Nevada Room holds historical treasures

By Mandy Walton

Friday, Jan. 16, 2009 | 4:48 p.m.

Just because Henderson is a city that is only 56 years old does not mean that we aren't rich in history. If you want to challenge me on that, I'll meet you in the Nevada Room at the Gibson Library.

While the room may look small, the amount of information available is endless. I was able to spend a Saturday afternoon exploring it for the first time while my baby napped at home with my husband. I'm still shocked at how much I have missed over the years. There is an incredible amount of information available that I haven't taken advantage of.

The following is just short list of subjects and items available in the Nevada Room:

• Public documents for review, such as City of Henderson council agendas, budget reports, and industrial plant environmental reports.
• Books about Nevada and its history -- little known tales, information about mining, gardening, influential women who shaped Nevada, Indians, fur trading, gambling, the test site, and pioneers.
• Aerial maps and photographs of the valley from the late '80s and early '90s. It's striking how many more buildings dot the landscape now as compared to then.
• Copies of Nevada Magazine, The Nevada Historical Society Quarterly (hard copies from 1957-present were on the shelf), Nevada Revised Statutes, and Nevada Administrative Code.

And that's just the beginning.

Out of all this information, the most interesting to me was a set of four filing cabinets, each containing four drawers. One set was called The Nevada Vertical File, the other three the Henderson Vertical File. Curious, I opened the top drawer of the first Henderson Vertical File drawer. Inside I found a historian's dream -- files of newspaper clippings and magazine articles about Henderson.

I took a file labeled "Henderson History" out of the drawer and set it on the table where I was sitting. As I looked through the clippings and articles, I was transported in time. Some clips were so yellow, bearing dates of the late '40s and early '50s, I was amazed that they were still intact.

I held an original letter to Governor Carville from the then BMI Plant Manager, dated Jan. 10, 1944. It was ironically 65 years to the date that the letter was drafted, notifying the governor of the success in operations at the BMI plants. He also said in the letter that it was coming from Henderson's newly opened first post office.

I also held a photo of members the first Henderson City Council from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. A copy of the decree declaring the City of Henderson "duly incorporated," filed April 16, 5:02 p.m., 1953, also exists in the file.

Even a brochure done by the Henderson Chamber of Commerce in 1956 was still in original condition. It said "Henderson: A good place to live, a good place to work," and depicted a picture of a plant worker receiving his lunch box from his wife and kids who sat in the family car. Just that drawing made me smile, because it's what we used to do in the 1980s -- go with my mom to take Dad his lunch at Timet. My dad still works at Timet today, after 35 years of employment there.

I plan on visiting the Nevada Room at the Gibson Library many more times. I'm ashamed I have waited this long to really explore what it has to offer. I also plan to look through my own archives and see if there is anything worth contributing a copy of to the Henderson Vertical File, because I know I won't be the last history enthusiast to browse those file folders.

Maybe you have something packed away pertaining to Henderson's history that you'd like to share with the Nevada Room?

I almost forgot to mention, among the myriad of books about Nevada and Las Vegas that are available to check out, there are also a few about Henderson. But don't go looking for them right away, because I've already checked them out for the next two weeks.