Welcome To The Boulder City /Hoover Dam Museum Located In The Historic Boulder Dam Hotel
	Our Vintage Photograph Collection - Animals When anyone writes about the history of Hoover Dam and Boulder City they always seem to overlook the animals who were part of the story. We read exciting stories of dam construction and how difficult it was for wives and mothers to build homes in the barren desert. But no one notices the animals who are always patiently there. Sometimes these animals were put to work; sometimes they were pets whose love got their families through long, hot days and nights or served as playmates to the town's children. Virginia "Teddy" Fenton is shown here with a kit fox she adopted as a pet in 1937. These gentle animals were once plentiful in the deserts around Boulder City and often came into yards hunting for food. One such fox lived under the floor of the Boulder Dam Hotel dining room during World War II and came out to eat when dinner was served.

In July 1930 H. R. "Bob" Wagner rounded up 21 wild burros in Death Valley and brought them back to the Colorado River near Black Canyon where he established the Boulder Pack Train. Wagner had come to southern Nevada early in 1929 to be on hand when construction started on Hoover Dam. He opened a curio stand for tourists on the banks of the river, and offered the services of his pack train not only to take tourists along the river to the future dam site, but to haul engineers and their equipment in and out of the canyon before there were roads. In November 1932 Wagner and his sidekick, "Tia Juana Eddie," embarked on a two-year tour of the U. S., and then dropped out of history.

H. R. "Bob" Wagner

Bob Wagner or Tia Juana Eddie?

Mules grading U. S. Highway 93/95 between Las Vegas and Boulder City in 1931

Margaret "Mamie" Gard

Across U. S. Highway 93/95 from Railroad Pass Casino stood a collection of small frame cottages known as the Railroad Pass Auto Court. This large woman, whose name was Margaret "Mamie" Gard, lived there with her husband, Reuben, around 1933. There were also several burros penned nearby--including this one named Nevada--where tourists could pay to ride.

In 1934 Reuben and Mamie moved into Boulder City where they lived in an Olympic House. These small, pre-fabricated buildings had been used originally to house the athletes in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. The government moved many of these little homes up to Boulder City in November 1932 to alleviate the housing shortage. In the two photos below, we see the Olympic Houses where the Gards lived as well as their two pets, Scottie and "Dizzy, Our Ball-Playing Cat."

Scottie

Dizzy, Our Ball-Playing Cat

Glen E. "Bud" Bodell

Glen E. "Bud" Bodell was chief of the Boulder Canyon Project Federal Reservation police force. Bodell had authority over 11officers who had to patrol 120 square miles of desert and mountains to keep "undesirables" away from the dam construction project. Bodell is shown here with Boulder Mike, the force's bull dog mascot. Mike got lots of press, including this paragraph from the Rocky Mountain Police Journal of November 1931 [p. 18]:

"[Boulder] Mike, from his appearance, has seen as much active service as his owner, Chief Bodell. From the tip of his homely old nose to the place where his tail should have been, he is a string of scars. Mike makes his daily patrol, eliminates all undesirables among the canine tribe (at least those of the male species) and stands by for word that will give him permission to assist his brother officers in expelling two-legged undesirables from the reservation."

Las Vegas Evening Review-Journal, June 30, 1936

Las Vegas Evening Review-Journal, September 28, 1936

In 1936 Julian Frackiewicz, a Russian émigré who operated the Desert Sand service station on the road between Las Vegas and Boulder City, established a zoo on the station property. He had been a professional animal trainer with a circus for many years, and when he moved to Las Vegas, he brought his animals with him. He kept a Russian black bear caged nearby, a monkey, a fox, a pair of eagles--and this South African lion Julian had raised from a cub and which he kept chained in the driveway of the service station. News articles noted the lion was "tame as a kitten " and pays no attention to cars pulling into the station.

Frackiewicz was fined $75 and ordered to keep the lion caged away from the public

Until September 26, 1936 when the lion mauled two-year-old Gail Chase from Boulder City. The Chase family were returning from Las Vegas and stopped for gas at the station. Mrs. Chase and her three children were standing on the curb while Mr. Chase filled their car's tank. When he asked his wife for change, she turned loose of little Gail's hand to dig through her purse, and Gail toddled off toward the lion, which crouched, then leaped at the child and took her head in his mouth. Gail was in and out of hospitals for two months, while Frackiewicz was fined $75 and ordered to keep the lion caged away from the public.

Long-tailed apus, also known as the tadpole shrimp

One of the most interesting animals found near Boulder City is the long-tailed apus, also known as the tadpole shrimp, who flourish in rain pools long enough to mate before the water dries up. Their eggs lay in the sand at the bottom of these dried puddles until the next big rain hatches them. Boulder City resident Anita Scott first noted the apus on Dry Lake in Eldorado Valley southwest of town in 1936, and for years Boulder City children rode their bicycles out to Dry Lake after spring and summer rains where they'd sieve apus out of the muddy water with old window screens and colanders. Much was made of these ephemeral little creatures before they were identified in 1947 by Swedish naturalist Folke Linder. In the photo below, National Park Service naturalist Wilbur Doudna catches apus on Dry Lake on December 13, 1946.

National Park Service naturalist Wilbur Doudna catches apus on Dry Lake on December 13, 1946

Long-tailed apus, also known as the tadpole shrimp

Boulder City's streets were graded by "four-up and Fresno" a scraper or grader pulled along by four mules

Eddie Blair and his dog, Cotton, in McKeeversville near Boulder City, c. 1931

Boulder City Museum and Historical Association
P.O. Box 60516, Boulder City, Nevada 89006-0516
Phone: (702) 294-1988 | Fax: (702) 294-4380
E-mail: info@bcmha.org



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