A room, when the city said no.
Genevieve Harrison was born in Marshall, Texas in 1902 and came west in the 1940s, when defense work was pulling families to Las Vegas. She built a boarding house on F Street and started renting rooms.
Across town, the resorts were putting Black performers on the marquee and turning them away at the front desk. They finished the late show, got in a car, and drove to the Westside to find a bed. This is where the car stopped.
From 1948 to 1956 this address ran in nine straight editions of the Negro Motorist Green Book, the guide that told Black families which doors would actually open. The entry is plain: Miss G. Harrison, 1001 North "F" St.
Nat King Cole would sit out on the porch and smoke. The neighborhood kids would do everything they could think of to get his attention.
Recalled by Hannah Brown, who grew up on the Westside, in the property's National Register nomination
It was not only stars. Harrison rented to Black women who came to Nevada for its lenient divorce laws and needed somewhere to wait out the residency. Aida Smith spent six weeks here in 1949 with her young daughter. Sammy Davis Jr. was staying at the house then, still touring with the Will Mastin Trio, and he played with the little girl.
Genevieve ran the house until she died in 1957. Her sister, Agatha Wilson, kept it open until about 1960, the year the Strip finally desegregated and a house like this one was no longer the only option. It's the last African American boarding house of the segregation era still standing in Las Vegas, and the only one known to remain anywhere in Nevada.
1001 F Street
The main hallway, looking west from the entrance. Rooms opened off both sides. Photograph by Jim Bertolini, September 10, 2015, Nevada State Historic Preservation Office, from the property's National Register nomination.
