Fred Holland was 5 years old when his family moved to Boulder City. He’s been there ever since.
Holland, who turns 100 on Tuesday, still lives on his own, drives, cooks his own meals, keeps busy with the stock market and property investments, and enjoys meeting friends for lunch at the Senior Center of Boulder City. He calls it the high point of his day.
“They treat me well there,” he said. “I enjoy meeting up with friends. The downside is that most of them are snowbirds, which means they’ll be leaving for their other homes real soon.”
And yes, he’s the oldest of the group.
“They’re young, probably in their mid-80s,” he said. “After all, it is the senior center.”
He laughed when asked how he feels about turning 100 and said, “It’s been a long time coming. I didn’t have plans of getting here (turning 100). So far, I’ve been very lucky, health-wise. My dad lived to be 75, and my mom was 84. But they had a much rougher life than I’ve had.”
When a person hits the century mark, the first question they tend to get is, “What’s the key to living so long?” Holland said that for him, there hasn’t been any key or secret formula.
“I’m no longer an early riser, because I often go to bed too late,” he admitted. “I eat everything in sight. I enjoy making myself a nice piece of fish or steak for dinner. I don’t have any diets or anything. I have cut back on sugar, but that’s about it. I used to exercise a lot. I’d walk from one end of town to the other because I’ve always been an outdoors person.”
As for hitting a future age milestone, he smiled and said, “One day at a time. My doctor said based on the shape I’m in, and that if I behave myself, I might make it to 105.”
Looking back
Holland, his parents, two siblings and grandmother moved from Vallejo, California, to Southern Nevada in 1931. At the time, the Great Depression was in full swing and jobs were scarce. But a mammoth federal project was underway, which drew thousands to the area — Hoover Dam.
Holland’s father was hired on the spot to work as a high-scaler. It was not a job for the faint of heart, based on this description from the Bureau of Reclamation: “Their job was to climb down the canyon walls on ropes. There, they worked with jackhammers and dynamite to strip away the loose rock. The men who chose to do this work came from many backgrounds. Some were former sailors, some circus acrobats, some were American Indians. All of them were agile men, unafraid to swing out over empty space on slender ropes.”
When the Hollands arrived, there was no Boulder City. However, as more people began moving here to work on the dam, the Bureau of Reclamation and Six Companies began building homes, many of which still remain. Holland and his family lived that first year in a large tent by the river, as did many others.
“They had just completed the railroad at that time,” he said. “We lived down by the river, and the tracks were above us. I still remember the Colorado River down there even at the age of 5. It was about the color of that (pointing to a brown rug in his home). It was moving 40 mph down through the canyon. It must have been a strong, spring runoff. You could hear the rocks banging against the side of the canyon as the river flowed through.”
Around the time he was ready to start school, and as more young children moved to the area with their families, the McKeeversville School was created. It wasn’t fancy, consisting of chairs and benches. Since they didn’t have anything for a chalkboard, a piece of Masonite was hung and used in its place.
Move to Boulder City
The family moved to town but didn’t get one of the Six Company homes until 1932 or 1933, he said. It was located at what is now Seventh Street.
“The houses were just knocked together and were pretty simple, but it was better than a tent,” he said.
The students from McKeeversville would soon attend Boulder City’s first schoolhouse, which is now where City Hall sits.
Holland said he and his friends would spend time in the desert as kids, ride bikes and eventually go to the movie theater, which was the first air-conditioned building in Boulder City.
“For a while, they showed movies there continuously all day,” he said. “The guys (dam workers) would sleep in there because it was much cooler.”
Holland graduated high school in 1943. Many of his classmates were either drafted or joined the military, with World War II having started two years earlier. Two of his best friends enlisted, so Holland went to what’s now Nellis Air Force Base to possibly do the same. But because he was just 17, he had to wait before joining, but once eligible he enlisted and served for two years stateside.
At 21, he married Marjorie, who was five years his senior and had been an Army nurse.
“That was the best decision I had ever made,” he said. Together they were married for 60 years until her death. Along the way, they raised three children. Their son, Jim, lives in Boulder City, while daughters Jo and Mary live in Pahrump and Henderson, respectively. All were Boulder City High School graduates, and Holland’s granddaughter currently attends the school. Once she graduates, four generations of the family can proudly say they were BCHS Eagles.
Into the workforce
After the war, Holland got a job with the Bureau of Reclamation in Boulder City as a painter. After seven years with the bureau, he was hired as a painter by Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. For three of those years, Holland would work in Los Angeles on the weekdays and come home to Boulder City on weekends. He was able to move back full time following the retirement of one of his supervisors.
Over the nine decades, Holland lived in 17 different homes in Boulder City. While with LAWP, the longer he was in the job, the nicer a company house he got. Despite having a moving van at the ready, he said he was never tempted to move away from Boulder City.
“I can’t think of a better place I’d rather live,” he said.
