Nevada

Payphones were once everywhere, but now just a few are left in Las Vegas

Published

1 year ago

September 9, 2024

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Payphones were once everywhere, but now just a few are left in Las Vegas

They were once on street corners, at bus stops, in convenience stores, courthouses and casinos.

In the pre-cell phone era, everyone from executives to children to criminals used them.

But the golden age of the payphone ended many years ago as cell phones took hold, becoming ubiquitous and affordable.

Today, few remain and even fewer are in use. A recent Las Vegas Review-Journal search for payphones in the Las Vegas area found five: one at Centennial Hills Hospital, another at the Clark County detention center, two at Jerry’s Nugget and one on display at the Mob Museum.

Early history

The first time the phrase “pay phone” appeared in the Review-Journal, at least according to the digitally searchable archives, was February 12, 1931.

The story was a brief about a pay phone stolen by thieves “evidently bent upon taking from it whatever money there might be in the machine.” It ran under a photo of a remodeled gas station and next to an article about a peddler of a “narcotic weed” called “marihuana.”

The payphone’s history stretches back to 1889, when the first one was installed on a corner in Hartford, Connecticut after being invented by William Gray.

Ron Knappen, who wrote a book about payphone history and owns a Wisconsin-based company called Phoneco that sells payphones to customers like a prop company and a museum, said early payphones were bulky wooden machines called “pay stations.” In rural areas, people might have to turn a crank to contact the operator.

A call cost a nickel in the 1910s and 20s, he said, increased to a dime in about 1940 and eventually jumped to a quarter.

The survivors

At Centennial Hills Hospital, there’s still a payphone near the emergency department. A four minute call costs $1, which one can pay with coins or a credit card.

Hospital spokeswoman Gretchen Papez said its intended users include people who don’t have cell phones or whose phone batteries have died. The phone is owned by WiMacTel, which didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Officer Robert Wicks, a Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson, said the Clark County detention center has a non-working payphone in the booking area.

Next to the restrooms at Jerry’s Nugget Casino in North Las Vegas, there’s a payphone that’s missing its receiver and has an out-of-order sticker covering part of the coin slot. A second payphone in an entryway appears to be in better shape, but no longer has a dial tone. A WiMacTel label advertises local calls at a rate of 50 cents for 15 minutes.

Martha Diaz, a casino manager, can remember when people made calls on the phones frequently, but said she hasn’t seen someone use them in about eight or nine years.

But at the Mob Museum, a payphone is still a popular attraction.

The museum has a phone booth that was once in the Four Deuces, the Chicago headquarters of Al Capone, said Claire White, the museum’s director of education. The museum acquired it from a collector in 2019 for an amount she said she could not disclose. The booth contains a 1920s payphone, but not the original one.

“There’s always been a connection between payphones and organized crime,” White said. Using a payphone was a way to avoid wiretapping, she said.

Most of the museum’s artifacts are behind glass, but visitors are allowed to get in the booth and open and close the door.

“It’s definitely one of the most unique artifacts we have on display,” she said.

It’s also one of the museum’s most popular sites for photos.

Big business

Before they were relics of the pre-digital age, payphones were lucrative.

“They made obscene amounts of money and then all of a sudden, they didn’t,” said Las Vegas attorney Robert Bolick, who represented a payphone company called Pay Phones of Nevada.

Gregory Balelo, who is still listed as an officer of a company called Interwest Payphone in state records, said his small company once had about 150 to 200 payphones, mostly in indoor locations like casinos, taverns and convenience stores. Interwest was incorporated in 1987.

Most of its income came from casinos, he said, but business was also good in the employee areas of hotels and in sportsbooks. Long distance calls were lucrative too.

The business began declining around 2000 as cell phones became cheaper and more reliable. He got rid of his last payphone in about 2008 and thinks it was probably at the South Point.

“It was part of my life for a long time and it was very good to me,” Balelo said of the payphone business.

And payphones can still inspire nostalgia.

Posters on Las Vegas Reddit threads have attempted to track down payphones and share sitings. Some of the suggestions for where a person might find payphones are tongue-in-cheek: “in jail” or “Back in the 1990s.”

Balelo said he still has some payphones that he hasn’t scrapped and recently found some handsets in storage.

“I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away,” he said.

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com, especially if you know of a payphone we missed. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.

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Nevada

2026 lunar eclipse visible in Nevada. How to watch

Published

1 hour ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

2026 lunar eclipse visible in Nevada. How to watch

A lunar eclipse will be in Nevada skies late Monday night — or, more accurately, early Tuesday morning, March 3.

The downside is the hour: you’ll have to be up very late or very early, depending on your perspective.

Unlike a solar eclipse, which occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, a lunar eclipse happens when Earth casts its shadow on the moon, creating a rusty red hue.

If you’re looking to see the lunar eclipse, here’s everything you need to know about viewing it in Nevada.

What eclipse is in 2026?

If you live in the U.S., you will be able to see the lunar eclipse starting at 12:44 a.m. PST Tuesday, March 3, 2026, according to NASA. During the night, you’ll see the moon in a reddish hue, or a blood moon.

Totality lasts for a little more than an hour before the moon begins to emerge from behind Earth’s shadow, according to the popular site timeanddate.com. As the moon moves into Earth’s shadow, also known as the umbra, it appears red-orange or a “ghostly copper color,” hence its name: blood moon, NASA says.

“During a lunar eclipse, the moon appears red or orange because any sunlight that’s not blocked by our planet is filtered through a thick slice of Earth’s atmosphere on its way to the lunar surface,” NASA says. “It’s as if all the world’s sunrises and sunsets are projected onto the moon.”

Countdown clock to the 2026 total lunar eclipse

If you live in the U.S., you will be able to see the eclipse starting at 12:44 a.m. PST Tuesday, March 3, 2026.

The entire eclipse will last about six hours. People in Nevada can see the lunar eclipse during the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 3, 2026. The total lunar eclipse will be visible in North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Asia, Australia and Antarctica.

Everything will be over by 6:23 a.m. PST on March 3, 2026. Below is a countdown clock for the 2026 total lunar eclipse.

Where are the best places to see the lunar eclipse near Reno?

Though the Biggest Little City has an abundance of light pollution, darker skies are less than an hour from Reno.

Fort Churchill State Park: The park provides a dark night sky ideal for evening astronomical events among the ruins of Fort Churchill. Park entrance costs $5 for Nevada residents and $10 for nonresidents.
Pyramid Lake: A popular spot for Renoites seeking a night of stargazing, the lake is less than an hour from The Biggest Little City. It offers beautiful natural wonders and dark skies that give a clear view of the lunar eclipse.
Lake Tahoe: Multiple locations around the lake are excellent for stargazing that are less than an hour from Reno.
Cold Springs or Hidden Valley still get light pollution from the Biggest Little City, but have clearer skies than the middle of town.
Driving down the road on USA Parkway will likely also give you the dark skies to see the lunar eclipse without having to make a significant drive outside of town.

Carly Sauvageau with the Reno Gazette Journal contributed to this report.

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Nevada

How the strikes on Iran could impact gas prices in northern Nevada

Published

14 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

How the strikes on Iran could impact gas prices in northern Nevada

The United States and Israel launched targeted attacks on Iran on Saturday. The move brought new uncertainty into global energy markets, as northern Nevadans could be paying more at the pump in the coming weeks.

Following the strikes, oil prices increased. Brent crude, the international benchmark, jumped to roughly $73 a barrel, while the national benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, traded above $67.

Much of the concern centers around the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman. which carries about a fifth of the world’s oil supplies.

Patrick de Haan, head of petroleum analysis with GasBuddy, a price tracking company, spoke on the current questions in the region.

“The known would reduce oil prices if there becomes clarity, but it’s the unknown that is stoking fears…. If there is some sort of clarity in the days ahead, whether from Iran, the United States, or Israel, on how long this would last. We’d be able to put potentially an end date for the potential impacts that we’re seeing,” said de Haan.

Experts say for every $5 to $10 increase in oil prices, drivers could pay 15 to 25 cents more per gallon.

According to Triple-A, the average price of a gallon of gas in Nevada on Sunday comes in at $3.70, which comes in above the national average of roughly $2.98.

Over at the Rainbow Market on Vassar Street, prices sat just below four dollars a gallon on Sunday. Reno resident Abran Reyes talked about gas prices potentially going up.

“Whether it’s to work, to maybe run errands, to do stuff that helps you, gas is essential…. That gas price really hits, especially in today’s economy, where gas prices are extraordinary…. I just hope everyone’s safe. I hope our soldiers and all of our troops can be okay,” said Reyes.

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Nevada

Nevada debuts public option amid federal health care shifts

Published

1 day ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Nevada debuts public option amid federal health care shifts

More than 10,000 people have enrolled in Nevada’s new public option health plans, which debuted last fall with the expectation that they would bring lower prices to the health insurance market.

Those preliminary numbers from the open enrollment period that ended in January are less than a third of what state officials had projected. Nevada is the third state so far to launch a public option plan, along with Colorado and Washington state. The idea is to offer lower-cost plans to consumers to expand health care access.

But researchers said plans like these are unlikely to fill the gaps left by sweeping federal changes, including the expiration of enhanced subsidies for plans bought on Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

The public option gained attention in the late 2000s when Congress considered but ultimately rejected creating a health plan funded and run by the government that would compete with private carriers in the market. The programs in Washington state, Colorado, and Nevada don’t go that far — they aren’t government-run but are private-public partnerships that compete with private insurance.

In recent years, states have considered creating public option plans to make health coverage more affordable and to reduce the number of uninsured people. Washington was the first state to launch a program, in 2021, and Colorado followed in 2023.

Washington and Colorado’s programs have run into challenges, including a lack of participation from clinicians, hospitals, and other care providers, as well as insurers’ inability to meet rate reduction benchmarks or lower premiums compared with other plans offered on the market.

Nevada law requires that the carriers of the public option plans — Battle Born State Plans, named after a state motto — lower premium costs compared with a benchmark “silver” plan in the marketplace by 15% over the next four years.

But that amount might not make much difference to consumers with rising premium payments from the loss of the ACA’s enhanced tax credits, said Keith Mueller, director of the Rural Policy Research Institute.

“That’s not a lot of money,” Mueller said.

Three of the eight insurers on the state’s exchange, Nevada Health Link, offered the state plans during the open enrollment period.

Insurance companies plan to meet the lower premium cost requirement in Nevada by cutting broker fees and commissions, which prompted opposition from insurance brokers in the state. In response, Nevada marketplace officials told state lawmakers in January that they will give a flat-fee reimbursement to brokers.

The public option has faced opposition among state leaders. In 2024, a state judge dismissed a lawsuit, brought by a Nevada state senator and a group that advocates for lower taxes, that challenged the public option law as unconstitutional. They have appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Federal Policy Impacts

Recent federal changes create more obstacles.

Nevada is consistently among the states with the largest populations of people who do not have health insurance coverage. Last year, nearly 95,000 people in the state received the enhanced ACA tax credits, averaging $465 in savings per month, according to KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

But the enhanced tax credits expired at the end of the year, and it appears unlikely that lawmakers will bring them back. Nationwide ACA enrollment has decreased by more than 1 million people so far this year, down from record-high enrollment of 24 million last year.

About 4 million people are expected to lose health coverage from the expiration of the tax credits, according to the Congressional Budget Office. An additional 3 million are projected to lose coverage because of other policy changes affecting the marketplace.

Justin Giovannelli, an associate research professor at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University, said the changes to the ACA in the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last summer, will make it more difficult for people to keep their coverage. These changes include more frequent enrollment paperwork to verify income and other personal information, a shortened enrollment window, and an end to automatic reenrollment.

In Nevada, the changes would amount to an estimated 100,000 people losing coverage, according to KFF.

“All of that makes getting coverage on Nevada Health Link harder and more expensive than it would be otherwise,” Giovannelli said.

State officials projected ahead of open enrollment that about 35,000 people would purchase the public option plans. Of the 104,000 people who had purchased a plan on the state marketplace as of mid-January, 10,762 had enrolled in one of the public option plans, according to Nevada Health Link.

Katie Charleson, communications officer for the state health exchange, said the original enrollment estimate was based on market conditions before the recent increases in customers’ premium costs. She said that the public option plans gave people facing higher costs more choices.

“We expect enrollment in Battle Born State Plans to grow over time as awareness increases and as Nevadans continue seeking quality coverage options that help reduce costs,” Charleson said.

According to KFF, nationally the enhanced subsidies saved enrollees an average of $705 annually in 2024, and enrollees would save an estimated $1,016 in premium payments on average in 2026 if the subsidies were still in place. Without the subsidies, people enrolled in the ACA marketplace could be seeing their premium costs more than double.

Insights From Washington and Colorado

Washington and Colorado are not planning to alter their programs due to the expiration of the tax credits, according to government officials in those states.

Other states that had recently considered creating public options have backtracked. Minnesota officials put off approving a public option in 2024, citing funding concerns. Proposals to create public options in Maine and New Mexico also sputtered.

Washington initially saw meager enrollment in its Cascade Select public option plans; only 1% of state marketplace enrollees chose a public option plan in 2021. But that changed after lawmakers required hospitals to contract with at least one public option plan by 2023. Last year the state reported that 94,000 customers enrolled, accounting for 30% of all customers on the state marketplace. The public option plans were the lowest-premium silver plans in 31 of Washington’s 39 counties in 2024.

A 2025 study found that since Colorado implemented its public option, called the Colorado Option, coverage through the ACA marketplace has become more affordable for enrollees who received subsidies but more expensive for enrollees who did not.

Colorado requires all insurers offering coverage through its marketplace to include a public option that follows state guidelines. The state set premium reduction targets of 5% a year for three years beginning in 2023. Starting this year, premium costs are not allowed to outpace medical inflation.

Though the insurers offering the public option did not meet the premium reduction targets, enrollment in the Colorado Option has increased every year it has been available. Last year, the state saw record enrollment in its marketplace, with 47% of customers purchasing a public option plan.

Giovannelli said states are continuing to try to make health insurance more affordable and accessible, even if federal changes reduce the impact of those efforts.

“States are reacting and trying to continue to do right by their residents,” Giovannelli said, “but you can’t plug all those gaps.”

Are you struggling to afford your health insurance? Have you decided to forgo coverage? Click here to contact KFF Health News and share your story.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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