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.

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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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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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

John Mayer, Retired teacher, Sparks

Les Ede, Retired Sparks firefighter

Spencer Hobson, Hobson Square

History Project
4th Street | Prater Way