Addie Jaramillo, Co-owner, Pet Play House
A native of Reno, Addie Jaramillo is co-owner (with her mother, Lisa Jaramillo) of the Pet Play House at 2403 East 4th Street. The business, initially located in a converted house next door to the current address, provides indoor/outdoor cage-free day care and overnight boarding for dogs.
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Ann Harrington and Bob Nielsen, Developers, The Plaza at 4th Street
Ann Harrington and Bob Nielsen partner in developing affordable housing projects throughout the Reno-Sparks area. In 2002, they completed a project with Cloyd Phillips of the Community Services Agency Development Corporation, consisting of commercial space along East 4th Street with apartments above and additional apartments extending to the north.
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Ben Akert, Akert Market
William Bennet (Ben) Akert moved to Reno from the eastern Nevada company town of Ruth in 1945. His parents, Bluma and Bill, purchased Grant Anderson’s market at the corner of East 4th Street and Alameda (later Wells Avenue) and opened Akert Market, where Ben worked as a teenager. The shop closed in 1963 and the building was torn down. In 1966, Ben founded the local chain Ben’s Discount Liquors.
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Cari Lockett, Regional contact, Burning Man
Born in Reno in 1960, Cari Lockett became a regional contact for Burning Man in 2007. She talks about the range of Burning Man-related activities that occur in Reno throughout the year, including Decompression, traditionally held on East 4th Street each October. Lockett shares her thoughts about Reno’s status as a gateway to the playa and the city’s potential to become a year-round destination for those interested in Burning Man and its ten principles.
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Casey Clark, Bootleg Courier Co. and Cuddleworks
Born in North Carolina, Casey Clark grew up in Pleasant Valley, north of Reno, and then northern California. He moved back to Reno in 1996, later spending time in Montana and Arizona. A ceramics artist, he has a studio space at Cuddleworks, located at 545 East Fourth Street, where he also works as a bicycle courier for Bootleg Courier, and as a bicycle mechanic and service manager for the Reno Bike Project next door.
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Cindy Ainsworth, Historic Reno Preservation Society
A native of Los Angeles, Cindy Ainsworth moved to Reno with her husband in 1978 and worked in publishing and at the National Automobile Museum, where she could indulge her passion for transportation history. In 1997, she helped to found the Historic Reno Preservation Society (HRPS), and regularly leads a historical walking tour of East 4th Street. She is also a member of the Lincoln Highway Association’s Nevada chapter.
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Dave Aiazzi, Reno City Council
Born in Reno and raised in Sparks, Dave Aiazzi ran his own computing business for many years. He served as a Reno City Councilman for Ward 5 from 1996-2012, when issues of concern along 4th Street included locating services for the homeless there and planning general street improvements. He was instrumental in bringing art projects to 4th Street.
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Dick Belaustegui, Retired engineer
Dick Belaustegui grew up in a diverse neighborhood on Eureka Street, just north of East 4th Street, in the 1940s and 1950s. His father, Bonifacio “Bunny” Belaustegui, an ironworker, worked for Martin Iron Works, Macauley Iron Works, and Reno Iron Works. Dick worked at Pinky’s Market on East 4th Street as a young man. An electrical engineer, he worked for IBM and later, the University of Nevada, Reno.
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Doug Quilici, Copenhagen Bar
Doug Quilici is owner of the Copenhagen Bar at 2140 Prater Way in Sparks. The bar was previously located several blocks to the west, and run by Doug’s father, Gino “Bear” Quilici. That location was demolished in 1966 to make way for Interstate 80. Doug became his father’s business partner even before Bear passed away in 1997. Longtime customer and bartender Ray Maldonado also chimes in with his memories of Bear and the popular bar.
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Ed Scalzo, Owner, Forever Yours Fine Furniture
Ed Scalzo and his wife, Susan, own Forever Yours Fine Furniture, located in the historic Flanigan Warehouse building at 701 East Fourth Street. They started the business in 1976 in Kings Beach, Lake Tahoe, moving to an old Ford dealership building on Virginia and Fourth Streets in Reno in 1980. Around 1982 they began to lease the historic IXL Laundry building at 601 East Fourth Street, operating there until 1998, when they purchased the Flanigan building.
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Fred Schwamb, Martin Iron Works
Born in Syracuse, New York in 1931, Fred Schwamb moved in 1936 to Reno, where his father, Martin Schwamb, founded Martin Iron Works in 1939. Fred worked with his father from boyhood, first at the shop’s original location on Morrill Avenue, just south of East Fourth Street, and then at its current location at 530 East Fourth Street. He later founded his own steel fabrication business just across the street from the original site of Martin Iron Works.
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Gaye Canepa, Co-owner, Fred's Auto Repair
Born and raised in Ely, Nevada, Gaye Canepa moved to Reno after completing high school. At the time of her interview, she and her husband, Fred Canepa, owned and operated Fred’s Auto Repair and Supply at 500 East Sixth Street. She was the longtime president of the Reno-Sparks Business Corridor Association (RSCBA), spearheading community efforts to promote redevelopment and resist efforts by the City of Reno to locate a new homeless shelter along East 4th Street.
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George Flint, Owner, Chapel of the Bells
An ordained minister, George Flint grew up in southern California and moved to Reno after completing divinity school. In 1961, he founded the Chapel of the Bells at 540 West 4th Street, and four years later, moved the business into a converted home at 700 West 4th Street. He discusses Reno’s wedding chapel industry and the changes he has witnessed through more than fifty years in the business.
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Hugh Russolo, Coney Island Bar
Hugh Rossolo was born in Elko and moved to Reno in 1958. In the mid-1920s, his grandparents, Ralph and Marie Galletti, ran a small tamale factory in the Coney Island neighborhood located between Reno and Sparks. Eventually, it became the Coney Island Bar, still operated by the Galletti family. Rossolo, who became a teacher, shares family memories of the popular establishment and how the restaurant and its surroundings have changed through the years.
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Inez Stempeck, Owner, Casale's Halfway Club
Inez Casale Stempeck was born in 1927 at the Coney Island Dairy, then located near El Rancho and Prater Way. Her parents, who both emigrated to Nevada from Italy, founded Casale’s as a roadside fruit stand in the late 1930s. The business evolved into Casale’s Halfway Club, a popular Italian restaurant named for its location halfway between Reno and Sparks. Casale’s remains a family business, as Stempeck works in the kitchen alongside her son, Tony, and some of her grandchildren.
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Jennifer Oxier, Founder, A Salon 7
Stylist Jenny Oxier, or Jenny O, is the founder and co-owner of A Salon 7. The business started on Cheney Street and moved in 2009 into a renovated historic fire station known as 11 @ the Firehouse, at 495 Morrill Street.
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John Feroah, Reno Police, Washoe County Sheriff’s Office
John Feroah grew up in Reno, where his father worked for the Reno Police Department. After high school, John joined the Air Guard and worked briefly for the City of Reno. In 1969, he joined the Reno Police Department, part-time, while working security for the Cal-Neva. In 1971, he began to work for the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, retiring in 2003. He has since worked for the Reno Police Department Reserve and the University of Nevada Police Department.
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John Mayer, Retired teacher, Sparks
John Mayer’s great-grandparents on his mother’s side arrived in Sparks in the 1890s, while his father’s parents moved there with the relocation of the Southern Pacific railroad shops from Wadsworth. Mayer vividly describes growing up in Sparks in the 1940s and 1950s. He taught for the Washoe County School District, and served for seventeen years on the Sparks City Council and the Board of the Regional Transportation Commission, which named the new RTC Centennial Plaza after him in 2009.
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Krista Lee, City of Reno Homeless Coordinator
Krista Lee earned a Master’s in Social Work (MSW) from the University of Kansas before moving to Reno to become the city’s first Homeless Coordinator, Housing Resource Specialist. She describes her work for the City of Reno as well as the layout and operations of the Community Assistance Center, which was constructed on Record Street, just south of East Fourth Street, in 2007.
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Kyle Kozar, Co-founder, Reno Bike Project
Joseph “Kyle” Kozar (left) graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2006, the same year he co-founded the Reno Bike Project with Noah Silverman. The non-profit community bicycle shop and advocacy group is located at 541 East 4th Street. Kozar left Reno in 2011 to attend graduate school in city planning at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.
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Les Ede, Retired Sparks firefighter
Les Ede’s great-great-grandfather moved to Nevada in 1872. Born in 1942, Les grew up on Sullivan Lane, near what was then the western edge of Sparks, and shares memories of his childhood neighborhood near Prater Way. He joined the U.S. Navy after graduating from Sparks High School, and then became a firefighter in Sparks, retiring in 1994.
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Lilli Moffit, Owner, Reno Rails
Lilli Moffit was born in Germany and raised in Iowa. In the 1990s, she and her husband, Bill, moved to Reno, where he worked for Sierra Pacific (now Nevada Energy). In 1998, the Moffits bought and renovated a former Chinese restaurant at 1229 East 4th Street and opened Reno Rails, a model train store. Lilli continued to operate the business after her husband passed away in 2010.
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Lisa Jaramillo, Co-owner, Pet Play House
Born into a military family, Lisa Jaramillo moved to Reno upon her father’s retirement in 1979. She is co-owner, with her daughter, Addie Jaramillo, of the Pet Play House, which offers day care and overnight boarding for dogs at 2403 East 4th Street.
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Louis and Lorraine Erreguible, Owners, Louis’ Basque Corner
Louis and Lorraine Erreguible opened Louis’ Basque Corner at 301 East 4th Street in 1967, and also ran the hotel upstairs. A native of the Basque Country, Louis moved to Reno in 1948. Lorraine, born in California, moved to Reno in the mid-1940s and worked for nine years at Alpine Glass. They met at a local restaurant and married in 1955. Louis’ Basque Corner quickly became a regional favorite, eventually gaining national recognition for its family-style Basque lunches and dinners. The Erreguibles sold the business and retired in 2011. Lorraine passed away in 2013.
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Marilyn Marston, Art Marston Printing
In 1958, Marilyn Marston moved from the Bay Area to Reno, where she met her future husband, photographer and artist Art Marston. He founded Art Marston Printing, renting office space until 1974, when the Marstons purchased the old Zellerbach Paper Company building at 420 Valley Road. After Art’s passing in 1986, Marilyn sold the business to Valley Print and Mail, where she worked for ten years. Since 2001, she has rented the building to a series of tenants. She also speaks of her involvement with the Reno-Sparks Business Corridor Association.
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Noah Silverman, Co-founder, Reno Bike Project
Reno native Noah Silverman (left) is the Executive Director of the Reno Bike Project, which he co-founded with Kyle Kozar (right) in 2006. The non-profit community bicycle shop and advocacy group is located at 541 East Fourth Street. Silverman drew inspiration from volunteering at a community bike shop called The Hub in Bellingham, Washington, where he earned a degree in Industrial Technology from Western Washington University in 2005.
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Norm Avansino, Eveleth Lumber
Norman Avansino was born in Reno in 1917 and raised in Virginia City. He worked at the power company and the Farm Bureau in Reno in the 1930s, and for Senator Pat McCarran in his Washington, D.C. office. After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he worked briefly for the Veterans Administration and in 1948 began working in the front office at Eveleth Lumber, on East 4th Street. He left the company in 1980.
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Paolo Cividino, Owner, Tutto Ferro
Born in Italy, Paolo Cividino grew up in California, and moved to Reno in 1989. He is founder and owner of Tutto Ferro, a custom steel fabrication business located at 616 East 4th Street. In establishing his operation along the 4th Street corridor, he joined a community of long established iron workers, steel fabricators, and machine operators practicing in the area.
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Paul Gray, Dilworth STEM Academy
A native of Idaho, Paul Gray moved to Nevada as child for his father’s teaching job. After graduating from Carson High School and the University of Nevada, Reno, Paul began his own teaching career at Reed High School, where he taught math, coached basketball, and eventually became Dean of Students. In 2011, he became Dean of Students at the Dilworth STEM Academy.
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Ray Trevino, Director, St. Vincent's Dining Room
Ray Trevino directs St. Vincent’s Dining Room at 325 Valley Road in Reno. A native of Texas, he moved to Nevada after graduating from high school, then attended UNLV and served in the U.S. Army. Trevino began working at St. Vincent’s in the 1990s. He discusses the organization’s free lunch program and describes the move from the dining room’s previous location on Third Street to its new facility on Valley Road, near the City of Reno’s new Community Assistance Center.
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Rémi Jourdan, Club Underground
Rémi Jourdan was born in Paris, moved to the Alps as a teenager, and attended culinary school in France. Inspired by an earlier visit to Los Angeles, he moved to the United States in 1997. After a successful career in computing and other entrepreneurial ventures, he moved to Reno in 2007 and ran Club Underground and the Tree House Lounge at 555 East 4th Street. He also discusses his work with E4, an association of Fourth Street business owners.
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Sally Loux, Coney Island Bar
A Reno native, Sally Loux has worked for twenty years at the Coney Island Bar, located at the Reno-Sparks border where 4th Street becomes Prater Way. She describes the longstanding establishment’s welcoming environment and some of its regular customers, and explains what has made it such a popular gathering place for the entire community for so many decades.
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Sandi Sullivan, Owner, Windy Moon Quilts
Sandi Sullivan bought Windy Moon Quilts, then located in Tahoe City, in the 1980s, and moved the business to Reno—first to Kuenzli Street and then to a former bank building at 440 Spokane Street. She and her husband, Mike, were involved in the creation of the Reno-Sparks Business Corridor Association (RSCBA). Sullivan, whose family has lived in the Reno-Sparks area for several generations, also speaks about growing up in the community and the urban renewal project that targeted the neighborhood north of East 4th Street in the 1960s.
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Sharon Chamberlain & Kerry Deal, Northern Nevada HOPES
Interviewed together, Sharon Chamberlain and Kerry Deal discuss their work as Executive Director and Deputy Director/CFO, respectively, of Northern Nevada HOPES, a nonprofit community health center offering integrated medical care and support services at 580 West 5th Street in Reno.
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Spencer Hobson, Hobson Square
Spencer Hobson was born in Reno, where his grandfather, Antonio Bevilacqua, emigrated from Italy. His family members owned several casino properties, including Virginia City’s Frontier Club and Reno’s Overland and Riverside Hotels. Spencer owns the Reno Brewing Company bottling plant building on East 4th Street, which his father purchased in 1956 after the brewery closed. He also discusses Reno’s Italian community and the urban renewal project that targeted homes north of East 4th Street in the 1960s.
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Tim Conder, Bootleg Courier Co. and Cuddleworks
Born in Salt Lake City, Tim Conder grew up in California and worked for many years as a carpenter and cement mason. In 2008, he became a co-owner of Bootleg Courier, located at 545 East 4th Street, in a space known as Cuddleworks. The building also houses studio space for artists and a coffee roasting operation.
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Tim Iveson, Reno Fire Department
Born and raised in Reno, Tim Iveson spent thirty years as a firefighter—five years with the City of Sparks and 25 years with the City of Reno. After retiring, he continued to help firefighters through the Reno Firefighters Local 731. He discusses his experiences responding to emergencies along Fourth Street and Prater Way, and the impact of city development on local firefighting operations.
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Will Durham, Neon sign collector
A native of Reno, Will Durham is a collector of vintage neon signs from throughout Nevada and other parts of the United States. After graduating from the University of Nevada, Reno, he worked in film and commercial production in Los Angeles, and moved back to Reno in 2005. An exhibit of selected neon signs from his collection appeared at the Nevada Museum of Art from October 2012 through February 2013.
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