LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A gardener with a knack for colorful flowers or a die-hard lawyer? West from Martin Luther King Boulevard to the base of Frenchman Mountain south of Nellis Air Force Base. It’s a pretty strange puzzle when it comes to tracing the origins of Owens Avenue, which stretches about 10 miles east.
“Asphalt Memories: The Origin of Some Street Names in Clark County,” by historian Mark Hall Patton of “Pawn Star” fame, suggests two possibilities for street names. Mosten T. “Moses” Owens, an early settler of North Las Vegas, or Robert, who was a Clark County Sheriff’s Deputy from his early 1940s until his mid-1950s, and whose family owned a ranch in the area William may have been named after his Owens.
The family of Robert William Owens voiced strong opposition to Clark County officials when there was a move to rename the road in the 1980s.
“I can’t say either way, but I was certain the family was named after Robert William Owens.”
However, after some more research (some of which you actually did yourself), neither Hall-Patton nor local expert Michael Green, a professor in the UNLV Department of History, are convinced of the naming. I didn’t have it. And there are even more conspiracies.
Here’s why: Mosten T. Owens is probably Charles Mostyn Owen (no ‘s’), who in the late 1890s and early 1900s infiltrated Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints His Church in Utah and reported it to authorities I’m British with experience. Illegal polygamy. We’ll see shortly why or how the two are confused.
The Englishman was prominent in Las Vegas 10 to 15 years before he was a sheriff’s deputy, and he liked to grow flowers, especially tulips and roses, on 2 1/2 acres of land in the desert, which made him a bit of a celebrity. became.
Owen, who died in 1938 and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, was friendly with Charles “Pop” Squires and his wife Delphine. Pop and Delphine ran his Las Vegas newspaper of the Age, and Owen’s green thumb and his Amargosa his roses north of Maine his Street and Stewart’s Avenue were often praised in print. rice field. It is not certain, but it is likely that the Rose Ranch, located on a property off the “Salt Lake Highway”, was near the intersection of what is now North His Main Street and Owens His Avenue. Part of the Las Vegas border.
In his 1946 Las Vegas Age story by Delphine Squires, Owen writes, “In the spring of 1927 there were hundreds of gorgeous masses of tulips on display. Mr. Owen also owns hundreds of hardy, thrifty young rose bushes, leaving no doubt that Las Vegas is perfectly adapted to growing fine roses. I am proving it.”
Owen was born in Oxford, England in 1859, came to the United States in the spring of 1878, first landed in Oregon, and worked as a railroad standard bearer, according to several historical publications. Educated at Oxford University, he had a career as a civil engineer and later as a reporter for the New York Journal. His reputation as a Mormon informant spanned the late 1890s to his 1907, reportedly including Reed’s election to the U.S. Senate in 1902, his findings on Smoot. It was Smoot was acquitted in Senate hearings that lasted nearly five years. He served as a Republican in Utah until his 1933 Senate.
In the early 1920s, Owen moved from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas shortly after his wife Mattie died. It was around the same time that Thomas Williams began purchasing land in what is now North Las Vegas and selling it to settlers.
Owen turned to gardening after arguing with Las Vegas canyon local John Miller (what an unusual name, right?) about whether roses grow in the southern Nevada desert. According to an article in his 1953 Las Vegas review by John F. Curlan in his journal, Owen set out to disprove Miller’s claim that roses do not grow in hot, dry climates. “In about a month or so, (Owen) had several varieties of roses growing beautifully in the soil,” Cahlan wrote.
How well did he grow roses and other flowers? In his first-person article, published in his Better Homes and Gardens in November 1930, he detailed his work in altering the soil, befriending birds and keeping flies away by keeping two pet lizards. It also talks about keeping a
He concludes the article by stating: “Today, my name as a person is largely unknown, even in the immediate vicinity. But here and throughout Nevada, I am known as ‘The Old Roseman of Las Vegas.’ This is my Earl. he was worth it. ”
For Greene, a street named after Mormon informant and gardener Owen, the two were drawn to North Las Vegas, one because he appeared well before the sheriff’s aide. They are the people who are attached, so that it may be known. , skirts were prohibited.
Both Greene and Hall-Patton, and Owen at the time, may have angered some locals with family ties to Salt Lake City and the Church, as his early activities as a Mormon informant , suggesting that he may have responded to Mosten or used it as his first name.
Owen’s obituary, published on the front page of the December 16, 1938 Las Vegas Age, referred to him as “Father of the Roses”. The obituary also mentions his work in infiltrating the Mormon Church.
Owen and Owens? “When someone says, ‘Let’s go to Owens Rose Ranch,’ there’s an apostrophe,” says Green.
As for Robert William Owens, his work in law enforcement included riding in the sheriff’s car with Bugsy Siegel. One of the nicest men you could ever meet.The plane crash in Potosi that killed actress Carole Lombard.
For our history puzzle, it’s Owens Avenue. It is named after an Englishman, a Mormon informant turned gardener, or sheriff.
maybe both. Both Hall-Patton and Green believe that Mosten T. “Moses” Owens and Charles Mostyn Owen are one and the same person. And the street names may have evolved from the historical contributions of both British and deputy sheriffs.
“This makes sense because we were both in the same area in the early days when the area was being developed,” says Green.
Hall-Patton added: Someone puts up a sign on the dirt path that leads to someone’s house, and soon that dirt path is named after the family.
“This is one area where we are looking at oral history.”