BIGGEST little City

by Harry Spencer

Northern Nevada's "Good Old Days" club continues to lure top speakers to its monthly meeting at the Reno Elks Club on Kumle Lane at noon on the third Friday of each month. Latest example was the August appearance of longtime KOLO-TV weatherman, Dick Stoddard.

Dick Stoddard

Although he did not discuss the vagaries of the weather in this area Stoddard was able to entertain his extremely large audience with a slide show presentation of his famous iconic collection of old Reno postcards.

Shortly after World War II the Reno/Sparks area was awash in a sea of the little message boards that could be purchased for a nickel and sent back to the hometowns of the tourists that thronged to the Biggest Little City in its heyday. I recall that the major hotels and casinos had reams and reams of postcards that they distributed free to anyone that wanted them. Most of the cards were ordered out of San Francisco and this area was a lucrative market for the postcard salesmen that plied their trade on the West Coast.

Many years later Harrah's initiated the practice of placing large jumbo postcards on the tables in their showrooms. Guests were encouraged to fill out the cards and even leave them with the maitre' de for mailing. Usually they featured the top name entertainer who was then appearing onstage and also had a listing of future upcoming shows. It was such an effective marketing tool that the Sparks Nugget soon followed suit and for those interested, there is a large, framed collage of Nugget postcards located on the waiting room wall on the Executive office floor of John Ascuaga's Nugget. A while back I had the pleasure of scanning the collage with John and we reminisced about experiences with the many stars depicted on the cards.

At his G.O.D. club presentation Stoddard went even further back with some archaic black and white postcards that were in vogue in early day Reno. One even depicted ice skaters on a frozen body of water that no one in his audience was able to identify. Stoddard finally ended the guessing by noting that it was a section of the Truckee river, which routinely froze in the good old days.

Stoddard was introduced by his mother, Betty Stoddard, herself one of the pioneers in radio and early day television in the local area. At one time Betty's show, "Be My Guest", was the highest rated local production on the tube. Coincidentally, Dick's late father, Bob Stoddard, was also a media man, having opened radio station KATO here. For many years KATO was located on the Mezzanine level of the Mapes hotel, adjacent to my office in the building.