Nevada
Reno Arch tradition began 100 years ago this year
A version of this article originally published on Oct. 27, 2016.
Reno’s most photographed landmark, the Reno Arch, turned 90 last week. But not the kitschy, ’80s-tastic version now on Virginia Street. And not the one before that, now living in Willits, California. It is the modestly lit one, previously known as the Exposition Arch now on Lake Street, that marked the milestone.
It’s worth pausing for a moment to note that, yes, Reno raised three arches in less than 100 years. New metal sheathing and lights will soon update the current Reno Arch, too. Does that count as a new one? No. But maybe we can call it Reno Arch version 3.1.
As with most else in Reno, when people grew tired of one arch, another was built anew. The current arch was built hoping it might inject new life into a flagging downtown, and tourists still flock to it for photo opportunities.
In a city that’s seen so many newcomers, it’s worth revisiting the sometimes-ridiculous history of our iconic arches that welcome all to the Biggest Little City in the World.
Arch No. 1: Party like it’s 1926
In 1926, the Lincoln Highway and Victory Highway converged to create the current Highway 40. Reno became an important stop on the connection between East and West. So naturally, there needed to be an arch commemorating Nevada’s 1927 Transcontinental Highways Exposition.
The arch was constructed in San Francisco and shipped over the mountains to be erected on Virginia Street and Commercial Row.
At the time, it was a huge deal and an impressive arch. Marvin Branch, the sign maker’s foreman, said he built many arches but this one was “by far the most elaborate he has ever put up” because of its size and number of lights, according to an Oct. 20, 1926, article in the Nevada State Journal.
The arch ceremony brought in numerous politicians both state and national, but it also brought more than 1,500 Shriners from the Islam Temple of the Shrine in San Francisco. They were coming to Reno for their own event, but joined the festivities and provided a 150-foot-long illuminated dragon, dancers and several bands. To top it all off, the dedication coincided with the University of Nevada’s homecoming day.
Needless to say, the arch dedication turned into a huge series of parades and parties.
In fact, someone from Iowa wrote an epic account of the night in a letter to the Nevada State Journal almost 40 years later:
- “The party lasted three days and three nights.
- $30,000 worth of whiskey was consumed, all of it supplied free to the revelers
- A Chief Wovoka of Pyramid Lake Tribe had several hundred of his braves performing ceremonial dances
- Reno’s restaurant owners fed the crowd breakfast, lunch and dinner for three days running, absorbing the expense themselves
- In addition to the better known movie stars of the era on hand, there were several hundred others of lesser stature who came in on a train chartered by Death Valley Scott.”
A reporter at the time could not corroborate this accounting. But he also could not deny it.
“I am at a loss to explain, if all this is accurate, just how the newspaper reporters of the day managed to miss it,” Frank Johnson wrote in 1964. “Even presuming they took part too freely in the $30,000 worth of free whiskey, it seems reasonable to assume at least ONE dedicated soul would have pulled himself together long enough to whip out a paragraph or two of grateful prose.
“On the other hand, if the description is not accurate, I am hard put to figure out why a gentleman in Iowa would bother to compile a set of circumstance which COULD fit in with Nevada’s background and mail it to the editor.”
Also strange was the fact that the Reno Evening Gazette published daily updates about the arch for weeks leading to its construction, then suddenly stopped writing anything about it for two days after the supposed parades and parties.
Perhaps the reporters were too hungover?
Gateway to the city
After the highway exposition, the Reno City Council decided to keep the arch as the city gateway. But no longer needing the exposition title, Mayor E. E. Roberts asked the city for a slogan.
Not being happy with any local ideas, he started a larger contest. G. A. Burns of Sacramento won the slogan contest in 1929 with his submission of “The Biggest Little City in the World.” He was awarded $100, which he donated to a Reno charity.
Interestingly, the slogan had already been in use for years. The first printed version of the slogan appeared in 1910 on flyers made for the Johnson-Jeffries boxing match.
Here are some of the non-winning slogans Reno could’ve been stuck with for eternity:
- Reno, a City You’ll Like
- Reno, the Best Out West
- East or West Reno Serves Best
- Reno, the West’s Highest Assay
- Reno, Biggest Little Town on Earth
- In Progressive Reno, Loiter, Linger, Locate
Arch No. 2: The centennial span
In 1963, casino managers from the Horseshoe Club, Nevada Club, Club Primadonna, Colony Club and Poor Pete’s wanted to replace the first arch with a new one to commemorate Washoe County and Nevada’s 100th birthday.
It was dedicated on New Year’s Eve. Then-Mayor Hugo Quilici pulled a fake slot machine arm to activate all the fireworks, balloons and the neon lights on the new arch.
As with the current arch, this one too, represented hope for Reno’s future vitality.
“It symbolized a new vitality in the community and in the downtown area,” Jud Allen, manager of the Reno Chamber of Commerce, was quoted in a 1964 Reno Evening Gazette article. “There has been so much new growth this year: new construction, facelifting and the new arch emphasizes this.”
Meanwhile, the old arch was moved to Idlewild Park to live out its days as a monument to old Reno. But six years later, a street-widening project forced it to move to Paradise Park in Sparks. And in 1988, it was taken down due to extreme metal fatigue, public safety and the high cost of repairs.
Arch No. 3: A New Hope
By the 1980s, the second arch was covered in pigeon droppings and “had lost its place as a meaningful symbol or centerpiece,” according to an article by Warren Lerude, former Reno Gazette Journal publisher.
The Biggest Little City Committee formed and raised funds for the current Reno Arch to replace the second arch. They also offered the original arch to the Smithsonian Institute.
“If they take it, I’ve got some historic old tires and coffee cans they ought to leap at,” Mark Crossman wrote to Reno Gazette Journal columnist Cory Farley in 1987. “Real slices of Americana.”
The Smithsonian Institute never replied. Reno moved on.
“On Aug. 8, 1987, 20,000 people gathered on Virginia Street,” Lerude wrote. “Dramatically, casino lights were turned off and a switch was thrown. Reno’s new arch announced its heritage and future simultaneously in a burst of light and color. The crowd roared.”
A procession of classic cars immediately paraded underneath it for the opening of Hot August Nights. And the arch was assigned an address: 255½ N. Virginia St.
Back in the public works yard, two other symbols of Reno’s future withered away.
Later that year, Lonnie Hammargren, former lieutenant governor of Nevada and guest star on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” TV show, offered to buy the first arch for $1,000. He wanted it for his personal collection in Las Vegas and planned to install it in the backyard of one of his houses.
The Reno City Council put him off in hopes they could keep it in Reno.
A Reno businessman, Steven Mack, also offered $1,000 for the arch. His plans did not involve putting it in his backyard, but he presented no other specific plans to the council other than keeping it in Reno.
The council decided to put the arch up for bid for 30 days in case a local nonprofit or government entity would offer a better plan. No one bid. Both arches sat for another two years without attention from anyone until Willits decided it needed an arch.
Arch No. 2 (again): Gateway to the Redwoods
“My father told me when I was a little kid that Willits was the gateway to the Redwoods; the heart of Mendocino County,” resident Dusty Whitney told the RGJ. “And I was talking to someone about that on Main Street one day and the guy said, ‘Do you know the old Reno Arch is coming down, how about that?’ and I said, ‘Gee, how about that.’ “
Whitney wanted an arch for Willits. But unlike Hammargren and Mack, Whitney preferred the ’60s look of the second arch.
“I couldn’t think of a more wonderful greeting to people coming through our community other than this arch,” he said.
Whitney wrote to the Reno City Council. He wanted a gateway to represent Willits’ position as entrance to the Redwood Forest, heart of Mendocino County and home to Frontier Days rodeo.
“I remember getting up at 5 a.m. to go to the Reno City Council meeting,” Whitney said. “That was a full-day situation. I remember the (Nevada Heritage) said not to let the arch go.”
The Nevada Heritage preservation group had made a last-minute $2,000 offer on the arch, but like the others before, had no specific plans for refurbishing or installing it somewhere.
The city attorney also said city property could not be disposed of by selling to private interests. Instead, cities must create an agreement to loan property to another public agency for public use.
That’s right, Willits has been “borrowing” the arch for 26 years.
The City Council voted to give the arch to Willits, with then-Mayor Pete Sferrazza voting nay.
“I suppose they could’ve put that one on Center Street, but the (original arch) was going to ruins,” Sferrazza told the RGJ. “We could’ve put that one up too and had three of them.”
Whitney and his team went to the public works yard and took Arch Two back that same day.
“When I first laid eyes on it, it was under three feet of snow in the city yard,” Whitney said. “It was taken apart and piled there. But I had seen old postcards so I knew what it looked like.”
When he returned home with the arch in tow, he realized his original plan to put it on a side street wasn’t grand enough. Instead, the second Reno Arch, now Willits Arch, belonged on Highway 101. But that created big problems: It was too small to span the road, it needed serious repairs, it needed to meet Cal-Trans standards and needed a new face.
It took Whitney five years to erect the Willits Arch. Between 1990 and 1995, he gathered the support of engineers, designers, Cal-Trans and numerous others who donated their time and skills to lengthen the arch, earthquake-proof it, design a modest face and finally stand it up over a state highway.
Many people spoke out against the Willits Arch before seeing it. They said a garish piece of Reno’s leftover glitz should not be erected in their fair city, according to 1995 articles in the Ukiah Daily Journal. The publisher of the Press Democrat was particularly scathing. Until she saw the arch.
“I have a 3-by-4-inch framed ad from the Press Democrat apologizing for their lack of vision on how this thing came out,” Whitney said. “How many times does a newspaper put out an ad thanking someone for their vision and admitting they’re wrong?”
What about the original arch?
The original Exposition Arch was getting a new life, too.
In 1994, a film company restored it for a four-day movie shoot on Fourth Street. Suddenly, Reno residents wanted their original arch back. The Holiday Hotel and city of Reno paid to restore and reinstall it on Lake Street in hopes it might draw tourists to the National Automobile Museum.
And so by the end of 1995, all three of Reno’s arches stood tall, proudly proclaiming “Reno, The Biggest Little City in the World” — oh, and “Willits, Gateway to the Redwoods, Heart of Mendocino County.”
Postscript: In 2018, the ‘80s-tastic third arch was refurbished, replacing the gold pillars and red neon with a more Nevada-appropriate silver and blue.
Game wardens captured a bear that was spotted in a tree near Fourth Street and Keystone Avenue west of downtown Reno on Thursday, May 21.
“The bear safely came down from the tree and entered a culvert trap,” the Nevada Department of Wildlife wrote on Facebook just before 3 p.m. “NDOW staff have secured the bear, and it is being transported for processing to determine its age and sex.”
Bears can be a common occurrence in Reno as the animals wander down from the mountains into the city.
Last year, NDOW told the Reno Gazette Journal that it got about 15 calls a month in September and October about bear activity in Northern Nevada as the animals searched for food before winter.
Bear-human interactions can be dangerous for both bears and humans. NDOW recommends securing garbage, keeping a clean yard and never approaching bears when you see them in order to avoid potentially dangerous encounters with the wild animals.
Are bears in Nevada unusual?
Bears lived in Nevada long before the first settlers came to the region. But by 1900, bear populations had been destroyed for a variety of reasons, including unregulated hunting, conflicts with settlers’ livestock and clear-cutting of forests.
Conservation and habitat regeneration increased bear populations in Nevada dramatically since the 1980s.
You can learn more at the Nevada Department of Wildlife’s website.
Nevada fire officials are warning that 2026 could bring a challenging wildfire season, with abundant fuels and early drought conditions raising the potential for large-scale fires as the state heads into warmer months.
On Wednesday, Gov. Joe Lombardo received a briefing from state and federal fire agencies, including the Nevada Division of Forestry, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, on wildfire conditions and preparedness across the state.
“2026 is going to prove to be challenging,” said Ryan Shane, the state forester fire warden for the Nevada Division of Forestry.
While fire activity in northern Nevada was fairly mild in 2025, Shane said other parts of the state saw significant impacts.
“2025 last year was the heaviest fire year we’ve had in the last five, just about 457,000 acres burned, which is slightly above our 20 year rolling average,” Shane said. He added that “the acreage burned was largely in the northeastern Nevada.”
Communities being ready, the public not starting fires, and the fire suppression service getting out there doing a quick job of suppression fires kept any of these fires from going very large in this part of the state.
Officials said about 579 fires burned in 2025, with more than 300 of those being human-caused.
Looking ahead to 2026, Shane said fuels are abundant across the region, particularly in northern Nevada, as drought conditions begin to take hold.
“This is the first year of the onset of the drought cycle. And we have a lot of carryover fuels from previous years, as well as the fuels that have grown this year. We have a lack of snowpack in the upper elevations,” Shane said.
Fire agencies are coordinating with the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, which helps officials plan for fires and allocate resources when needed.
Jim Wallmann, a meteorologist with the National Interagency Coordination Center, said low Sierra snowpack and amount of fuel available is among the biggest factors influencing this year’s fire activity.
“They’re going to cure out generally earlier and then all the leftover grass in northern Nevada that we have from the last couple years as well and whatever little growth we get from this year will only add to it,” Wallmann said.
Shane said interagency agreements and help from local communities will be key through the year, urging residents to be prepared when outdoors.
“If you’re out and about, make sure you carry a shovel, some water, possibly a fire extinguisher, and a way to communicate and report a fire if you see one or cause one,” Shane said.
The U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Nevada Division of Forestry are working to mitigate fuels, while efforts including resilient landscaping, fire-adapted communities and safe, effective fire response are aimed at keeping Nevada more fire-ready in 2026.
Email reporter Anthony Ramos at aramos@sbgtv.com. Follow @antramosnews on X and Anthony Ramos on Facebook.
What’s like to ride a Zoox, Amazon’s self-driving robotaxi
Zoox is one of the few robotaxi operators in the country. The autonomous ride-sharing service is available in San Francisco, Las Vegas and Austin for free during initial testing phases.
Memorial Day is just days away and the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada is bracing for the holiday that it said is “one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.”
Heavy traffic is anticipated along the I-15 along the I-15 between Las Vegas and Southern California with peak travel delays expected on Memorial Day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Travel times at the Nevada-California border are expected to be significantly delayed during this time, the RTC said.
Not only will travelers on Las Vegas roads be impacted this upcoming Monday, the Harry Reid International Airport is also expecting increased traffic May 25.
Here’s everything Las Vegas travelers need to know about traffic over Memorial Day weekend including changes to bus schedules, how to check travel times and how to use other travel resources.
When is Memorial Day 2026?
Memorial Day falls on Monday, May 25 this year.
Is the 15 freeway to Las Vegas open?
As of May 20, the I-15 going between Las Vegas and Los Angeles is open with minimal traffic, according to Caltrans. However, travelers may experience some delays because of road work at Cima Road between Mountain Pass and Halloran Springs, as well as around Barstow and Victorville. The delays are expected to increase on Memorial Day.
To stay updated on I-15 traffic between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, travelers can visit Caltrans’ Quick Map at quickmap.dot.ca.gov for California travel information and seeingorangenv.com for Nevada traffic updates.
What is the best time to travel on the I-15?
The RTC said in April that the least amount of traffic on the Nevada side of the I-15 going between Las Vegas and Los Angeles is from midnight to 6 a.m. and the 15 freeway’s Nevada side lowest traffic days are Tuesday and Wednesday.
Travel time between LA and Las Vegas
The drive between Los Angeles and Las Vegas takes about 4 to 5 hours, but traffic can add significant time to that estimate.
RTC Memorial Day transit schedules
Instead of operating on a Monday schedule, the RTC’s transit schedules will be on their typical Sunday schedule in Las Vegas on Memorial Day. People riding the bus on Memorial Day can find each route’s holiday schedule at rtcsnv.com/ways-to-travel/schedules-maps/.
RTC recommends people interested in using public transit over Memorial Day download the free rideRTC app to plan transit trips and easily pay for trips, or tap to pay with a debit or credit card, smartphone wallet or smart watch. Passengers are also encouraged to check the RTC Alerts and Detours page for the latest updates on bus service changes, detours, or stop closures.
Quick links to Las Vegas travel resources
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