The Ronzone family left an important legacy to the city of Las Vegas, first through the pioneering business ventures of matriarch Bertha Ronzone and later through the local political work of scion Richard “Dick” Ronzone. At the turn of the 20th century, newlyweds Bertha and Ben Ronzone followed the gold rush from California to Nome, Alaska, where their first child Amy was born. After silver was struck in central Nevada in the early 1900s, the Ronzones soon followed, settling in a mining camp in Tonopah in 1904. The financial uncertainties of mining in Nevada then led the Ronzones to move from Manhattan to Goldfield and then California in the space of five years. They returned to Manhattan in 1910, where children Esther and Richard were born in 1917 and 1920, respectively. It was in the mining camps that Bertha Ronzone, the powerful matriarch of the Ronzone line, noted that the local miners had no way to get basic supplies such as socks, clothing and light hardware, other than making the long trek to California. Bertha began making frequent trips to Oakland, buying in bulk and selling these items as well as cloth, thread, and Levis; such were the roots of Ronzone’s Department Store.

Reports vary on when exactly the first store opened: some say it started in Tonopah around 1905, but it may have been mistaken for a miners’ laundry service that Bertha operated there at the time; most likely the first store opened in Manhattan between 1915 and 1917. Regardless, the mining boom had reached its peak leading up to World War One and abruptly began to fizzle. The Ronzone’s retail business reacted slowly to the drop in mining activity, however, and in 1919 Bertha and Amy opened a second store in Tonopah. Business in Manhattan soon slowed to the point that Ben and the younger two children joined them in Tonopah. The family business continued to grow and the Ronzones opened additional stores in Silver Peak and Beatty, before business slowed to a crawl in the late 1920s. Leaving Amy and her husband to tend the Tonopah store, the rest of the family moved to Las Vegas in 1929 to open a ladies ready-to-wear store situated downtown at Carson and First streets, one of the first such stores in the tiny city.

It was a fortuitous time to open a new business in Las Vegas, as the construction of nearby Hoover Dam afforded southern Nevada economic development opportunities that were not available to most of the United States. The Ronzone’s downtown store was profitable and grew over the years, first moving in 1935 to Fremont Street where a men’s department was added. In the meantime Amy and husband Al Adams had closed the store in Tonopah, while Esther and Dick attended college at the University of Nevada, Reno. Esther finished school and married Ed Recanzone of Winnemucca, eventually moving to Yerington to operate a dairy and later the long-lived Yerington Emporium.

When his father Ben died in 1938, Dick Ronzone had been at the University of Nevada, Reno studying agriculture for three years, but instead of becoming an agriculturalist he returned to Las Vegas to take an active role managing the store. He joined the Nevada National Guard soon thereafter in 1941 and served in an anti-aircraft battalion in World War II, spending two years in Europe. Dick returned from service in 1946 to become the general manager of the store, by now a popular fixture in the commercial district of Las Vegas; under his management the store moved to an even larger space a few blocks up Fremont Street in 1946. He married Ann Roeth in January 1947. Meanwhile the family purchased the large Gray-Reid store in Reno, which Amy and Al Adams would run until the 1980s. In 1969, Bertha Ronzone, the driving force behind the family business and an active community leader, passed away. That same year the Ronzone’s store moved to Las Vegas’ first mall, the Boulevard on Maryland Parkway, where it was sold the following year to the national Dayton-Hudson chain and later renamed Diamonds (now Dillards Department Store).

Dick Ronzone’s interest in local politics began in the 1950s when he was elected to the Clark County School District, served as a member of the Nevada Southern Campus fund, and acted as founding chairman of the Las Vegas Downtown Improvement Committee (now the Downtown Progress Association). After selling the store in 1970, Ronzone became even more involved in state and local politics, serving as Clark County Commissioner from 1972-1984, Nevada State Assemblyman for the 1971-1972 session, and sat on the first University Board of Regents in the 1950s and 1960s. Ronzone also took leadership roles in the Las Vegas Valley Water District, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, and the Regional Transportation Commission. Education and water supply were pet issues for Dick in his quest to help his native Southern Nevada. Ronzone was an active member of the Las Vegas Valley Water District since 1973, and was elected its president in the 1978, and was also a president and board member of the An avid golfer, he helped shape the Municipal Golf Course and was active in local chapters of the Elks Lodge, Rotary Club, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Reserve Officers Association, and the Boulder Dam Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Dick Ronzone’s career as general manager of the family department store had lasted twenty-five years, and his career in local politics lasted almost the same length of time. He retired in 1985; the following year his older sister Amy died in Reno. Dick himself passed away suddenly of a heart attack in January 1989 at age seventy-one, survived by his wife Ann, their two children Philip and Rosalie, the two nieces and nephew they raised, and Dick’s youngest sister Esther in Yerington. Ann Ronzone still resides in Las Vegas.