dean Martin sitting across the aisle from us and Frank Sinatra putting on his topcoat and hat as he left the church. Anna Maria Alberghetti used to sing at St. Anne's when she would attend.

Ours was a great neighborhood because we could walk to a lot of places. There was a beautiful median in the street with trees and grass ending in Circle Park, which is still there. We would walk to the Huntridge Theater for a movie, or to the soda fountain in the drug store across the street.

I attended school at John S. Park Elementary and remember very fondly my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Doris Hancock. I later found out that our family attorney, Robert Gifford, who was my dad's age, also had Mrs. Hancock for kindergarten. She was truly a treasure to this community.

Around the corner were the McCrae's (my spelling may be wrong after all these years. I went to school with Tom, whose dad had electric toy trains in the attic set up with all the towns and hills and everything. It was a special occasion when we got to see their trains.

Our family had several favorite places to eat then, none were too fancy though. There was Milk's Restaurant on Main Street (I think Dennis Milk is still in Las Vegas). And there was the coffee shop in the El Cortez. My favorite outing was going for ice cream at Anderson Dairy's Ice Cream Store on Las Vegas Blvd., South. The Coons, who are still partners in Anderson's, I think, live on Maryland Parkway.

At the time, many of us got our first sex education while walking through the Showboat casino to go to the coffee shop. For décor, they had very large old-time paintings of ladies-of-the-evening in various stages of undress. Fong's Garden was also a favorite, as well as Macayo's on East Charleston. And on Sunday, Blackett's Drive-In had four tacos for a $1! Of course there was always the Blue Onion or the Tip Top drive-ins.

And for nice evenings out, there was Jack Dennison's Copper Cart or Charlie Oppenheimer's Fireside Inn on Tonopah Hwy. In the 1960s and '70s, our favorite restaurant was the Aku Aku in the Stardust Hotel. They had one of the first exhibition kitchens enclosed in glass. Afterward we would go to the lounge, even though I wasn't 21 although I'd only drink 7-up. Only once were we asked to leave. The show there had been crowned the "Best in Las Vegas" many times over and it included the Kim Sisters and Brendan Boyer and the Royal Irish Show Band and many other acts.

Another favorite restaurant was the Copa Lounge on Convention Center Drive. It was owned by a man named Al Arakelian. One night my parents were having dinner with good family friends, John and Louise Yoxen. John and my father had matching tie tacks that were actually very small but operational cap guns. In the middle of dinner they pretended to be in a fight and stood up and "drew" their cap guns on each other and fired. My mom said that Al had a fit. She said she saw another man reach for a real gun and yet another duck under a table. I guess we really did have some "wise guys" out-and-about then.

I saw Al Arakelian many years later volunteering his time at an Opportunity Village fund-raiser making his classic Caesar salad, recognized as the best in town.

In about 1958 we moved to a beautiful home on 8th and Bonita. It was built by the Skoglund family and was painted pink with pink appliances and linoleum, leaded glass windows, and one wall was covered with a photo of the Grand Tetons that changed as the light changed outside. Mrs. Skoglund and her daughter had painted beautiful oils on the walls of the bathrooms to match the flowers on the wallpaper in the bedrooms. I cried when we had to paint over it.

Dad put in a pool and I remember he brought home a "hoe ram" and worked for days trying to get all the caliche out. He wanted a clear span (no posts) patio cover, so he designed one built on steel girders that were buried deep in the ground. He always worried it would be damaged in a windstorm.

Dad and Mother were out to dinner one night when a big storm hit. When the power went out in the restaurant, the owner brought out a few more candles and the guests never knew how big the storm was. Eventually, they came out of the hotel and saw that many of the signs on the Strip were damaged as well as cars and buildings. Dad's first thought was the patio cover, but it had stood through the storm.

I attended John C. Fremont Jr. High School, as it was called then. One of the best teachers I ever had was in 7th grade. That was Mrs. Knudson, KO's wife. We loved her so much that a group of us would go visit her for many years after we graduated. She and KO had one of the little houses downtown on N. 6th Street.

A big issue during that time was the busing of children from what was called the "West Side" where most of the African-American community lived. A march was planned, and I remember it came through our neighborhood. My mother and I stood at the kitchen window and watched the marchers walk along chanting. It was a peaceful march without violence or damage.

One of the best things about living on Bonita was our neighbor, Thalia Dondero. I was privileged to have her and Charlotte Hill as Brownie and Girl Scout Leaders. There was always a special project going on at the Dondero house, and it usually involved plaster of Paris or something that Mom wouldn't let me do at home.

Thalia was always involved in the community, even talking my mom into passing a petition around the neighborhood against building the new Vegas Village that was going in at Karen and Maryland Pkwy. "Too much development, too close to neighborhoods!"

Thalia went on to accomplish many firsts in our community including the first woman on the County Commission. She is an amazing woman and is still serving the public on the Board of Regents. Vegas Village was built, of course. Actually several of them were built and were very popular for shopping.

When we first moved here, shopping was mostly downtown. Ronzone's was the nicest store and very supportive of the community. Miss Bobbies was a great place for teenage clothes. Later on there was Joseph Magnin's and Lanz on the Strip. My high school prom dresses came from Fanny's. I can still remember how Fanny's was built on two levels with a step up to the finer dresses. I still have my senior prom dress from there, but that's another issue.

Children's stores included Lil' Podner and the Lullaby Shops. Grocery shopping was at Market Town on Oakey at Las Vegas Blvd. or at the Panorama on W. Charleston. And the best make-up was at White Cross Drugs next to Market Town where they also had a great lunch counter, or at West Gate Drugs on Charleston where they carried all the major brands. West Gate Drugs was owned by Gib Oswald, and the slogan on the sign was "Guns, Drugs and Booze" because you could get all three in that one store. Imagine putting that on a sign now.

And then we all had western wear for Helldorado. There were two special stores, Rex Bell's and Smith & Chandler's downtown. I remember shopping at the Rowel in the Last Frontier Village (where the New Frontier is now). What a fun place the Last Frontier Village was!

And Helldorado was such a major event. A couple of days before the three parades, we would park our truck on a corner of Fremont and one of the side streets so we'd have a great view. On Sunday was the Beauty Parade where the hotels tried to top each other with beautiful floats. I got to ride in the Children's Parade on Saturday when Dad would drive a tractor and I rode next to him.

When I was in high school, I was a member of the Precisionaires from Bishop Gorman and we always marched in the parade. Toward the end of the run of Helldorado Days I was fortunate to be part of a group that was asked to emcee the parade. I hope people take the opportunity to be involved and attend the parade and events this year.

I went to college at the University of Nevada in Reno and came back to Las Vegas in 1972 to work at Blystone Equipment Company later becoming its president. We had just built a new location at 3395 Valley View. The building plans were submitted as a house because the area was still zoned residential.

You could actually see the Strip from our location, and I remember vividly when the MGM (now Bally's) caught on fire. We could see the smoke from our office window. We didn't have live television coverage, so we listened to an eyewitness traffic reporter from KDWN who called himself 007. The fire was devastating. It seemed all business and even all traffic came to a halt. Many don't realize that because of that fire, building codes changed and hotels here are the safest in the world.

We closed the business in 1993 after 42 years in business. The Las Vegas community has been very good to my family. I loved growing up here and returning to work in the business community. I think we owe a lot to the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, which, along with its News Bureau, pretty much invented and publicized Las Vegas.

I became active in the Chamber. The installation galas would attract more than 1000 people and feature the best lounge acts or celebrities from the Strip. I felt very honored to serve as Vice Chairman of Business before I retired.

A little over ten years ago, the Quality & Productivity Institute disbanded and gave their highly successful meeting called "Preview Las Vegas" to the Chamber. I was fortunate to have co-chaired the event that first year with John O'Reilly and Jim Kropid.

I've only missed one Preview in all the years it's been offered and I remember a speaker one year stating: "Remember all those people we've been inviting here? Well, they're here!"

So let me say, as a younger old-timer, I would like to welcome our new residents and invite you to become good stewards of your new community. This is your home now, and someday you too will be writing about "the good old days"!
Posted 5/17/05