A Short History of Reno, Second Edition by Richard Moreno

Author:Richard Moreno [Moreno, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, United States, State & Local, West (AK; CA; CO; HI; ID; MT; NV; UT; WY), Social Science, Sociology, Urban, Travel, West, Pacific (AK; CA; HI; OR; WA)
ISBN: 9780874179859
Google: qCyVDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Nevada Press
Published: 2015-10-01T02:54:13+00:00

In their 1963 book, The Green Felt Jungle, former Las Vegas journalists Ed Reid and Ovid Demaris told a macabre story about Pittman suffering a fatal heart attack following an all-night poker game and drinking spree (Pittman was an alcoholic) at the Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah. They claimed that after he died his body was put into a bathtub filled with ice and kept there until after the election, when Nevada governor Edward Carville, a Democrat like Pittman, could appoint a replacement.

Former Nevada state archivist Guy Louis Rocha, however, investigated the legend, which some had begun to accept as fact, and found there was a cover-up—but not the one concocted by Reid and Demaris. After interviewing Pittman’s attending physician, Dr. A. J. “Bart” Hood, and examining the official death certificate, Rocha discovered that Pittman had indeed suffered a massive heart attack following a late-night card game at Reno’s Riverside Hotel, during which the senator had been heavily drinking, but he had not died.

Called to the scene, Dr. Hood quietly rushed Pittman to Washoe General Hospital (now known as Washoe Medical Center). A heart specialist examined the senator and concluded that he had only a few days to live. The cover-up happened when Governor Carville and Democratic Party officials were informed of Pittman’s grave condition and decided to withhold the information from the public until after the election. As a result, the popular Pittman was easily reelected, and after he died (for real), Governor Carville appointed a replacement (in this case, Democratic assemblyman Berkeley Bunker of Las Vegas).

Reno′s Literary Giant: Walter Van Tilburg Clark

An event that had a far more lasting effect on the state at the start of the decade was the publication of a book by a Reno writer that many believe to be one of the best western novels ever written. Called The Oxbow Incident, the book by Walter Van Tilburg Clark, who grew up in Reno (his father, Walter Ernest Clark, was president of the University of Nevada from 1918 to 1938) and later taught for many years at UNR, was called “a masterpiece” by the New Yorker magazine. The novel told a tale of misguided Old West frontier justice and the tragic consequences of such actions.

According to Charlton Laird, an English professor and colleague of Clark’s at the University of Nevada, Clark wrote the book in response to the romanticized image of the Old West as portrayed in numerous western books and films. He said Clark decided to write a “Quixotesque ‘western’ ” that would make fun of the conventions of the western fictional genres. Clark was also concerned about the growing threat of the Nazis in Germany and wanted to show how easy it is for so-called rational people to get caught up in irrational acts, such as the lynching at the heart of The Oxbow Incident.

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