There is much work to be done to preserve Reno’s architectural heritage. Some of our most historic properties are in dire need of realistic solutions in order to survive. Some are owned by sympathetic property owners in search of feasible solutions; others may require organized intervention to avoid irreparable damage or even demolition. For all, awareness of what’s at stake is the first step to ensure the preservation of some of our city’s most significant, and most beautiful, historic structures.

I’ll have more to say about this in the weeks to come. But for now, take a look at some of these buildings. They deserve the attention of local residents, who can help to persuade their owners to take care of them and help find the resources that will allow them to do so. Whether fifth-generation Renoites or new arrivals, we are all stewards of Reno’s heritage. These structures, ranging from 19th century Queen Anne homes to modest commercial brick buildings to architectural landmarks, all have enormous potential to contribute to our city’s character, its ongoing revitalization, and our economy. But when they’re gone, they’re gone. Let’s not allow that to happen on our watch.

A postcard from the 1940s adds a little humor to the notion of the Reno divorce. Postcard from the personal collection of Mella Rothwell Harmon.

Perhaps it’s no big surprise that Reno, Nevada hasn’t done much to promote or even to acknowledge its six decades as Divorce Capital of the World. The title might seem a dubious honor, implying that Reno’s culture proved so poisonous to the concept of stable wedlock that the city’s married couples didn’t stand a chance.

In fact, Reno’s migratory divorce trade played a pivotal role in enabling the matrimonially dissatisfied, abused, and abandoned to be free of their conjugal constraints, in the process increasing the widespread acceptance of divorce, empowering thousands of men and women to take charge of their own lives, and hastening the enactment of similar legislation nationwide.

At the same time, the divorce trade played a significant role in establishing Reno’s image and its tourist economy, something I covered at great length in my book, Reno’s Big Gamble. The unique industry clearly demonstrated the economic potential of attracting outsiders to the state (and to Reno in particular, as its largest and most accessible city) by legislating highly desirable activities not available elsewhere, and paved the way for its embrace of legalized wide-open gambling.

Illuminating Reno’s Divorce Industry is a project of the Special Collections Department, University of Nevada, Reno Libraries

The absolute centrality of the migratory divorce trade to Reno’s development, and its largely unacknowledged significance both nationally and in Reno itself, prompted the creation of the new online exhibit and archive, Illuminating Reno’s Divorce Industry–a project I was thrilled to participate in for the past 15 months. A project of the Special Collections Department of the University of Nevada, Reno Libraries, this effort involved digitizing over a thousand photos, books, pamphlets, diaries, postcards, and other materials; recording interviews with individuals who experienced the divorce trade firsthand; writing narratives to explain the many facets of the trade; and designing an exhibit and online archive to bring this story–in all its marvelous complexity–to the public.

Browse the online library, read the narratives, and listen to the voices, and I think you’ll begin to appreciate the magnitude of this six-decade industry and its wide-ranging contributions to the culture of Reno, the state of Nevada, and the United States. The legacies of this trade are everywhere–in Reno’s architectural and business landscape; in the large number of local residents who came to town for a Reno divorce and decided to stay; in the city’s longstanding identity as a cosmopolitan crossroads; and in this rich and often surprising collection of colorful stories that hold such potential for further research, for tourism, and for strengthening the identity of a community almost perpetually in transition.

Photo by Bob Harmon

Scott Sonner of the Associated Press has written a nice piece on Reno’s historic 1905 Virginia Street Bridge, soon to be demolished. I was glad to be able to share with him my thoughts about its significance to the city and beyond. You can read the story here.

Early one morning a few weeks ago, I stood on the bridge with three amazing women who devoted years to the effort to integrate preservation of the bridge into plans for the future of downtown Reno.  I joined those efforts soon after I moved to town in 2003, inspired by the bridge’s understated elegance and classical form, its centrality to Reno’s development and identity, and the multitude of stories it contains.

Together, we worked for years in pursuit of a solution that would allow the bridge to remain in place while still accommodating the needs of flood control and the concerns of downtown business owners, and it is important that we did that. It is right and good for us to make every attempt to combine development with preservation of our most historic structures. It is critical for us to ask questions and to engage in those difficult conversations, sharing our opinions in a public forum. We should continue to do that as a city. We owe it to our past, recognizing that the future we are building will be infinitely enriched by embracing the stories of who and what we have been. The loss of each historic structure deprives us of a tangible reminder of our heritage, making it that much more difficult to connect to what came before us.

I’m proud of how hard we worked to save the bridge. And when it was clear that this bridge could not accommodate the level of flood protection required by the City of Reno, the Army Corps of Engineers, business owners, and the Truckee River Flood Project, I’m proud that each and every one of us who stood on the bridge that day participated in the process of determining what would replace it. We attended meetings of the Design Review Board convened to select a new bridge design, we met with its architects and engineers, and we discussed how to incorporate elements of the historic bridge into the new span. It is impossible to be a dedicated historic preservationist, at least a successful one, without also being a clear-eyed realist.

On that day, our final day on the bridge together, we talked about how much it had seen in its 110 years: the growth of the city’s population from fewer than 10,000 residents to more than 250,000; the devastating fires that brought down earlier versions of the Riverside Hotel and the Masonic Temple; the demolition of the charming little Carnegie Library to make way for the Post Office building now gracing the south bank; the golden peals of laughter and music cascading from the Mapes and Riverside in their prime; the hum of the streetcar traversing its length; and yes, the footsteps of the newly divorced, pausing for a moment at the railing to consider whether or not to join the ranks of the famed ring-flingers.

We brought with us armfuls of white roses and daisies, and flung them one by one, like discarded wedding rings, into the river, watching them land gently in the rivulets and catch in the rocks, until they finally broke free, winding their way downstream and out of sight.

Goodbye to a bridge that has served this city so well. Goodbye to your beauty and elegance, to your steadfast endurance through times both robust and lean. Goodbye to a well-worn path trod by thousands. Goodbye to the rings and flowers, to the crystalline blue of that morning sky. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

Photo courtesy of Special Collections Department, University of Nevada, Reno Libraries

Reno Arch, 2004. Photo by Max Chapman.

Word came out this week of a local group’s efforts to promote the redesign or even replacement of the Reno Arch, in order to better reflect Reno’s changing identity and economy.  As Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve later clarified, the group first approached the City with the idea several years ago, but the discussions have so far resulted in no plans to renovate or replace the famous arch.

Historically, it’s not a new idea.  The widespread belief that the previous two arches were outdated was what led to their replacement in 1963 and 1987 (when the current arch was installed).  Based on that calendar—replacement every 20 to 30 years—we’re about due for a new one.

Or are we?

The arch’s role has changed significantly over the past 89 years. The first Reno Arch was installed in 1926 to promote a specific event, a Transcontinental Highways Exposition held in Idlewild Park to mark the completion of the Lincoln and Victory Highways. You can read more about that on Reno Historical.

The original Reno Arch, installed on Virginia Street in 1926. Special Collections Department, University of Nevada, Reno Libraries.

A centrally-located, well-lit arch was the perfect vehicle for promoting the expo—erected on Reno’s main thoroughfare, it loomed over the very people the event hoped to attract: people in cars. It’s not like there were a lot of other marketing methods back then.  Oh sure, there were brochures and newspaper ads, if you could afford the costs. But a big, bright street-width illuminated banner stretching overhead was a constant, unmistakable reminder to GO TO THE EXPO, CAR PEOPLE.

After the big event, Reno folks just liked the arch, so it stayed. Once it gained its famous slogan and Reno became the talk of the nation for legalized gambling and the six-week divorce, the Reno Arch became the city’s most recognizable icon, as famous as San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, New York’s Statue of Liberty, and that much bigger arch back in St. Louis–which is kind of incredible considering how much larger those cities were and are.

The Reno Arch in the 1930s. Image courtesy of Philip Galbraith.

But that’s what made Reno the Biggest Little City in the World—its outsized reputation and larger-than-life banquet of cultural enticements, far more cosmopolitan than anyone would expect for a city its size.

Keeping Reno’s arch current was essential in the postcard, pre-Internet era, when the chief aspiration of a city dependent upon tourism was to create an image in people’s minds that could single-handedly epitomize their destination’s cutting-edge appeal.

The Reno Arch, New Year’s Eve 1963 through 1987. Note the continuity of the starburst topper on this and the current arch. Special Collections Department, University of Nevada, Reno Libraries.

And the Reno Arch did just that. Touting the city’s famous nickname, it conveyed just the right mix of brashness and charm through every era. In the neon age, as Virginia Street filled with clubs and casinos, it blazed in bright neon. In the swinging sixties, it grooved in yellow and orange octagons. And in 1987, increasingly dwarfed by the rainbow-hued multi-story dazzle-fest of Fitzgerald’s, the Eldorado, Harrah’s, and Harolds Club, it burst forth in a blinding carnival of over-the-top pizzazz. Dependent upon casinos and tourism, Reno fully embraced its new icon’s unapologetic glitz as the city’s calling card.

In the subsequent 28 years, Reno’s economy has diversified, and the downtown landscape with it. Some casinos have closed, some have been demolished, many remain, neighboring Fitzgerald’s has transformed into the non-gaming Whitney Peak Hotel, and the city is embracing a new era of start-ups, high tech, higher ed, outdoor adventure, and unprecedented innovation.

So why not update the Reno Arch once again to reflect the new Reno?

Because city promotion and consumption don’t work like that anymore. In this era of advanced technologies and sophisticated marketing strategies, both promoters and consumers can immediately access an endless array of images (and narratives) to correspond with whatever stories they seek to construct and absorb. Platforms have multiplied, markets are segmented, campaigns are targeted, and places no longer project a single image (nor do they wish to).

Reno’s original arch, relocated on Lake Street. Photo by Max Chapman.

At the same time, as Reno forges ahead with a new resident-centered vision, appreciation of the city’s rich heritage is growing, and the arches help to tell that unique story. The original Reno Arch was reinstalled on Lake Street in 1995 after years languishing in a city storage yard. The site is appropriate, neighboring the National Auto Museum, which celebrates the car culture that inspired its creation. The lost sixties-era arch, donated years ago to Willits, California, would have looked fabulous next to a renovated mid-century motel.

The current arch, if replaced, would certainly need to be preserved and relocated. But what site would better suit it or the story it tells than its natural habitat, the historic heart of Reno’s casino core, where it serves as an unabashedly spectacular, infinitely recognizable commemoration of the pioneering role Reno played in the creation and ascension of the American gaming industry?

Each Reno Arch is a product of its time, and like any building, artifact, or cultural product, it derives deeper meaning from the way we interpret it to the world. Does the current arch symbolize everything that Reno is today? Of course not. But why should we ask it to, when we have so many other tools at our disposal to accomplish that?

Rather, we need to recognize that as Reno reinvents itself, our city’s rich heritage is one of its most valuable assets. There is no place like it. And its incomparable story, embedded in the landscape in ways we have only begun to tap into, is a key component of the city’s multi-dimensional, excitingly complex, absolutely unique identity.

This Reno Arch, in its historic spot at Virginia Street and Commercial Row, is an iconic part of that story. Outdated? No. It is masterfully, flamboyantly, beautifully outrageous, an assertion of Reno’s abundant civic pride and boundless delight in celebrating itself. And what could be more timeless than that?

As Reno’s revitalization continues to gain momentum, our city’s rich heritage is emerging as one of its most valuable assets. From digital projects to the renovation and repurposing of key historic properties, the year 2014 was marked by an increasing (and exciting!) realization of how our city’s unique past can be an integral, and irreplaceable, component of its continuing reinvention. Here are five of the year’s top stories in Reno’s heritage.

1. The Launch of Reno Historical

On May 9^th, the anniversary of Reno’s original land auction in 1868, the new smart phone app and website Reno Historical launched. The map-based multimedia platform, a collaborative effort by most of Reno’s history-related organizations, allows users to explore Reno’s heritage through stories, images, audio, and video clips. The project continues to expand, with the regular addition of new locations and multimedia components. Look for the addition of historic sites throughout Midtown and the Wells Avenue district in 2015.

2. The opening of Heritage restaurant

While not housed in a historic building (by most standards, anyway), Mark Estee’s Heritage restaurant, which opened in May, was significant to Reno’s heritage for a number of reasons not limited to the establishment’s name. Located in the Whitney Peak Hotel, the old Fitzgerald’s casino building, the restaurant champions the city’s history in everything from the menu’s inspiration to the wait staff’s denim uniforms (a nod to the 1871 invention just a block away of Levi’s riveted jeans). Additionally, the establishment of a non-gaming hotel in the heart of the city’s casino core bodes well for the return of the city center to a more diverse array of businesses and attractions for both tourists and residents.

3. Historic UNR Dorms Saved from the Wrecking Ball

Citing seismic concerns, a press release issued by the University of Nevada, Reno on May 29^th indicated that two of the university’s historic dormitories, Lincoln Hall and Manzanita Hall, might be “removed” in whole or part.  Immediate public outcry to save the two 19^th century buildings, both listed in the National Register of Historic Places, included a student-led petition, an editorial in the Reno Gazette-Journal, and a flurry of activity on the part of local and state preservation groups. Just weeks later, UNR President Marc Johnson announced that both Lincoln Hall and Manzanita Hall would be preserved.  Bids to design the initial plan to convert Lincoln Hall into office space are due January 15.

4. The Renovation and Reuse of Reno’s Downtown Post Office

Reno’s historic downtown post office closed its doors in December of 2012 after 78 years of operation. Designed by Nevada’s pre-eminent architect, Frederic DeLongchamps, the Art Deco/Art Moderne building was purchased by the Reno Redevelopment Agency and sold to a local development group. Led by local resident Bernie Carter, the building’s new owners worked closely with Nevada’s State Historic Preservation Office and the City of Reno’s Historical Resources Commission to ensure that its renovation would retain the structure’s historical integrity. Renamed Fifty South Virginia, its historic address, the beautifully restored building’s office spaces are now open for lease.

5. The Renovation of the Nevada-Oregon-California Railroad Depot

Vacant for more than a decade, the Nevada-California-Oregon Railroad Depot on historic East 4^th Street was long the subject of hand-wringing by locals who feared the building would be lost to deterioration or demolition.  Another Frederic DeLongchamps design, the historic 1910 depot was purchased in 2013 by a long-time Nevada family. Following an extensive renovation, it reopened on New Year’s Eve, 2014, as a combined brewery/distillery/restaurant, named the Depot Craft Brewery and Distillery. The property promises to play a key role in the reactivation of East 4^th Street, recently named the Old Brewery District by the Regional Alliance for Downtown.

Stay tuned for my list of five issues in Historic Reno to look for in 2015!