24 Hours of Love at the Silver Bell Wedding Chapel (eBook)

History of the
Clark County Courthouse

In 1905, The Las Vegas Land and Water Company (which was formed by the San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City Railroad) saw a plot of land that would be the perfect site for a courthouse and jail. They worked with civic leaders to raise the necessary funds to build the structure. Eighteen Hundred dollars were raised, and the first courthouse opened on that site in July 1909, according to the Clark County records. The first “permanent” Clark County Courthouse was the second courthouse, was completed on October 10, 1914. It was a much larger and costly courthouse as the local government expected Las Vegas to grow exponentially, and it would be much needed.

The first photo is an exterior shot of the first courthouse in Las Vegas- location Carson Street. To give you a current perspective of where it was located, Carson Street is in the heart of downtown Las Vegas today. The second photo is a photograph of an architectural rendering of the second courthouse in Las Vegas, Nevada, County of Clark.

[The first Clark County Courthouse, Las Vegas, circa early 1910s] [Squire Collection] Special Collections & Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

[Photograph of Clark County Courthouse drawing, Las Vegas, circa 1914–1915] [Squires Collection] [Collection PH-00002 Photo Number pho006106]. Special Collections & Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The third Clark County Courthouse was opened in 1960 at 200 S. 3rd Street in downtown Las Vegas, near the Golden Nugget and across from where the first Masonic Temple was. It was also across from the Clark County Law Library. This courthouse was where defense lawyer Oscar Goodman became a household name as he represented mobsters and other prominent people. Harry Claiborne was another famous Las Vegas attorney before becoming a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Nevada from 1978 until his impeachment and removal in 1986. He represented notable Nevadans and movie stars such as Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin (for licensing matters), and one of Errol Flynn’s wives and Judy Garland (for divorces), Benny Binion and mobsters like Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. This courthouse was also the site of the infamous Ted Binion murder trial. Boy, if those walls could have talked, the stories it could tell! It sat vacant from 2005 until it was torn down in early 2014.

When the third courthouse was built, the County Clerks division of Marriage License and the Civil Marriage Bureau was moved to a new location at 302 S. 3rd Street. Today, the current location of the Marriage License Bureau is at the Clark County Regional Justice Center. It moved to its new permanent office around 2005, located at 200 Lewis Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada. The Clark County Regional Justice Center houses many different Clark County Departments as well as Las Vegas 8th District Justice Courts, which encompass all municipalities and include the outlying towns/communities of Clark County. So, I guess this is considered the fourth County Courthouse.

On February 16, 2018, Chinese New Year’s celebrations fell on a Friday just days after Valentine’s Day. With an anticipated increase in wedding license requests, it was the very first time that the Clark County Marriage License Bureau set up a pop-up license bureau in the McCarran Airport! It was set up from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from February 9 to 18, 2018, in the Terminal 1 Baggage Claim area. So as soon as you got off the plane, and went to pick up your luggage, you could also go directly to get your marriage license. The bureau anticipated that the 2018 Valentine’s Day weekend was going to be double what it usually was, for an estimated 1,500 marriage licenses. The figures from the popup kiosks were finally posted in May 2018, it showed that the pop-up license bureau kiosk issued a total of 180 licenses and the total number of marriage licenses that were issued for Valentine’s Day 2018 was 2,203. The pop-up kiosks accounted for eight (8) percent of the revenue. This marked the start of a new annual Las Vegas tradition! It should be noted that the price for a marriage license in 2018 was $77.

The first marriage laws in Nevada were surprisingly racist, which affected how marriage licenses were issued and the number of marriages in Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada. In 1958 there was a ban on interracial marriages. Not just between blacks and whites, but also among Asians, Native Americans, Hispanics, etc. This was because when Nevada became a state in 1864, the “territorial law” was officially recorded on the books as Nevada gained statehood, and it was never entirely changed. In the following paragraphs is a brief history of marriage laws and how they came to be. Please note that terms used in the following lines and paragraphs were how it was literally written back then as the law.

The Nevada Territorial Legislature ran from March 2, 1861, until October 31, 1864, when Nevada became a state. Abraham Lincoln appointed James Nye as the first Nevada Territorial Governor using the Organic Act, which was enacted by the previous president, James Buchanan. The Nevada Territorial Legislature first met on October 1, 1861, when it approved to keep Carson City as the seat for the newly established government. It should be noted that in the previous year, Nevada was part of the Utah territory, and they designated Carson City to be the county seat.

The first Territorial Legislature only ran for 60 days, ending on November 29, 1861. On the next to the last day (November 28, 1861) the Nevada Territorial Legislature was signed into law (1861 Nev. Terr. Stat., ch. 32, at 93).

In Section 1: “If any white man or woman intermarry with any black person, mulatto, Indian or Chinese, the parties to such marriage will be guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof, shall be imprisoned in a territorial prison for a term of no less than one year, nor more than two years.”

Section 2: “If any person authorized to perform marriage ceremony and unites such person as mentioned in the act, in marriage shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction, shall be subject to prison imprisoned in a territorial prison for a term of no less than one year, nor more than three years.”

Section 3: “That, if any white person shall live or co-habitate with any black person, mulatto, Indian or Chinese, in a state of fornication, such person so offending shall upon conviction thereof, be fined any sum not exceeding 500 hundred dollars and not less than 100 dollars, or be imprisoned in the county jail not less than one, but no more than six months or both such a fine and imprisonment as such the court may order.”

This act took effect on December 1, 1861. The Territorial Legislature also prohibited “coloreds,” including blacks, Native Americans, and Chinese from appearing as witnesses against white men.

In 1912, the Nevada Legislature expanded the statutory ban on interracial marriage to prohibit marriages between “any person of the Caucasian or white race” and “any person of Ethiopian or black race, Malay or brown race, Mongolian or yellow race, or American Indian or red race” (Rev. Laws Nev., §§ 6514-­17 (1912).

In 1919, the Nevada Legislature amended the statutory ban on interracial marriage to permit marriages between Caucasians and Native Americans (1919 Nev. Stat., ch. 72, at 124).

During the Legislative Session in 1947, a lawsuit was filed in Reno, Nevada, by Harry Bridges who wanted to marry his Japanese-American sweetheart. A Reno District Judge, Taylor Wines, struck down the law and advised the Washoe County Clerk’s office to issue the marriage license. However, deputies advised the clerk’s office to issue only this license and no other interracial marriage licenses as the law had not been overturned. Only the Nevada Supreme Court could do that. The Clark County District Attorney at that time advised the Clark County Marriage Bureau that they needed to continue to follow the 1864 interracial law as the judgment happened in Washoe County and did not pertain to the entire state. Until the Nevada Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional, the clerks of Clark County continued to deny interracial couples marriage licenses.

In 1959 the Nevada Legislature completely repealed the ban on interracial marriage (1959 Nev. Stat., ch. 193, after Harry Bridges and Noriko lawsuit in 1947).

In 1976 the Clark County Courthouse was still open 24 hours a day. The cost of a marriage license at that time was $10 during regular hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.), and for other hours it cost $20. The Justice of the Peace would charge $25 during those same regular hours, and $30 for all other hours.

In the late 1980s, the Wedding License Bureau stopped being open 24 hours 7 days a week, and moved to being open Monday through Thursdays, from 8 a.m. until midnight, and 24 hours a day on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. For management, it was not only a cost-saving move for Clark County, but marriage license statistics no longer showed a need to be opened 24/7, as not a lot of people were getting married during the weekdays. The days of getting a marriage license seven days a week, 24 hours a day were over.

In 2006 Clark County ended 24 hours a day on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays on August 30. The Marriage License Bureau’s new hours were 8 a.m. until...