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. Photo by Patrick Cummings
Full Oral History TranscriptLes Ede, who grew up on Sullivan Lane, just north of Prater Way, recalls swimming in the pool at Deer Park in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Recorded by Alicia Barber.
Retired Sparks firefighter Les Ede recalls the 1976 fire that completely destroyed Gepford's Used Furniture Store, which had been on the northeast corner of 15th Street and Prater Way since the 1930s. Recorded by Alicia Barber.
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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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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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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