Nevada Traveler: Cox’s last book tells how Reno put itself on the map

Reno author Joyce M. Cox, who died in May at the age of 75, was once described as “a human version of Google decades before the internet existed.”

Her agility in finding and recalling information was much appreciated by all who came in contact with her during her many years as a research librarian in California, Washington, and Nevada.

That special ability is what also makes her last book, “Behind the Arch: The Story of Reno, Nevada’s Unique Chamber of Commerce and the Making of ‘The Biggest Little City in the World’” such a treat.

Cox, who retired in 2009 after serving as the head reference librarian at the Nevada State Library and Archives, has taken a deep dive into the story of how the city of Reno has successfully marketed and publicized itself over the decades.

The book, published by Eric Moody’s Nevada in the West Publishing of Reno earlier this year, begins with a short chapter describing how the then-fledgling community of Reno took its first steps to market itself by forming various promotional committees that eventually evolved into the first Reno Chamber of Commerce.

Cox tells the background behind the creation of the city’s famous slogan, “Reno: The Biggest Little City in the World,” and the way the community utilized promotional booklets and magazine articles to spread the word about the community and its many attributes.

Along the way, readers discover the various themes used in the city’s promotions, including its quality of life and recreational assets (“Reno Land of Charm”) as well as the tax advantages of living in Nevada (“One Sound State”).

Later chapters are devoted to the plethora of gambling-related promotional efforts, both private and public.

These ranged from the iconic “Harolds Club or Bust!” signs to the Reno Chamber’s “In Reno It’s Fun Time All the Time,” promotions of the mid-1960s.

The book is lavishly illustrated with historic photos and images of various promotional campaigns including posters, pamphlets, maps and brochures.

Of course, part of the fun in reading the book is seeing how Reno’s promotional efforts evolved over time. In the beginning, the aim was largely focused on encouraging people from out of state to visit Reno to see that the city wasn’t some remote uncivilized community.

Later, the efforts pass through a phase of promoting the city as a tax haven, then as the “quickie” divorce capital, and then as a skiing, special event, rodeo hub. In the 1960s, Reno’s promotors wrapped its identity around the gaming industry and then, starting in the late 1970s, pushed economic diversification.

Cox’s book, in fact, proves to be more than just simply an account of the city’s promotional campaigns through the decades, but also is a good, solid history of the city’s evolution as a community.

Copies of Joyce M. Cox’s book, “Behind the Arch: The Story of Reno, Nevada’s Unique Chamber of Commerce and the Making of ‘The Biggest Little City in the World,’” are available at the Nevada Historic Society gift shop at 1650 N. Virginia St., in Reno.