Alicia Barber on History, Preservation, and Sense of Place in Reno

Welcome to the new season of Renoites! 

This is the first episode of a brand new season, with a bunch of great guests in store. If you enjoy the show, please be sure to follow @renoites on Instagram, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so it will always be easy to find!

A common theme in the conversations I have about Reno are that it seems to be constantly changing. Growth can be exciting, I’m definitely happy to know that Reno is a place people want to come, but it’s often framed that there is a conflict between growth and historic preservation. A lot of conversations also tend to be about Reno’s shared story, a common understanding of what this place is about.

I am very excited to welcome as the first guest this season, historian and author Alicia Barber. You may know her from her very popular substack newsletter, The Barber Brief. Alicia writes regularly about historic preservation and development issues in the area, city council happenings, and other topics of local importance. 

On this episode, Alicia and I discuss the earliest history of Reno as a railroad town, how Reno changed and redefined itself over the generations to adapt to different economic conditions, what makes for a vibrant and active neighborhood and what inhibits that, how to tell a shared story of our history where it has actually taken place, the history of the Lear theater and hopes for it’s future, and much more!

I’ve long been looking forward to this episode and I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. If you have comments or suggestions for future guests, my email is conor@renoites.com 

You might also consider supporting Renoites financially on patreon at http://patreon.com/renoites. Listener support makes this project possible.