John Francis Cahlan is a native of Nevada, born in Reno in 1902. He had a long career as a newspaperman and followed an avocation in politics, serving as a regent of the University of Nevada, a legislative lobbyist, and as an instigator of the establishment of the Nevada State Archives.

Few residents of Nevada have had greater contact with the events and the men who have shaped the state's history in the past half-century than John Cahlan. Born in Reno and briefly a resident of Carson City, Cahlan attended the University of Nevada in the 1920s. He worked for the Nevada State Journal when James G. Scrugham was its owner, and moved to Las Vegas when newspapering was still in its adolescence there. Cahlan was not a selective scholar--a newspaperman cannot afford to be that. He was, rather, a reporter trained by long service to listen for the feature angle or the news lead. Names of nationally famous and locally prominent personalities abound; Mr. Cahlan obviously took pride in his encounters with the people who make news.

Cahlan watched the building of Hoover Dam, the growth of Las Vegas, and the development of the Atomic Energy Commission's testing facility from a unique point of view. His activities as political prophet and seer, legislative reporter, university regent, juvenile officer, and service club activist took him into far more strategic situations than most Nevadans ever could experience. The state was much smaller in population during Mr. Cahlan's busiest years, and it is doubtful that future archivists will have a comparable range of opportunities. This account is certain to be of value, not only for its descriptions of the events that Cahlan saw firsthand, but also for the small-town festivities, the hearsay that it preserves, and for the gossip—the most natural and honest kind of narration—that is here put in permanent form.

Scholars of the future may find reason to recheck some of Cahlan's assertions or descriptions—this is one of the functions of scholarship—but they will do well to keep this account close at hand. It is representative, earnest, patriotic, local history, related with the pride and self-assurance that was common to those who are now being called "Old Nevadans."