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. Photo by Patrick Cummings

Full Oral History Transcript

Norm Avansino describes getting a job at the front desk of Eveleth Lumber in 1948 and what some of his daily tasks included. Recorded by Alicia Barber.

Interviewed in 2013, Norm Avansino discusses the types of employees and the work they did at Eveleth Lumber, where he worked for 25 years. Recorded by Alicia Barber.

Longtime Eveleth Lumber employee Norm Avansino recalls some of the types of lumber shipped to the lumber company on East 4th Street, where it came from, and how it arrived. Recorded by Alicia Barber.

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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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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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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History Project4th Street | Prater Way

Norm Avansino, Eveleth Lumber

Ben Akert, Akert Market

Hugh Russolo, Coney Island Bar

Spencer Hobson, Hobson Square

History Project
4th Street | Prater Way