Sparks High School - Terminus Yearbook (Sparks, NV)

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1940 ew of Sp SPARKS KEEPS RIGHT ON C3RKJVVIPJCi 1975

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The original Real Estate West - soon to be enlarged - with the Znd. office already on Pyramid Way Patrick Higgins of Patrick Higgins Real Estate West did not arrive in Sparks as an already successful business- man . . . having made a small bank loan in early 1960 to open a small Restaurant-Cocktail Lounge in down- town Sparks, known as Patrick Higgins Bit O'Erin, an old building was remodeled into an atmosphere de- picting an Old Irish Pub , creating one of Sparks favorite gathering places. Recognizing Sparks as a City with great potential and a City with much promise, Patrick ventured in Real Estate Sales and Investments, eventually creating one of Sparks more successful Real Estate Businesses. Real Estate West was established as a one-man office in 1969, converting an old service station into Sparks leading Real Estate Firm today . .. each year since its inception Sales Volume has increased over 'A million dollars, with a staff of six persons presently and the establishment of a Branch Office on Pyramid Way that is planned for three additional Staff Members in 1976. Anticipating an economically sound future for Sparks, Patrick Higgins purchased the old Gepford Apartments at l5th and Prater Way one block from Sparks High, the apartments are now known as Patrick Higgins Apartments and the Country Store. Pat says, Only in America can a young man or woman start with virtually nothing and reach the pinnacle of Success . He believes everyone, sometime or another, gets the feeling of a Medieval Knight with a quest to make our Community a better place to live . . . he, too, gets the feeling and Sparks is the best place in the world to exercise that feeling. t

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0 fl .Y .feeees mfr N- ln 1976 there are 25,000 working telephones in Sparks and an- other 4,000 serving neighboring Sun Valley. There are nearly 150,000 telephones in service in the Truckee Meadows serving a population shown by the 1970 census to be 121,068 and today estimated to be more than 145,000. But 100 years ago in 1876, Sparks was not yet Sparks. Reno, formerly Lake's Crossing, occupied the area along the Truckee River that today is part of both Sparks and Reno. The 1870 cen- sus showed 1,035 persons in the community. In his Boston laboratory 2,500 miles away, Alexander Graham Bell toiled over the world's only two telephones. On February 14, 1876, he had filed his patent application for Improvement in Telegraphyf' On March 7, the first telephone patent-U.S. No. 174,465-was issued to him. On March 10, the first complete sentence was transmitted by telephone when Bell spilled acid on his lab apron and shouted, Mr, Watson. Come here. I want to see you! Those two telephones, painstakingly perfected by Bell and his associate Thomas Watson, were the beginning of a world-wide telecommunications revolution in which Nevada has played a part. By the beginning of 1975, there were 359 million telephones in service around the world-144 million of them in the United States-and almost all of them tied together by a complex com- munications network of circuitry that permits instantaneous com- munication to almost any corner ofthe globe. The first appearance of Bell's telephone in Nevada was in 1877. ln November of that year, phones were installed in the Con Vir- ginia Mine in Virginia City. In 1881, the telephone was introduced in Reno by Bell's cousin, telegrapher 'Frank Bell, who received two telephones with in- structions for connecting the instruments. The Telephone: 100 ifears The first telephone exchange opened in Virginia City in February 1882. It was equipped to handle 115 telephones and reached its peak of250 a few years later. By 1889, Frank Bell had received a license to install the instru- ments in Reno and other parts of Nevada, and a switchboard-was installed in Reno to serve 15 subscribers. By 1891, Bell, who had served briefly as governor of Nevada, established an exchange in Reno. The following year he received a franchise for his opera- tion. In January 1913, Bell Telephone Company of Nevada was incor- porated to serve as a holding company during the construction of the first transcontinental telephone line in 1914, which was to pass through Sparks and Reno. Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Co., which had been serving parts of Nevada, transferred all its property to the new company, including switchboards, poles and wires in the City of Sparks. Still, Nevada Bell's expansion and growth did not get underway in earnest until 1919 when the company began to build long distance lines to crisscross the state and began acquisition of exchanges to expand its operations throughout northern Nevada. One ofthe earliest telephone switchboards: 1881. It proved quite a challenge for operators. Most dramatic growth occurred for Nevada Bell and the City of Sparks beginning in the 1950's and accelerating in the 1960's and early 1970's. ln 1956, Nevada Bell was able to meet telephone service require- ments in Sparks with fewer than 4,000 telephones. By 1960, growth and modernization dictated construction of a large, mod- em central office on Prater Way capable of handling 10,000 tele- phonelines. ln 1968, an addition was made to the Sparks central office to keep up with the volatile growth. Also in 1968, 290 tons of overhead