Wednesday, Oct. 21, 1998 | 10:59 a.m.
Albert S. Ferguson never let life's seemingly insurmountable odds stand in his way.
Stricken with polio as a child and told by doctors he probably would never walk again, Ferguson eventually did stand on his underdeveloped legs, and then worked hard to build his upper body and become a strong and able man.
So much so, he was a longtime heavy equipment operator and a mechanic at the Nevada Test Site. And, his family said, he was a pretty darn good waterskiier too.
Further defying doctors, for whom he never had a great affection, Ferguson was able to walk until the day he died, which was last Friday at Odyssey Hospice. He was 85.
Ferguson also served as a North Las Vegas city councilman and mayor in the mid-1950s, a period when the town started to turn into a modern community with its own water system and its first paved and lighted streets.
Graveside services will be 11 a.m. Thursday at the Panaca Cemetery. Davis Paradise Valley Funeral Home handled the arrangements.
Ferguson lived in North Las Vegas from 1943 to 1974 and Panaca in Lincoln County from 1974 until a month ago, when he moved back to Las Vegas for treatment at Valley Hospital for renal complications.
"My uncle was a simple man who lived a simple life -- he was logical, concerned and was always there for his friends and family," Charlotte Pomerleau of Las Vegas said. "He also was one tough cookie."
Pomerleau said Ferguson left North Las Vegas because he felt the town had gotten too big. He longed for the rural lifesyle of Panaca, where he spent much of his time enjoying activities like camping, fishing and chopping wood.
Ferguson also was Lincoln County's water director in the 1980s and early '90s, where he oversaw water distribution and kept tabs on water allocations.
Born Nov. 24, 1912, in Buffalo, N.Y., Ferguson came to Southern Nevada 55 years ago. He moved into a house on Bruce Street across from the North Las Vegas Police Station, his home for 31 years.
In the 1950s, Ferguson worked as a mechanic for a Lincoln Mercury dealership near where the Stratosphere hotel-casino now stands.
At about that time, Ferguson developed an interest in politics.
After the mayor of North Las Vegas and three city councilmen were indicted by a Clark County grand jury on charges of malfeasance and later booted from office, Ferguson was elected as part of a new-broom administration that took over on Aug. 31, 1954.
The new council selected Dorothy Porter, a former Ziegfeld Follies dancer who had been elected to the council in 1953, as Nevada's first woman mayor.
The Porter-led council was credited with bringing a water system to North Las Vegas, as well as a post office, paved and lighted streets, playgrounds, a recreation center and a municipal swimming pool.
When Porter, who died in 1996 at age 89, resigned from that post, Ferguson became mayor on May 21, 1955, and served until May 13, 1957.
In the early 1960s, Ferguson went to work for the Test Site as a heavy equipment operator and mechanic in Area 12, a position he held until his retirement in 1974.
Ferguson long enjoyed good health despite never going to a doctor unless he absolutely had to and not living a lifestyle conducive to longevity, Pomerleau said.
He smoked a pack and a half of cigarettes a day, a longtime habit he gave up 15 years ago, and enjoyed chugging down boilermakers with friends after work. Ferguson gave up drinking about 20 years ago, Pomerleau said.
Ferguson is survived by his wife of more than 40 years, Fay Ferguson of Las Vegas; three sons, Albert E. Ferguson of Newport News, Va., John Griffen of Denison, Texas, and Ruben Griffen of Pioche; a daughter, Erlene Johnson of Newport News; six grandchildren; and seven great grandchildren.
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