A Family Of Giving

A Las Vegas High School senior back in 1953, Art Goldstrom had already bought his first Ford when he was 15, and his passion for cars was born.  That school year the woodworking class was moved to a new building, and the old space was used for an auto shop class.  The students were allowed to bring in their own cars to work on, but they learned more than just how to change oil, change tires, and repair cars – they were allowed to experiment with making their cars go faster, and Art loved it!

[Show slideshow]

It was a very different time in Las Vegas back then, and Art preferred to hang around with the older guys, along with some of the guys from the nearby military base.  A group of them would drag race on the outskirts of town and on desolate roads so the cops wouldn’t catch them and give them tickets, but even when they did, they would still work with them for safety’s sake.  Art Goldstrom and Shirley Gilmore were classmates who became high school sweethearts.  They chose to elope and started their married life journey without much more than love and a very strong work ethic.  I am sure they never could have imagined back then the mark they would make on Las Vegas.

Back in 1869, Nevada legalized commercial gambling, which was mostly card and dice games played against the house.  By 1909, due to progressive opposition, the state criminalized it.  Trying to deal with the effects of the Great Depression, on March 19, 1931, Governor Fred Balzar signed into law A.B. 98, which brought back “wide open” gambling.  It paved the way for establishments to bank games once more.  Saloons and hotels could again offer games like craps and blackjack.  Years later, it would be the reason for the city’s unprecedented growth, creating the need for new neighborhoods, for the workers (and businesses) to support this growth.

In 1908 the Pacific Fruit Express Company, a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad, constructed the Las Vegas Ice Plant.  It was the only facility of its type on the rail line between San Bernardino and Salt Lake City.  The facility supplied ice to the railroad before the invention of refrigerated rail cars.  It also provided ice to the community of Las Vegas, as well as providing cold storage, for perishable products.

In 1941 the Las Vegas Army Air Field was put into operation, and in 1947 it was placed on temporary standby status.  It reopened in 1949 as Las Vegas Air Force Base, and then on April 30, 1950, the base was renamed Nellis Air Force Base in honor of Lieutenant William Harrell Nellis, a Las Vegas High School graduate.  He was a Nevada native fighter pilot who flew 70 aerial combat missions, saving countless lives, before being shot down near Bastogne, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge.  Art not only hung out with some of the men stationed there, but later, when his trucking career began, it was one of the places he often delivered to.

In 1952 the Sahara Hotel and Casino, as well as the Sands Hotel and Casino, opened for business.  In 1953, KLAS-TV signed on the air as the first television station in Las Vegas.  In 1959, the famous “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign made its debut.  Designed by Betty Willis, another Las Vegas High School graduate, she was a pioneer in the field of neon design and lighting.  Art started hanging around Lincoln Welding Works when he was a kid because the business was close to his house.  He was there so much they eventually put him to work doing odd jobs, and when he got old enough, Art worked his way up to driving a truck, making local deliveries.  It was from here that he took the leap of creating his own business, but for him, it was like leaving his family.

With Las Vegas expanding rapidly, Art and Shirley got their start with a truck and a loader, tearing down things like houses, gas stations, and other small buildings to make way for the freeway.  In the beginning of their demo business, Shirley learned to drive a truck, and Art would drive the loader.  They were a team, and neither of them were more important than the other.  It stayed that way throughout their entire 64-year marriage before Shirley (also known as “Goldie”) died on October 11, 2015.

In the beginning, Art was frustrated about not getting many bids.  One of many connections and partnerships he would make over the years was with former high school classmate Fred Pinjuv.  He worked for the city and taught Art how the bidding process worked – he loved learning and used that information and his own ingenuity to make their business more competitive.  Many of the Las Vegas High School graduates would go on to form business partnerships and relationships and, with hard work and great ideas, become very successful, while also helping the city to grow.

When Art got the idea to start recycling and sell what was salvageable from jobs, it gave him the ability to bid jobs at a much lower cost.  Hauling all the debris from demolition to the dump was a costly part of his business.  After everything was salvaged, he then ran over everything with the loader to make it more compact, so it took less truck loads to accomplish the clean-up.  By doing these two simple things, he was able to save fuel, man hours, and the cost the dump charged per load, and cut his operating expenses in half.  This all equaled more profit with a lower bid.

Art and Shirley bought land and built a house on the southwest side of Las Vegas when land was cheap, and nothing had been developed yet.  Part of this land is where their Nostalgia Street Rods Museum buildings are located today.  Art was proud of the reputation he built over the years.  His friend Joe Thomson talked with me and was a wealth of information for this story.  He told me, “Art had a kind heart for the underdog and found value in helping these people.”  They had such caring hearts, the Goldstoms began working with non-profit organizations in 2001 when they held their first car show to benefit Parkinson’s Disease.

Rollie Gibbs, another former Las Vegas High School classmate, developed a close working relationship with Art over the years.  Rollie was a large crane operator, so they worked on many of the same construction sites.  Rollie’s dad Burt had a junk yard in the early days, and Art would get parts there when the high school kids started working on cars.  Burt got some of the scrap from demo sites, and this is probably when Art began to understand the value in what was left after tearing things down.

There was some controversy when it was time to tear down the Las Vegas Ice House, because it was a historic building, and the largest early structure in town.  It had been abandoned in 1983, and in 1988, the city issued a permit to Union Pacific Railroad, allowing it to be leveled for safety reasons.  Art got the bid for the job to demolish the structure and remove what was left of a building that had once been an important part of Las Vegas history.  Joe told me that Art would look at the project he was taking on and figure out what would be the best and safest way to knock it down.  In the case of the Ice House, the salt on the inside of the building had helped to deteriorate the cement, so all he had to do was push the building in on itself.  At other places, he would get there early in the morning, when there were not a lot of people around, and have the job done before it became more dangerous.

Art loved racing and going fast and passed that passion on to his daughter Sheri, who is a very accomplished racer in her own right.  In the early days he would race at places like the Stardust Raceway and the Las Vegas Drag Strip.  The Stardust International Raceway closed in 1971 and plans were quickly made to build a new road course and drag strip in North Las Vegas by Craig Road Speedway owner Curly Price on city-owned land.  Las Vegas Speedway held its inaugural season of racing in 1972 with off-road and drag racing.

Today, Las Vegas Motor Speedway is a large complex of courses including not only the 1.5 mile tri-oval, but also multiple infield and outfield road courses, a short track oval called the Bullring, dirt courses, and a drag strip.  Built on the site of the former Las Vegas Speedrome, which later became Las Vegas Speedway Park, there is still a small portion of the original road course that remains, but it is not currently being used for racing.  Art loved this speedway, and the entire Goldstrom family has very strong connections to the facility.  Sheri is also very active with Speedway Charities, the track’s charitable organization, and held the Vegas Large Car Invitational Truck Show in conjunction with the October 2023 NASCAR race weekend.

Art got the bid to clean up some other famous Las Vegas locations when casinos like The Dunes, The Hacienda, and Castaways were imploded.  The implosion of the Hacienda was part of the Fox TV special “Sinbad’s Dynamite New Year’s Eve” – the old casino came down at 9:00 pm local time to coincide with the ball drop in New York City.  The fireworks before and after the detonation became a precursor to the massive Strip celebrations that happen today.

After hauling the debris from the Hacienda away, Art got the bid to do all the dirt work for the large casino that was going to replace it – Mandalay Bay.  When we got to see Art last October (2023), I remember him telling us that he was glad he bid that job by the hour, because there were water issues that had to be addressed.  Las Vegas has several artesian wells that run underneath it.  At one time, the valley was lush farmland, which is hard to imagine today.

We had hoped to talk to Art himself for this article and hear the stories he had to tell personally, but that was not to be, as he passed away March 6, 2024.  He and Shirley grew their business from trucking to being a big part of making changes to Las Vegas to the way we see it today.  Over the years they also added renting and leasing properties, yard space in the city, and opened the museum we wrote about in March 2024.

Sheri is instrumental in helping organize several charity car shows.  The family has given back to the community they have called home all these years.  Sheri said Shirley was like an early pawn shop – if someone needed money and they had things, she would buy them, which is where many of the cool items in their nostalgia museum originally came from.  Every truck and every car in that museum had its own special meaning to Art, and it is a massive collection that speaks volumes about his love of cars and trucks.  You should check it out!

On Saturday, May 22, a Celebration of Life was held for Art in Las Vegas and we were told that over 500 people came to pay their respects.  That is so awesome.  I wish we could have been there.  Art and Shirley’s legacy is in good hands with their daughter Sheri.  When she started the museum, it was important to her to make sure her kids and grandkids never forgot where they came from.  Even more so now, since her parents have been reunited in heaven, and she is now left to carry on the work this amazing family started.  But this has always been a family that gives back, and we are sure that she and others will carry on this Goldstrom family tradition for many generations to come.  Rest in Peace, Art.