That Dam Tourist Traffic Threatens Peaceful Boulder City’s Way of Life

Inside the Happy Days Diner, Bill Wiseman is ordering the usual--a double-decker Chubby Checker, well done. Across the street, a basset hound is on his walk down the sidewalk and the town poet is reciting endless streams of rhyme.

“I live here in Boulder City. It’s not so big, but it sure is pretty,” poet David Durand rattles off outside a local hardware store, the lawn mowers neatly lined up in front.

The streets seem lonely except for the usual buzz of cars headed to nearby Hoover Dam. A few cars line the downtown streets, eased into their parking spaces on this Saturday morning while their owners eat breakfast at the downtown cafes.

Boulder City, population about 15,500, is just 25 miles southeast of glitzy Las Vegas, but this town doesn’t seem to fit in southern Nevada’s landscape. It’s untouched by the neon, mega-resorts and explosive growth that define its neighbor.

A controlled-growth ordinance limits the number of people who live here--only 120 new residences a year, making it the smallest city in southern Nevada. And one more thing, there’s not a casino to be found. The town might be just a step away from Sin City, but this isn’t even close. In fact, gambling is outlawed.

That suits this town just fine.

“That’s one of the reasons we came here,” said Charlotte Raczka, 66, who moved to Boulder City from Michigan with her husband five years ago. “I don’t like Vegas. This is much more quiet, more relaxed.”

Boulder City began as a federal reservation for workers building Hoover Dam--nine miles away--in the early 1930s. It was built partly because the government wanted to keep liquor, gambling and prostitution away from its workers.

In 1959 the government gave up ownership of the city on the condition that no liquor be sold and no gambling or prostitution be allowed, even though gambling became legal in the state in 1931.

The city charter was soon changed to allow liquor sales, but gambling was never legalized, even with the temptation of Las Vegas just down the road. Prostitution too was never allowed.

“They wanted Boulder City to be pure,” said Bill Thompson, a University of Nevada-Las Vegas professor and gambling industry expert.

And so Boulder City made its home in the shadows, becoming its own place, rich in history and ambience that still exists today.

Teddy Fenton came here in 1936, when she was 19. “It was love at first sight,” she says, recalling Boulder City’s early days.

Her fiance brought her from North Dakota, and Fenton, 84, believes it was fate. “Boulder City was built for me, I think.”

She ventured into Las Vegas some, but always preferred this scene. She got a job at a root beer stand and spent 20 years as a reporter at the Boulder City News, becoming a town historian.

“I love Boulder City. I just love it so much. The best city by [a] dam site,” she says, repeating a popular catch phrase in town. “It has no crimes. You don’t lock your doors, I never have. It hasn’t really changed.”

But keeping it that way is an increasing struggle. What the town motto dubs clean, green Boulder City is in danger of becoming traffic-clogged Boulder City. From 20,000 to 30,000 vehicles a day pass through this small town traveling to and from Hoover Dam.

U.S. 93 is a major commercial route between Arizona, Nevada and Utah. It’s also part of the North American Free Trade Agreement route between Mexico and Canada.

The Federal Highway Administration is trying to ease bottleneck traffic around Hoover Dam and has chosen a four-lane bypass bridge to lift traffic above the highway. If approved, it would be built by 2007. But that would do nothing to change the traffic flow through Boulder City.

The City Council earlier this month passed a resolution urging the agency to consider a route that would bypass Boulder City.

As the city fights to stay the same, state and federal highway officials study whether U.S. 93 should expand from four lanes to six to improve the Mexico-Canada trade route.

“That would absolutely destroy our small community,” Mayor Bob Ferraro says.

The allure of Boulder City has kept Wiseman, a Las Vegas resident, coming to the quaint Happy Days Diner every Saturday since 1969. Each time it’s the same order. “No. 99 well done and a coffee.” That’s a double-decker Chubby Checker burger with fries.

“We just come out, shoot the bull between us, head back to town,” Wiseman said of his visits in the diner with his friend.

The diner was built in 1931, and locals--who get a 10% discount--gather daily for the raved-about service, jukebox music and town chatter.

Not far away, the historic Boulder Dam Hotel, built in 1933, is undergoing a renovation. In its heyday, the hotel played host to such movie stars as Shirley Temple, Dean Martin and Bette Davis. Another historic building is the old Boulder City Hospital, built in 1931 and converted into a convent. It is now owned by the Orthodox Church in America and used for spiritual retreats.

“The community is really steeped in history,” the mayor says. “We are trying to renovate those older buildings so they maintain their dignity and their lifestyle.”

The casinos aren’t far away; several lie outside city limits, but somehow Boulder City manages to stay in its own world, resistant to change--at least for now.

It’s that small-town feeling, knowing Las Vegas is so close yet so distant, that keeps residents here.

“Who doesn’t like walking into a store and everybody knowing who you are?” asks town historian Dennis McBride.

It wasn’t that long ago that this town got its second stoplight--one many residents didn’t want because it signaled growth.

The mayor’s wife paints the murals in town, and the bowling alley is billed as the best place to party in Boulder City.

But on the minds of some residents are the what-ifs. What if more development is allowed to seep in, threatening this peaceful way of life? What if one day gambling comes here? And what if the traffic becomes unbearable?

“It’s that charm of the past that’s always in danger of being destroyed,” McBride says.

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Boulder City: https://www.ci.boulder-city.nv.us/

Boulder City PBS documentary: https://www.pbs.org/bouldercity/

Boulder City visitors guide: https://www.bcnv.com/