Tuesday, April 29, 2003 | 11:18 a.m.
Frank Wright forgot more about Southern Nevada's history than many people have learned about Las Vegas. And he didn't forget much.
In his many writings and interviews with the local and national news media, Wright set the record straight on many misconceptions about the glittery Las Vegas Strip, including putting mobster Bugsy Siegel's role into perspective.
Wright loved to walk the grounds of the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society at Lorenzi Park, light up a cigarette and spin yarns about the area's rich past with anyone who shared an interest in local lore.
Richard Franklin "Frank" Wright, a former University of Nevada, Las Vegas political science professor who for 21 years served as curator of manuscripts for the state museum he helped establish in 1982, died Friday of cancer at his Las Vegas home. He was 64.
Services will be private for the Las Vegas resident of 35 years who retired from the curator post in February 2002 to battle colon cancer. Sunrise Cremation and Burial Society handled the arrangements.
In retirement -- even at times when he was in the middle of cancer treatments -- the longtime chain smoker took calls from reporters to help them with their stories because he wanted history to be recorded accurately.
"If you needed to know something about Las Vegas, you just called Frank," said Peter Bandurraga, executive director of the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society. "I can't tell you the number of times he was quoted in the Los Angeles Times for stories about Las Vegas.
"We replaced him as curator, but the knowledge dies with the historian except for what he left in his writings. And Frank's writings were quite good."
Among Wright's finest work was a series of pamphlets he wrote in the early 1980s for seventh grade history students. They included histories of the city of Las Vegas, Clark County, mountain men, miners, pioneers and others.
"I think more people learned about Las Vegas history from Frank than anyone else," said Michael Green, professor of history at the Community College of Southern Nevada and a longtime friend.
"For anybody coming to town to do a documentary, a book or news story about Las Vegas, Frank was -- or should have been -- the first person they called."
Wright's primary interest was Las Vegas' formative years, the 1930s and '40s. He took every opportunity he could to explode the myth that Bugsy Siegel made Las Vegas a gambling mecca.
"Siegel was a colossal screw-up," Wright said in a Jan. 16, 2002, Sun story. "This wasn't his vision, and I would like to make that clear."
Green said: "It bothered Frank that the very genesis of Las Vegas was being portrayed inaccurately. There were a number of dreamers and builders here by the time Siegel showed up."
Wright would argue that Siegel really never built anything, noting that Billy Wilkerson already was building the Flamingo and that Siegel muscled in on it when Wilkerson ran low on money.
Born June 15, 1938, in Salt Lake City, Wright graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in political science, specializing in Middle East politics.
He moved to Las Vegas in 1968 to teach at Nevada Southern University, which became UNLV. In 1973, Wright moved to the state of Washington to teach at a community college near Seattle. He returned to Las Vegas in 1977 to work as a night auditor at Binion's Horseshoe. He worked his way up to hotel manager.
In 1981, Wright took the job of curator of education for the historical society, where he wrote history and educational papers and lectured.
For 15 years, Wright hosted the history-themed "Nevada Yesterdays" on public radio station KNPR 89.5-FM. The book he had nearly completed writing and editing at the time of his death is a compilation of stories originally presented on that show. His family and others plan to have the book published.
"Speaking as one of many who, knowing next to nothing about Las Vegas, came only accidentally and ended up staying, I can attest to the fact that it (history) is useful," Wright wrote in a guest Where I Stand column in the Aug. 12, 1998, editions of the Sun.
"Learning about the community's history through its artifacts, personal histories and significant homes and buildings is powerful motivation for caring about the community and feeling a part of it."
Wright was a member of the Las Vegas Neon Museum Board, the Las Vegas Springs Preserve and the city of Las Vegas Historic Preservation Commission.
He is survived by his wife, Dorothy Wright of Las Vegas; a stepson, Christopher Ritenour of Las Vegas; a brother, Robert Wright of Salt Lake City; and four grandchildren.
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