Paul Laxalt - Early Life, Education, and Early Career

Early Life, Education, and Early Career

Laxalt was born on August 2, 1922 in Reno, Nevada, the son of a Basque shepherd, Dominique, and a Basque mother, Therese, both of whom had immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s from their homeland in the Pyrenees, which straddle France and Spain. Dominique became wealthy in the sheep industry, but he lost everything during the Great Depression. Thereafter, he went back to sheepherding for the rest of his career. Therese, who had been trained at Paris' Cordon Bleu cooking school, eventually opened a restaurant called The French Hotel in the Nevada capital of Carson City.

Therese and Dominique had six children: Paul, Robert (born in 1923), Suzanne (1925), John (1926), Marie (1928) and Peter (1931). The Laxalt children were raised largely by their mother as Dominique spent long periods of time away from the household as he tended to his sheep in the deserts and mountains of Nevada. The children all helped Therese at The French Hotel. It was here that Paul first acquired an interest in politics as he listened in on the conversations of the politicians who patronized the restaurant (including the legendary U.S. Senator Patrick McCarran). Paul played on the 1938 state basketball champion team at Carson High School before graduating and attending Santa Clara University. When World War II broke out, Paul joined the U.S. Army and served as a medic, seeing action in the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines. After the war, he graduated from the University of Denver (1949) law school.

After graduating from law school and after serving as a district attorney, Laxalt enjoyed a successful career as a lawyer. His clients included George Whittell, who owned a large portion of the Lake Tahoe frontage on the Nevada side of the lake, Harvey and Llewellyn Gross, who built and ran Harvey's Wagon Wheel on Lake Tahoe's south shore, and Dick Graves, founder of the Sparks Nugget. While representing Graves, Laxalt helped win the famous "Golden Rooster case" in which the federal government tried to confiscate a 15-pound solid gold rooster that Graves displayed near the entrance of his Golden Rooster restaurant.