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. Photo by Patrick Cummings

Full Oral History Transcript

Interviewed in 2012, Ben Akert describes the appeal of the Coney Island Bar and Restaurant, an institution first established on East 4th Street in the 1920s. Recorded by Matt Fearon.

Ben Akert, whose family owned Akert Market at the corner of East 4th Street and Alameda (later Wells) Avenue, describes Wells Avenue before the construction of the overpass that bypassed East 4th Street. Recorded by Matt Fearon.

Ben Akert, interviewed in 2012, describes working at Akert Market, which was owned and operated by his family at 803 East 4th Street from 1945-1963. Recorded by Matt Fearon.

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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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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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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History Project4th Street | Prater Way

Ben Akert, Akert Market

John Mayer, Retired teacher, Sparks

George Flint, Owner, Chapel of the Bells

Norm Avansino, Eveleth Lumber

History Project
4th Street | Prater Way