Reno celebrates centennial -- again

RENO -- Reno celebrated its 100th birthday on Sunday. Again.

Some 500 people gathered at the National Automobile Museum to commemorate the centennial along with Mayor Bob Cashell and other city dignitaries.

"If we're not No. 1, we're No. 1-A," Cashell said. "We will make this a better city -- not a bigger city -- just a better one."

The party featured a 132-foot sheet cake decorated by photos of old Reno. Casinos were asked to provide 10-foot cakes to commemorate the city's 100 years.

Julia Arehart was presented a $1,000 check for her centennial coin design.

But for some Reno old-timers, it was deja vu.

Reno also was 100 years old on May 9, 1968. There was a coin and newspaper story.

"Reno 100 years old today," said the headline at the top of the front page in the Nevada State Journal.

It was true then and it's true now, according to history experts and the documents they've reviewed, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

Sunday's festivities recognize Reno's century as a city, which it became on March 16, 1903 when the Legislature approved incorporation.

May 9, 1868, marked the future city as a town when the Central Pacific Railroad, which owned the land and surveyed the site, auctioned 400 lots. That act is recognized as the founding of Reno.

"They're actually two different celebrations," Reno spokesman Steve Frady said of the dueling birthdays. "You're celebrating two different events in the city's history."

On May 9, 1968, the Nevada State Journal reported plans for an exhibit at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City "commemorating the birth of Reno 100 years ago."

Again, a coin was designed.

Dave Andrews, a Reno resident and coin collector, has one. On it are the dates, 1868 and 1968, accompanied by the words "Reno Centennial," the Gazette-Journal reported.

The coin designed by Arehart for Sunday's century celebration, 35 years after the 1968 party, includes the number "100" and the words "The West Still Lives."