From the Nevada Appeal on Nov. 1, 1954: Attracting all attention from festivities of the Nevada Day celebration on Nov. 1, 1954, was the fire that broke out in the Nugget shortly after the parade. A grease chute in the club burst into flame sending clouds of black smoke into the air and filling the gaming house.
Reprinted from the Nov. 1, 1960 Nevada Appeal:
Slightly more than 48,000 persons crowded into Carson City yesterday to take part in Nevada’s celebration of the 96th anniversary of its admission into the Union in 1864.
Orvis Reil, chief planning engineer for the state highway department, estimated attendance here at 48,219 persons, including the local residents, most of whom turned out to join in the festivities.
It was not as large as the crowd as came here for the 1959 celebration, but there was still enough people to jam Carson St. to see the one hour and 45 minute parade that crawled down the main street.
According to figures compiled by Reil, there were 640 person in the bands that joined in the parade and 1230 other entries, for a total of 1,910 persons this year compared to 1,940 in 1959.
There were 41,419 persons arriving by passenger cars, while another 700 came here by busses and planes, according to Reil, for a total of 42,119 this year, compared to 42,913 a year ago.
Reil said he had cut the estimate of local persons from 6,500 used a year ago to 6,100 this year to bring the grand total of persons here to 48,219 for 1960 and 49,413 last year.
To arrive at the number arriving by passenger cars, Reil said his department had used the actual number of vehicles arriving multiplied by 3.5 persons per auto.