Spencer and Georgia Butterfield Collection, MS 78-107. Special Collections, UNLV Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Gift of Georgia Hanna Butterfield, July 1978.
Caryll Batt Dziedziak.
This collection is open for research.
For permission to reproduce or publish from this collection, please contact the Director of Special Collections.
Spencer and Georgia Butterfield, a prominent Las Vegas couple, were very active in local business and civic activities. Spencer, born February 11, 1904, in Marseille, Illinois, came to Nevada in 1917. He was educated in Reno, attending the University of Nevada. Working first as a manager for the First National Bank in Carson City, he transferred to Las Vegas in 1941, joining the Bank of Nevada. He was quite successful in the banking field, eventually becoming the president of the Bank of Nevada as well as president of the Nevada Bankers Association. Spencer was also active in community affairs through involvement with the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, and the Las Vegas Press Club. In 1947 he was named Las Vegas’ “Man of the Year.” Spencer Butterfield died on August 17, 1960.
Georgia Hanna Butterfield was born on November 26, 1911 in Elko, Nevada. The Hanna family was one of the first pioneer families in Elko. Georgia attended Wabash Business College in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1931 she married Reese Turner in Elko, Nevada. Reese and Georgia came to Las Vegas in 1937, where Georgia accepted a secretarial position at First National Bank. It was through this position that she met Spencer Butterfield, whom she married on May 6, 1944, after her divorce from Turner. Georgia was active in the Mesquite Club, Daughters of the Nile, and the Republican Club, as well as other organizations. She became the first postmistress for Las Vegas on August 1, 1960, holding that position until February 1961. In later years she was an executive with International Hosts, first opening the gift shop at the Hilton Hotel and later supervising its gift shop at Caesar’s Palace. After a brief illness in 1978, Georgia Butterfield died at the age of sixty-six.
The Spencer and Georgia Butterfield Collection focuses on the late 1940s through the late 1970s. The majority of the news articles and news photographs are from the late 1940s through 1960, when Spencer and Georgia were very active in Las Vegas community affairs. This is a very limited collection, consisting of a single document box of records and a record storage carton containing artifacts. Most of the collection consists of news articles and photographs as well as several photo albums and family scrapbooks.
The records in this collection were received in a single acquisition from Georgia Hanna Butterfield on July 18, 1978. Included in the artifacts is a rare photograph of the Hylton-Hanna Mercantile Co. Store in Jiggs, Nevada. Jiggs, formerly called Hylton, and later Skylton, was founded by Georgia Hanna Butterfield’s uncle, John Jesse Hylton.
The collection is separated by material type into 2 series:
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For related topics and further information see the following collections:
Ronzone Family Collection, MS 2005-27
Harold & Mayme Stocker Collection, T-63