Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Columnist Ruthe Deskin: Recalling the colorful Doby Doc

Ruthe Deskin is assistant to the publisher. Her column appears Thursdays. Reach her at [email protected].

Who remembers Doby Doc?

His real name was Robert Caudill, and he was a well-known character around these parts for many years. In his striped coveralls and white Stetson hat he cut quite a figure as the curator of a vast amount of early Western relics that were the tourist attractions for the Last Frontier Village on the Strip.

I first met Doby Doc when I was assigned to do a story on one of the Village's premier attractions -- a Chinese joss house that once served as a religious shrine for Chinese workers in Northern Nevada. How the building came into Doby Doc's possession was something of a mystery, but he had the entire facility reassembled on the grounds of the Last Frontier Village, which featured such attractions as an early Western jail, a saloon, a store and hundreds of relics of the days when the West was a real frontier.

In his later years Doby Doc became a fixture at the Horseshoe Club where his old friend and mentor, Benny Binion, employed him as a greeter. At one point in our relationship, Doby Doc agreed to an interview with the Sun's Judy Carlos and me. By this time the Last Frontier Village was just a memory and Doby had relocated his massive collection of antiques and Western memorabilia on several acres out on the Strip, past the Tropicana.

Doby was mighty particular about the company he kept, so Judy and I felt quite complimented to be given a personal guided tour of his little kingdom. At one end of the acreage a huge hole had been dug. We asked him about it and he said it was meant to be a bomb shelter, but had never been completed. And that brings me to all the fuss about storing supplies for the possible chaos caused by Y2K.

I can recall during the beginning of the Cold War when people actually were building bomb shelters in their back yards and storing canned food, water, tools, flashlights, matches and whatever else came to mind to protect against a nuclear war. Not that any of it would have helped, but fear did clear stores of a lot of merchandise.

The situation is similar today as 2000 approaches and the possibility of a mass computer breakdown exists. People are being warned to prepare for the worst and stock supplies to carry them through a period of readjustment.

If Doby Doc were still around, you can be sure he would be stocking up on food, water and miscellaneous tools and whatever. Rather than worry myself over the situation, I think I'll just stick to a prayer that all will be well. Oh, maybe I'll buy an extra can of coffee, some canned food, batteries, candles and definitely a manual typewriter and some pens and pencils, just in case.

When nice people ask for a column mention, how can one say no? For Dr. Douglas Peterson, a note that the Southern Nevada Musical Arts Society's upcoming concert will feature famed pianist Voltaire Versoza performing a Mozart piano concerto. The Mozart-Hayden celebration will take place at 3 p.m. Sunday at UNLV's Artemus Ham Concert Hall. Tickets are available at the UNLV box office.

And, for Bea Soares, principal of R. Guild Gray school and board member of WE CAN Inc., a reminder that $25 will sponsor a disadvantaged child at the annual Teddy Bear Brunch. Tables are $250 for 10. If you'd like to make a child happy, send your donation to WE CAN Inc. No. 8, 100 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89104.

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