Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Independent City or Town
- Metro Area
- Politics c. 1860?
- Don’t Know
- Unions, Organized Labor?
- Not Strong
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Surely
- Was there an ordinance?
- Yes, Strong Oral Tradition
- Sign?
- Year of Greatest Interest
- 1931
- Still Sundown?
- Surely Not
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | ||||||||
| 1940 | ||||||||
| 1950 | ||||||||
| 1960 | ||||||||
| 1970 | 5233 | |||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | 12567 | 79 | ||||||
| 2000 | 14966 | 107 | ||||||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Police or Other Official Action
- Zoning
- Reputation
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
Boulder City was initially created to house the workers who built Hoover Dam, and as such, was a significant and integral part of the successful completion of the Boulder Canyon Project. Constructed in 1931 in the midst of the Great Depression, Boulder City was conceived by the Federal Government as an ideal town, or a “model” city.
Joseph Stevens%u2019 book %u201CHoover Dam: An American Adventure%u201D discusses the town of Boulder City and the city manager, Sims Ely, who by all accounts ran the town of Boulder City as his private domain.
See also:
//xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/DISPLAY/hoover/boulder.html
“Planned Living in Boulder City”
The “Hoover Online” website, also has oral histories online
See, for example, Bob Parker%u2019s oral history transcript (ecommcode.com/hoover/hooveronline/hoover_dam/oral/143.html#143b)
%u201CBob Parker: Well, on Sims Ely. . .he was the full authority, no way you could back him down. Now, we had a man that came in here from Texas by the name of Clarence Newlands, who build the Green Hut one of the first restaurants in Boulder City. And he brought a colored cook in here from Texas an old colored cook. See, there wasn%u2019t any colored people in Boulder City. Sims Ely called him in there and he said, %u201CYou get rid of that colored cook. I have had too many complaints about that colored cook.%u201D
And Clarence Newlands said, %u201CMr. Ely, how much money you got?%u201D
Sims Ely said, “What difference does it make how much money I got?”
And Clarence Newlands says, “If you’ve got $80,000, my Green Hut is yours tomorrow. And you can hire who you want to. But as long as I own the Green Hut, you%u2019re not telling me who to hire.” He kept his colored cook. He supported the colored cook. . . . Sims Ely tried to bluff Clarence Newlands, and it didn’t work.%u201D
Banyan Library, at the University of Nevada %u2013 Las Vegas also has oral histories regarding Afro Americans in Boulder City.
See, for example, Robert Parker%u2019s oral history transcript
(banyan.library.unlv.edu/cgi bin/htmldesc.exe?CISOROOT=/Hoover_Dam&CISOPTR=56&CISOMODE=1)
1986 11 09
Summary/Description: In an interview with Dennis McBride, Robert Parker discusses African Americans in Boulder City during the construction of Hoover Dam.Subject:African Americans Hoover Dam (Ariz. and Nev.) 1930 1940
%u201CRobert Parker: %u201CClarence Newlin brought in a colored cook a black cook by the name of McKinley Sails, who was a…he was a…cooked on the railroad, on the diners for Fred Harvey system, before Clarence hired him. He was an awful good cook especially a pie baker and people’d come from all over. Red they called him Red nicknamed him Red. And his pies were the best you could buy anywhere in the state of Nevada and people’d come over here just to eat his pies. But somebody went to Sims Ely and told him that Clarence Newlin had a black cook cooking up here and that there wasn’t to be any blacks in Boulder City. Well, Sims Ely took it upon himself to call Clarence in and tell him he had to get rid of his black cook. And Clarence said, “Mr. Ely, how much money have you got?” And Mr. Ely says, “What difference does it make? What bearing does that have on the subject?” He said, “Well, I tell you something: If you’ve got $75,000, you can have that Green Hut tomorrow, and you can hire who you want to and who you don’t want to. But,” he says, “as long as that green hut belongs to me, you’re not telling me who to hire and fire around here. And,” he says, “until you dig up the money to buy it out, don’t be getting after me about my black cook.” [And he] turned around and walked out. And I guess Sims took it up in Washington, but he didn’t get anywhere with it because, like you say, at that time I know Eleanor Roosevelt was very sympathetic to the colored people in Washington, so things were beginning to change right in those days about the colored people black people.
Dennis: Were there other black people in Boulder City, or working on the dam, that you remember?
Robert: There were a lot of them that worked on the dam. That is, I say “a lot,” I’d say a maximum probably of fifty or a hundred. But they all lived in Las Vegas.%u201D
The couple allowed to live in Boulder City were Henry and Ocie Bradley. They worked for Glover E. “Roxy” Ruckstell, who owned the Grand Canyon Boulder Dam Tours, the Boulder Dam Hotel, and Grand Canyon Airlines. According to one quote from a local resident, they “sort of belonged to the Ruckstell family.”
See also, Dennis McBride, “The Boulder City Dictator,” in Las Vegas Review-Journal, 11/2004