Nevada’s giant centennial celebration confection.
Before Street Vibrations, Burning Man, or The Great Reno Balloon Race, there was Nevada’s Centennial in 1964. Jan. 4 was chosen as the kickoff date for the year’s festivities. The plans included a historical program, music, and a public reception in the capitol’s assembly chamber in Carson City. But what’s a celebration without cake? Not much of one, for sure. Hence, a mammoth, showstopping confection was created.
The Most Stupendous Birthday Party
Hundreds of people attended the free reception event. Goldfield native Ben Alexander, an actor known for his portrayal of Sergeant Joe Friday’s sidekick on the Dragnet television series, read a brief history of each of Nevada’s 17 counties. Other celebrities included Nevada state senators and assembly members, as well as entertainers Jack Benny, Ray Eberle, and The Mills Brothers. In a notable milestone, the public could enjoy the activities at home, courtesy of the new-at-the-time Silver State Century radio and television network.
The centerpiece of the festivities was the centennial cake, dominating the chamber with its 13-feet-by-21-feet size. It was shaped like The Silver State, weighed 1,300 pounds, and was frosted with 600 pounds of blue and white icing. As Alexander narrated the stories of each county, Miss Carson City Jackie Darrigrand directed a group of eight young “map makers” dressed in pioneer and mining costumes of the 1860s to decorate the cake with figures that illustrated the region’s many industries. The decorators also enlivened the pastry with miniature missiles, cows, miners, and even a replica of the Hoover Dam. Interestingly, the gambling industry wasn’t represented in the decorations.
Sewell’s Takes the Cake
Sewell’s, the popular Nevada grocery store, baked and donated the cake. An advertisement touted, “We knew you were coming, so we baked a cake! And what a cake … one of the largest ever baked in Nevada.” The bakery team, led by Bill Savage and owner Abner Sewell, had to figure out how to successfully multiply its recipes for a product this colossal. The team also had to determine how to transport the components and reconstruct it in the chamber. It estimated that the process demanded 70 working hours of the bakers and five additional hours for frosting and setting up the cake.
Finally, cake-cutting time arrived. Governor Grant Sawyer’s wife, Bette, sliced the massive creation, which was adorned with 100 brightly lit candles, using the sword of Nevada’s first governor, Henry G. Blasdel. Spectators were ushered through a reception line for their slices. To slake their thirst, punch was ladled from a silver bowl by a hostess committee made up of descendants of early Nevada families. In a day filled with history, the punch bowl itself had taken an extraordinary path to the celebration. It was fashioned in 1915 out of 5,000 ounces of silver from Tonopah mines and trimmed with gold from Goldfield. It served on the battleship USS Nevada and now is displayed in the Nevada State Museum in Carson City.
Cake Season
Centennial activities spilled over throughout the year, and cake continued to be a popular theme. Hidden Valley Country Club in South Reno jumped in on the New Year’s Eve celebration; at exactly midnight, a 4-foot-tall tiered white cake topped with a hundred blue candles was rolled into the dining room. The top piece was cut into the shape of Nevada. Designed by Helen and Tony Malfi of Reno’s Purity French Bakery, it was made with 35 pounds of batter and about 60 pounds of icing.
Other businesses joined the celebration. John Ascuaga’s Nugget in Sparks had a $10,000 kickoff event that involved 12 centennial cakes. The casino’s nationally recognized baker, Gene Berry, went to work burying mystery money capsules containing amounts ranging from $5 to $50 inside the cakes.
The 1964 Nevada Centennial Commission produced a final report that said, “It’s unlikely that anyone will soon attempt to repeat the feat of making so gigantic a cake.”
Not so fast. Only 50 years later, efforts to replicate the cake for Nevada’s sesquicentennial began. This confection also weighed 1,300 pounds and was comprised of 170 sheet cakes assembled in the shape of Nevada. First Lady Kathleen Sandoval used a sword belonging to Nevada’s fifth governor, Charles Clark Stevenson, to cut the first slice.
Sewell’s jokingly offered a cake similar to the one baked in 1964 for sale. It retailed at about $1,400. It will be interesting to see what bakers envision — and the cost — of the inevitable bicentennial cake to come in 2064.
1964 Nevada Centennial Cake, By the Numbers
It takes a lot of ingredients, time, and money to produce a masterpiece like the Nevada centennial cake, as created by Sewell’s market:
- 13 feet wide x 21 feet long
- 70 working hours to prepare
- 1,152 eggs
- 200 pounds of sugar
- 600 pounds of icing
- 21,000 ounces of cake
- $1,400 (estimated cost)
