March 5, 1946

February 1946. World War II is over and wartime production jobs were ending. During the war, Carl and Georgie worked a number of jobs in several places, finishing the war in Pocatello, Idaho. They elected to return to Iowa, where they both had family, but opted to make a grand tour of the west on the way. Georgie wrote a journal of the trip. The story starts here.

Carl and Georgie with some Joshua trees.

We were happy to leave Needles the next morning and drove through Searchlight and Alunite up to Las Vegas, Nevada. We passed the largest magnesium plant in the world on the way into Las Vegas. Arrived there about noon and spent the rest of the day looking around town. Stayed at a motel, had my hair done, saw many famous gambling halls – seemed strange to see neon signs advertising gambling. Went down to the station in the evening and met Fran, then ate downtown and drove around.

Google (ND) [ Directions from Needles, CA, to LAs Vegas, NV] Retrieved Feb 13, 2021

Walt’s Comments

She doesn’t mention whether they went into any of the gambling halls. I rather doubt they would.

Another viewpoint

Fran told us a story about that trip from Pocatello to Las Vegas. It seems she met a nice young airman from the Army Air Force. They hit it off quite nicely, and Fran really wanted to spend a little time with him. The train pulled into Las Vegas “And there stood Georgie on the platform. I could see by the look in her eye that she was having none of it.”

I’ve seen that look a time or three myself, and I can vouch for the fact that it signals that she’s in her “force of nature” mode. Mom was a really nice lady but it didn’t pay to ruffle her feathers.

Digging Deeper

The History Channel talks about Las Vegas in the 1940’s in this article.

This article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal talks about some of the gunnery training that took place in the area.