In this episode of 8 News Then, host John Langler sits down with former Henderson Mayor Andy Hafen, now president of the Henderson Historical Society, for a conversation about the city’s origins and how it grew into the community we know today.

Andy walks through Henderson’s beginnings as a World War II town built around the Basic Magnesium plant, and the lesser-known story of Pittman, the earlier mining-era community folded into Henderson at incorporation in 1953. He shares details most residents have never heard, including the fact that some of Henderson’s oldest streets were laid out off the grid and painted white and purple to camouflage the town from potential wartime air attacks.

After the war, Henderson came close to becoming a ghost town. Andy explains how local leaders secured the city’s future, and how industry kept the community alive through the following decades. He speaks candidly about growing up when Henderson was jokingly called “the armpit of the nation,” and how his family’s tire business felt every plant strike and slowdown firsthand.

The conversation turns to two pivotal moments in modern Henderson history: the arrival of Green Valley in the late 1970s, which put the city on the map as a master-planned community, and the 1988 PEPCON explosion, which Andy witnessed firsthand as a newly elected councilman. He reflects on how the community pulled together in the aftermath, and how the disaster reshaped conversations about Henderson’s industrial identity.

Andy also discusses the challenge of preserving what makes Henderson feel like Henderson, that folksy, neighbor-knows-neighbor character that has survived decades of rapid growth. He highlights the Historical Society’s Henderson Speaks program and its push to save landmarks like the original fire and police stations, making the case that history shouldn’t be bulldozed in the name of progress.

With special guest speakers:

Scott Jarvis, Project Engineer, Public Works Department
and
Alexandra Fazekas, Principal Planner with Community Development

A panel discussion featuring
Claytee White, director, Oral History research center at UNLV Libraries
Dr. Earnest N. Bracey, professor of political science and history ay CSN
Rick Watson, former carver park resident and board member, Henderson Historical Society
James Balk, former carver park resident

Williams designed first class historical well-known homes/buildings in Las Vegas and Los Angeles and more. Speaker Claytee White, Director of Oral History Research for UNLV Libraries.

Join the Henderson Historical Society, Historian Mark Hall-Patton speaking on the great historic venue “History of Railroad Pass” and meet the owner, Joe DeSimone.

Hear the history of public education in our town, as told by former students and teachers who were eyewitnesses to Henderson’s History:
During World War II when Henderson schools were funded as a part ofThe Rail Road Pass School District.
When Rail Road Pass School District became Henderson School District and then The Clark County School District.
When the community began to consider the possibility of a return to a separate Henderson School District.

The panel discusses the current and future outlook of water resource.
Michael Bernardo, P.E., PMP
Zane Marshall
Kyle R. Okamura, P.E.

The dream of Carlton Adair and the vision of Ronald Boedekker: Visionary developer J. Carlton Adair and his dream of Lake Adair, a new community for Henderson. Learn how Adair’s dream became a reality at Lake Las Vegas 35 years later

There have been thirteen Mayors since 1953 when Dr. James French took office as Henderson’s first Mayor. Henderson’s most recent Mayor is Debra March who will conclude her service to the Henderson community in 2022. Learn about these dedicated public servants who turned a dusty, temporary government reservation into the prosperous “place to call home” that Henderson has become.

Whatever became of those wonderful childhood haunts. Henderson places remembered better than sites that are among the here and the now? The speakers at this event will tell stories about Carver Park, Victory Theater, Henderson Drag Strip (Thunderbird Raceway), The Swanky Club, Old Vegas, Las Vegas Downs and The Grotto at St. Peters Church.