Did you know that the building we know in town as being the home of the Elks Lodge 1682 was the original home of the TWA (Transcontinental and Western Airlines) Terminal?
According to our Clamper friend Mark Hall Patton, the Federal Government forcibly merged Western Air and Transcontinental Air Transport in 1934, because the US government wanted to consolidate early cross-country mail routes.
They built the airport out here in 1938, partly because they believed this might become a more lucrative market, but again, Hall Patton chimes in that this was also partly due to the fact that Western Air owned the airport space east of Las Vegas. It seems that while the two companies had to function together, they didn’t really play nicely together!
Regardless, the TWA terminal functioned here until 1949 when the airline relocated to Las Vegas. The Elks Lodge purchased the building back in 1958 and has kept a lot of the historical photos, which are on display inside.
If you’ve missed our other two articles on The Clampers and the historical plaques they’ve put up in our area, you can read about the first one at Bicentennial Park and the second in our series at Bootleg Canyon.
