For more information on our tribute to Walter Zick on October 3rd, click here.
University of Nevada Professor James R. Dickinson arrived from Reno in September 1951 to start extension classes at Las Vegas High School.
Meeting for the first time in Las Vegas in 1954, University Regents expressed support for a Southern Nevada campus while warning that most of the funding was needed in the north.
Clark County School Superintendent R. Guild Gray took up the challenge. Assisted by Assemblywoman Maude Frazier, who was a former school superintendent, the Porchlight Campaign began.
High school and college students going door to door raised more than $135,000, enough to construct the first building. Eighty acres of desert was donated on remote Maryland Parkway in unincorporated Clark County.
The Legislature, impressed with the local fundraising and the donated land, provided $200,000. When the first building was completed in 1957, it was named Maude Frazier Hall.
In 1969, Nevada Southern University became the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, putting it on equal footing with the northern campus. Ten years later, UNLV's enrollment surpassed Reno's.
UNLV now has more than 100 buildings and 1,000 faculty members teaching 28,000 students, as well as more than 220 accredited undergraduate, masters and doctoral degree programs. This historical photo is one in a continuing series commemorating the 100th anniversary of Clark County.
Photo Courtesy of Nevada State Museum