Question of the Day - 12 March 2023

Woodlawn is a 40-acre cemetery located at 1500 Las Vegas Blvd. N. at E. Owens Ave. and was officially added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. It's the oldest cemetery in Las Vegas, established in 1914. Several notable citizens and colorful characters from the old days are interred at Woodlawn. These include J.T. McWilliams, who laid out the original (pre-railroad) Las Vegas town site and actually designed the cemetery itself; gunslinger "Diamondfield" Jack Davis (sentenced to hang for two murders in Idaho in 1897, he got off, moved to Tonopah, then Vegas, and died when he was struck by a taxicab here in 1949); legendary gambler Nicholas "Nick the Greek" Dandolos; and Billy Delmar Guy, one of the original members of the Coasters singing group. 

At Palm Memorial Park near E. Warm Springs and N. Pecos lie actor Tony Curtis, who died in Henderson in 2010; comedian and actor Redd Foxx, who died in L.A. in 1991, but was buried in his beloved Las Vegas; Pat Morita, Mr. Miyagi of Karate Kid fame, who died in 2005; Pancho Gonzales, one of the all-time-greatest tennis players, who died in 1995; singer Phyllis McGuire, who died in 2020 and is buried next to her oldest sister Ruby (2018); and entertainment journalist Robin Leach (2018).

Heavyweight champ Sonny Liston is buried at Davis Memorial Park, just east of the airport; he died in 1971.

Buried at Bunkers Eden Vale at the corner of Las Vegas Blvd. N. and E. Washington are big-band leader Harry James, who died in 1983, and Liz Renay, blonde-bombshell vaudevillian, actress, and mobster girlfriend who’s one of six women profiled in a new Huntington Press book, tentatively titled Shameless: Women of the Underworld; she died in 2007. 

Many many other minor celebrities and known names are buried around Las Vegas, way too numerous for us to even mention. But a good website for gravesites is FindAGrave.com.