Photo courtesy the Ted Wurm CollectionMayor Caro Pendergraft of Carson City presents a key to Arthur Lloyd, right, president of California-Nevada R.R. Historical Society, operator of the 1949 excursion. Pendergraft died Nov. 6 in Atlanta at the age of 96.
A former Carson City mayor has died at age 96.
Caro Miller Pendergraft was mayor from 1949 to 1951. He died Nov. 6 in Atlanta.
He said in an April interview with the Nevada Appeal that he didn't plan on running for mayor when he came to Carson City to open a department store after World War II. People asked him to, so he did, he said.
The best thing he did as mayor was convince the Mills family to donate the land for Mills Park, he said. It was the first park in the city.
"At least I got them 52 acres of park," Pendergraft said.
He was the last mayor to serve a two-year term before the term was changed to four years.
Pendergraft was born in Joplin, Mo., in 1912, according to his obituary. He started a dance band and worked at a department story before joining the military during World War II.
"I didn't want to join the Army, and I didn't think I looked good in a sailor suit," he said. "So I walked across the street and joined the Marines."
He left Carson City soon after he served as mayor to work in sales at a steel company in Birmingham, Ala.
He traveled the world golfing after his retirement.
"He was a good mayor," former Carson City resident Kay Winters said in April. "And, as usual, Carson was trying to grow. It took a lot of good diplomacy on his part to help."