So... Alright - Reno: Three Ways

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Geoff does a Reno trio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Why, you may ask. Well, let me tell you. I was on an escalator going somewhere at an airport, probably in Austin coming home from that vacation I had a few weeks ago. And I got to thinking, how long have we had escalators? Who invented the escalator? How many escalators are there? What's the largest escalator? Just had a bevy of escalator thoughts. I remember a million years ago, Gus and I went to Australia and we rode an escalator that was like the longest escalator in the southern hemisphere or something.

I'm probably getting that wrong. But what is this a podcast about facts? But let's dive in. Well, first off, who invented the escalator? I'll tell you who invented the escalator. And his name is Jesse Wilford Reno. And the Wilford is the important part. We'll get to that a little bit later.

He was born in 1861, died 1947. He was an American inventor and engineer, and he invented the first working escalator in all the way back in 1891, if you can believe it, had it patented by 1892. And it was used at the old iron pier in Coney Island. It was referred to as an inclined elevator Although there was an earlier escalator machine called a revolving stairs that was invented by a dude named Nathan Ames That was patented but it was never actually built. So Jesse's was the first invented escalator to see the light of day He was born in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. His dad was a, they call him a civil war notable,

Jesse Reneau, same name. And he graduated from Lehigh University in 1883 with his engineering degree in mining, later metallurgical degree, where he was a member of the Chi-Phi fraternity. I wonder if the Chi-Phi fraternity is still, am I saying that right? Chi-Phi, I don't know. I didn't go to college.

1824 an association was formed to promote circulation of correct opinions on religion, morals and education and excluding sectarian theology and party politics. Wow. That's the Chi-Fi or Chi-Fi I think. Some notable founders, Archibald Alexander, I don't know if this is interesting at all, Robert Baird, a bunch of professors. Let's see.

The secret order of Chi-Fi, and we are going off on a tangent here, this is not about the Rinos, but let's find out about what the secret order is. The third independent fraternity to be named Chiifi, was founded at Hobart College in Geneva by 12 men who took the initiatory oath and received a badge. The 12 men later became known throughout Kaifi as the 12 apostles. Fraternity was officially known as the secret order of Kaifi.

And the first chapter would be called the Upsilon chapter. Why are we reading about this? Interesting, interesting, interesting. Anyway, growth and development. Chi-Phi's conservative expansion philosophy that only the old well-established schools were suitable for a chapter led to the denial of a petition for a charter by a group of students at the University of Richmond in 1901.

This group went on to found the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity during the subsequent 53 year period. Sigma Phi Epsilon charted over 140 chapters while Chi-Fi only chartered 14. So are they still around? Local Chi-Fi chapter at Cornell was suspended after an individual reported an incident of being assaulted, so that was in twenty twenty four. So I guess they are still around. OK, interesting.

That anyway, that's a that's a zag. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about is Jesse W. Reneau, I guess, who was a member of that fraternity and who decided to build the escalator because not only does Lehigh campus feature the highest residence hall east of the Mississippi, but there are approximately 300 stairs that must be climbed to ascend 100 plus meters,

about 300 feet from the lowest point on campus to the fraternity house. I guess that's how Chi-Fi is important, to the Chi-Fi fraternity house at the school. So he had to climb 300 feet, probably up and down multiple times a day at college. And just every day was like these fucking stairs. There's gotta be a better way.

There's gotta be a better way. There's gotta be a way for the stairs to do the staring for you. And he came up with the first escalator, which was essentially a glorified ride at Coney Island. How many escalator deaths are there per year? On average in the US, 30 people die and 17,000 are seriously injured each year due to elevator and escalator accidents.

Escalator accidents themselves result in roughly 10,000 injuries requiring emergency department treatment annually. Oh, goodness. While the falls are the most common type of escalator accident, injuries can also occur from entrapment between the steps or with clothing. Oh yeah, there's videos all over TikTok and Instagram of people falling into escalators and tragedy. Tragedy abounds to the escalators,

which was the whole point of that joke in Mallrats, right? Wonder what the longest, what's the biggest, longest escalator in the world? This is a bit of an old story, but the 10 longest escalators in the world as of 2022, there might be some more recent escalating. It looks like a three way tie for number one. The ploshad Lenin, a metro station in St. Petersburg is tied with the Cherniy skivy skivyeninna metro station in St. Petersburg is tied with the Cherniyskivskevia metro station

in St. Petersburg and the Admiraltyeskaya metro station in St. Petersburg. All three of those are 453 feet long. Number four is in Kyiv. Number five is in Norway. Interesting. I thought it was China. I thought it was the central mid-level escalator and walkway system. It's the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world.

Oh, maybe it's because it's a series of escalators. It covers more than 800 meters of distance and traverses an elevation of over four hundred and forty three feet from bottom to top. Good Lord. That's one hundred and forty three feet more than old Reno was having to walk every day when he invented it. Before moving on to Reno, the second way I do have an escalator story. When I was a kid, I guess I guess it's Oregon or Florida. I can't remember where I was living at the time.

I was I was a little guy. I was maybe seven or eight. I was at the mall with my mom. And I remember we were in a I must have been like a JCPen I was maybe seven or eight. I was at the mall with my mom, and I remember we were in a, I must have been like a JCPenney's or a Sears, we were in a tent pole store, one of the anchor stores, and we were coming downstairs on the escalator, and as a kid, like every kid, I was delighted and terrified by escalators.

They were the coolest and scariest things at the same time, right? It's like a free roller coaster every time you go to the store with your mom. And so my mom was at bags in her hands and she was like, she was mom and she was ahead of me a little bit. And I was on the escalator and I put my arm,

my hand on the rail, you know, like the rubber, black rubber rail, my right hand on that. And I remember curling my fingers up under the rubber and was like, oh, I can kind of get up under here. And I was playing with it and playing with it. And I kind of became focused on that. I wasn't really seeing what was going on. And before I knew it, we hit the ground.

I felt the flat thing and I went to, I went up and I went to pull my hand out and my hand was like wedged in there and it wouldn't come out. And it drug my hand. And I looked up and my mom is at this point 20 feet ahead of me and she's walking towards the door. And my hand got sucked into the return, which is like little black brushes on the front end

or anything, it doesn't look particularly scary. But I went, ah, and I couldn't get my hand out and I'm yanking, I'm yanking, I'm yanking, I'm like, mom! And my mom's like at the door and I pull my hand out and it ripped, I don't know, in my mind, it was like Indiana Jones where just all the flesh was ripped off or like Game of Thrones. But I'm assuming it wasn't nearly as bad in practice,

but it ripped a bunch of skin off my two fingers, my middle finger and my ring finger on my right hand. And I was just like dripping blood, and I was like, nah, I'm just holding my hand with my left hand in shock. And she was out the door and I had to chase after We went home and cleaned it up. And so that's why escalators are dangerous. That's why escalators are dangerous That's why I fear and respect escalators

Let's do we know the second way which has an interesting tie-in to we know the first way Since I wanted to talk about escalators. I thought, you know, I could do a whole episode on escalators, elevators, the inventions of the past, that kind of thing. But it just didn't feel super interesting. When I started to read about Mr. Reno, I thought, you know, it's kind of funny. I've never been to Reno, Nevada, but I love Reno 911. And there's a bunch of punk bands from Reno, like 7 Seconds and one of my favorite bands of all time, Zoinks and I feel some sort of, because I love Vegas, I feel some sort of a kinship

with Reno even though I've never been there. I've always kind of wanted to go and check it out, even though people are like, you don't need to go there, don't check it out. So I thought, why not make this a Reno three ways? I'm sure I can come up with a third way. Wasn't hard at all, by the way. So then I dove into Reno, Nevada.

And I'm so glad that I did, because of the connection that we're gonna find here in a minute, but also I just learned a lot about Reno. For instance, it sits in the high Eastern Sierra foothills in the Truckee River Valley on the Eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. I genuinely didn't know that. It is about 23 miles northeast of Lake Tahoe.

I had no idea it was that close to Lake Tahoe. It's known as the biggest little city in the world, which I think is adorable. It is the, even though it is the 80th most populous city in the United States and the third most populous in the state of Nevada. It has a population of 264,000, roughly, give or take a couple hundred,

which is, yeah, that's a big little city. Archaeological finds place the eastern border for the prehistoric Martis people in the Reno area. So I did a little bit of reading on the Martis people who I had never heard of. They were Native Americans who lived in Northern California on both the eastern and western sides of the Sierra Nevada They think the Martis people lasted from about 2,000 BCE to 500 CE during the Middle

Archaic era and they found evidence of their habitations From Carson River and Reno all the way to Auburn, California to Oroville, California in the West Apparently the Martis name refers to the geographic region of Martis Creek, which spans, well, Nevada County, California, Placer County, California. The Martis people traveled to lower elevations in the winter and then higher in the summer in loose knit groups. So they were migratory in that way. They lived in base camps on the valley margins.

Often your hot springs, by the way. What a fucking find, you know what I mean? You're, you know, living in the high elevations in the summer and then you're finding lower elevations in the winter. And then suddenly you're like, wait a minute, is this a. Just a perfectly temperate, yummy, warm fart smelling, but. Spring of water in the dead of winter to keep that hot springs must have been such an amazing discovery back in the day. I can't even imagine.

Anyway, they seemed like pretty interesting people. They had extended families that live together. They had summer camps. They hunted sheep and antelope and deer and bison and elk with spears. And they're not thought to be related to the Washoe, but they might have been linked to the Maidu. However, some scholars suggest that the Martis overlaps culturally and geographically with Kings Beach complex of ancestral Washoe people. Maybe I need to do a deeper dive on that someday, because that's pretty interesting. Regardless, after the Martyrs people around the 1850s,

a few pioneers settled in the Truckee Meadows. It was pretty fertile, close to the river. And these early settlers were subsistence farming. They were picking up business from travelers who were going along the California trail. Remember, this is during the time of Westward expansion, right? So in like so in 1850, they discovered gold in Virginia City. And then in 1859, they discover silver in the Comstock load. There's a mining rush.

Thousands of immigrants are leaving their homes. They're headed west. And to provide the connection between Virginia City and the California Trail, this dude, Charles Fuller, builds a bridge across the Truckee River. That's in 1859. As he does that, a small community almost immediately starts to build up near the bridge to serve travelers that are crossing it. A couple of years later, Fuller decides to sell the bridge to a guy named Myron C. Lake, who continues to develop this community. He adds a gristmill, he has a kiln, a library stable.

They eventually get a hotel, a restaurant. He renames it Lakes Crossing, and that's how it's known. Not too long after, in the 1860s, the Central Pacific Railroad starts laying tracks east from Sacramento, hoping to eventually connect with the Union Pacific, somewhere out in Utah, I believe, creating the first trans continental railroad. Lake seeing an opportunity deeds the land to the Central Pacific

Railroad around the burgeoning little community in exchange for its promise to build a depot at Lakes crossing. In 1864, Washoe County is consolidated with Roop County, Roop-R-O-O-P County, and suddenly Lake Crossing is the county's largest town. Because of that, this guy Myron Lake earns himself the title founder of Reno. Once the railroad station is established, the town of Reno officially comes into being. Spring is here and you can now get almost anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost?

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Where do they get the name Reno you might ask? Well, well, that's a funny story. Reno was named after Major General Jesse Lee Reno, a Union officer killed in the Civil War. Jesse Lee Reno seemed like a character in himself. I read a little bit about him. We're not going to get too deeply into it, but he was a very successful general.

As a matter of fact, the cities of Reno, Nevada, Reno, Ohio, and El Reno, Oklahoma, oh, and Reno, Pennsylvania are all named after him. That's crazy. And Reno, Nevada and Reno, Ohio both have monuments held to him in their downtown areas. He also had three military outposts named after him in the 1860s. I believe 1870s

Reno County, Kansas was named after him and The Jesse L Reno school in Washington DC was named in his honor though it closed in 1950 So this was a pretty prolific dude the thing that I found well There's two things that I find interesting about Jesse Lee Reno, but the second thing I'll get to the first thing in a second is He was injured, I guess, while leading soldiers, I guess, around around the Battle of Antietam. I don't think it was during the Battle of Antietam. I think it was right before that.

But it was somewhere around Sharpsburg, Maryland. He was shot in the chest by a rookie Union soldier from the 35th Massachusetts who mistook him for a Confederate cavalryman at dusk. The manuscript of Union officer Ezra Carman published in the Maryland campaign of September, 1862, volume one, Jesus Christ, documents that he was shot by men of general John Hood, who were in the tree line and fired from the woods

that the 35th Massachusetts skirmishers had just retreated from. So he got shot by friendly fire. He was brought by stretchers to Brigadier General Samuel D. Sturgis' command post, and said in a clear voice, this is the part that was interesting, "'Hello, Sam, I am dead.'"

Sturgis, a longtime acquaintance and fellow member of West Point class of 1846, thought he sounded so natural that he must be joking and told Reno that he hoped it was not as bad as all that. Reno replied, yes, yes, I am dead. Goodbye. And then died. He was a beloved general who was a soldier soldier who would always fight in the muck with his troops and then ultimately succumbed to some accidental friendly fire, but was so successful, they named a whole lot of shit after him, including Reno, Nevada. Now the second interesting thing about Jesse Lee Renaud that I wanted to impart upon you

guys is that he had a son and he named that son Jesse Wilford Reno. That son went on to attend Lehigh University, where he got sick of walking 300 feet uphill every single day to go to classes, and he invented the fucking escalator. So the guy who invented the escalators, dad, is the guy they named Reno, Nevada after. That blew my mind.

I don't know why, it makes total sense, but absolutely was not expecting it when I was doing this research and couldn't have been more delighted to find out after I had done all this escalator research that and I had done a lot of Reno, Nevada research that I made the connection that, oh, this is this kid, this kid did this. But let's talk about some other aspects of Reno. Did you know that it is still the third largest gold producer in the world?

Not Reno, but Nevada specifically. After South Africa and Australia, the state of Nevada still yields about six to 7% of the world's gold supply every year. Not too long ago, we did a history of Vegas. Well, it was gonna be a history of a specific hotel in Vegas that just kind of turned into Vegas in general. We talked a lot about how in the 30s,

Vegas was considered the divorce capital of the world. Reno fell into that as well. Reno, everything that Vegas did, Reno did just as intensely, if not on a much smaller scale. So it was a gambling hub It was the divorce capital of the world during that time I will say I had a crazy disaster in the 50s at 103 p.m. On February 5th 1957 two explosions caused by natural gas leaking into a maze of pipes and ditches under the city some bad urban planning there

Destroyed five buildings in the vicinity of Sierra and first streets along the Truckee River. The disaster killed two people and injured 49. The first explosion hit under the block of shops on the west side of Sierra Street. So if you are now it's the site of the century riverside. I don't know what the fuck that is. But if you're around there, you might and the second across Sierra Street, which is now where the palladium is. Also, I didn't know this, but what's Reno up to today? Apparently, it's a tech hub.

In recent years, the Reno metro area is spurred by large scale investments from greater Seattle and San Francisco area based companies such as Amazon, Tesla, Panasonic, Microsoft, Apple and Google has become a major technology center in the United States is, as a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, it has a Tesla Gigafactory. I thought Austin was the only Tesla Gigafactory, which is, of course, is how we do in America. We think the thing that we have is first and biggest and best.

But there was a Gigafactory built over in Reno first. It's a little it's just a little bit. I think it's about 60 percent the size of the one in Austin. But they have a big Tesla factory there too. Apparently, Reno is a tech hub, which I love that for them. Good for Reno. What do they do for sports in Reno? Well, it's home to the Reno Aces, which is the AAA affiliate to the Arizona Diamondbacks. They play in Greater Nevada Field. It's a downtown ballpark. Oh, wow. That's cool. play in greater Nevada field. It's a downtown ballpark. Oh, wow.

That's cool. Maybe we could go see maybe maybe we could find an excuse to go see the Reno Aces someday. They also have a G League team in the NBA. They have the Reno Big Horns. Wouldn't mind checking out that. They're a affiliate primarily for the Sacramento Kings, I believe. Oh, never mind. That team was moved to Stockton in 2018.

Now the Stockton Kings, they no longer have the was moved to Stockton in 2018. They're the Stockton Kings. They no longer have the Reno Big Horns. I apologize. A lot of boxing in Reno. Reno is home to two roller derby teams. The Battle Born Derby Demons and the Reno Roller Girls. Huh. One is flat track and the other is banked, I guess.

In terms of pop culture, obviously the long running and popular television spoof cop comedy show Reno 911 focuses on Reno. But there have been so many movies to have appeared or to have featured Reno from Magnolia to Hard Eight to Into the Wild, Desert Hearts, The Wizard, the old video game movie, The Wizard, The Misfits, way back, the 1961 movie with Clark Gable, The Misfits, Kingpin, of course, Fairly Brothers film, Ocean's Eleven, the original one with Frank Sinatra

and those guys. Mr. Belvedere goes to college. There's a connection to regulation right there. 1949 American comedy film. Sister Act, oh, Pink Cadillac, I remember liking that movie when I was a kid. Austin Powers in Goldmember. Tons of stuff features Reno.

In addition to Fallout 2 featured new Reno. It's mentioned in a billion songs, like we said, also two really great punk bands are from Reno, Seven Seconds and then Zoinks. I will actually probably pick a song of the episode from Zoinks now that I'm thinking about it. But most interestingly to me, Reno was named after the father of the guy who invented the escalator.

How about Reno a third way? Juan Moreno y Herrera Jimenez, commonly known as Jean Reno, is a French-Spanish actor. Did you know that Jean Reno was born in Casablanca? That's right. He was born in Casablanca, French Morocco. His parents were Spanish natives from the Andalusians, I believe. They moved to North Africa to find work

and escape Franco with Spain. And at the age of 17, they moved to France where he studied acting and also served, I didn't know this, he served in the French army as well. He learned Spanish from his parents, Arabic and French, growing up in Morocco and Italian from studying it as a special interest and acting in Italian films. So Jean Reno speaks Arabic, French, Italian, and Spanish,

and also English. Throw that in there as well. He's a big dude, he's about six feet two, so when he first started to get acting gigs, he could only play heavies early on his career, like, you know, think like imposing figures, bodyguards, that kind of stuff. Although later he excelled in romantic comedies and action films.

He kind of got his start. I think his first, not his first role, but his first featured role, I would say, was in the Luc Besson film, Ledurnier Combat from 1983, which I've never seen, but I guess I should watch. And I guess they hit it off because they worked in a ton of stuff together. Obviously Le Femme Nikita, The Big Blue,

Leon the Professional. Man, Luc Besson's made some good, so let's look at Luc Besson real fast. Luc Besson is obviously a French filmmaker. He directed films such as Subway in 1985. I've heard of Subway a bunch because, yeah, yeah, here we go. It's associated with the genre cinema du look,

which is a French film movement that is largely comprises Loupe-Besson, Jean-Jacques Beny and Leo Carré, Jean-Jacques Beny and Leo Carré, Carr-ex, C-A-R-A-X, as the main progenitors of the look. Cinema du Look is said to favor style over substance and spectacle over narrative. It refers to films that have a slick, gorgeous visual style and focus on young, alienated characters.

You can definitely see those themes through some of Luke Passan's work. I've never seen Subway, but I think it's credited as being one of the first cinema do look films. So I guess I need to see it. What else is Luke done? I think so much.

I'm going to look at his filmography. All right. So I've never seen La Dernier combat. I need to see that. I need to see Subway, the big blue. I've seen La Femme Nikita is phenomenal. Atlantis. That's a documentary, I believe, Lefim Nikita is phenomenal. Atlantis, that's a documentary I believe

that he did on just the oceans. The Professional, fifth element, forgot about that. That Joan of Arc movie, I never saw that. The Messenger, he did a couple of Arthur films, three of them to be exact. The Lady, the Family, Lucy, oh, Valerian in a City of a Thousand Planets. I did see that. And most recently in twenty twenty five, Dracula, a love tale is an upcoming

Gothic horror film written and directed by Luc Besson. It's based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Stars Christoph Waltz, Mathilda DeAngelis and Caleb Landry Jones. Comes out in France on July 30th. Hmm. Anyway, John Renau, another thing I found out about Jean Reno, he did the voiceover work for Mufasa in the French language version of The Lion King. I bet you didn't know that either.

That's pretty cool. So he did the James Earl Jones role for French cinema. Oh, he was in French Kiss with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline. That was a great film. Obviously he was in Mission Impossible. It's and Kevin Kline. That was a great film. Obviously, he was in Mission Impossible. It's not just about Luc Besson with him. He was in that Tom Cruise movie Ronin. He was in Godzilla.

Yeah, interesting. Did you know he turned down the role of Agent Smith in The Matrix? I don't know why, but he did. I bet Hugo's really happy about that. And of course, he's phenomenal in one of my favorite two movie runs of all time. The Pink Panther remake with him and Steve Martin and the Pink Panther 2. Those are definitely guilty pleasures of mine.

He's even done video game work. He was in he lent his likeness to Onimusha three Demon Siege. He was the protagonist Jacques Blanc. He, I guess he also did the voice for the French dialogue. I don't think he did it for the English dialogue. He has six kids, been married three times, same. And he maintains three homes in Paris, Malaysia, and Los Angeles.

He's a dual citizen of France and Spain. Man, this Reno Three Ways really makes me wanna watch a bunch of old Luc Besson films I've never seen. What are the best genre no film is? But probably considered the professional, I would guess. I love Le Femme Nikita. I was like the age for those films. Those were coming out when I was in my late teens,

early 20s, so that was I was I was the fucking market for that Type of film at that time. God. He's been in so much stuff. He's been in his credits for film previous and upcoming 123 rolls good Lord the most recent thing he's been in is One mystery. No, that's the first thing he was been in is one mystery. No, that's the first thing he was ever in is one mystery a day. It was a TV series.

And I guess it's a French TV series. The most recent thing he's been in is Family Pack. He played Gilbert. Family Pack, it's like a Netflix movie. Oh. Interesting. I think this is a French film. I get the impression.

When night falls and the players have their eyes closed, werewolves make victims among the villagers. Is this a werewolf movie or is this one night werewolf? The movie is kind of any more information on family? Has anybody came out already?

All right, I'm going to see if I can track down this movie family pack and see what's up with it. That seems to be the most recent thing he was in, but he has six projects coming up from the florist to tuner to the butler to the man who saved Paris. So hard working dude, that Jean Reno. And that'll be Reno three ways. Jesse Reno, Reno Nevada, Jean Reno, and a bonus fourth, Jesse L. Reno, the dad.

Interesting how they intertwine. However, I owe you right now a song of the episode. Zoinks is a short discography and it's hard to pick one song. Their big album, Bad Mood Space Cadet, every song is a 10 out of 10 on the album. You can't go wrong on it, although I do prefer Stranger Anxiety, which has some maybe less accessible music, but just some really, really, really fantastic music. And now that I'm thinking about it, I'm definitely going to bring it up in future episodes. It's all right. And I'm definitely going to mine it for songs.

But in the interest of picking one song. I'm going to pick and this is hard for me because some of there was a time when Uma 14 Times was my favorite song in the world. There was a time when Sapsucker Sluggo was my favorite song in the world And there was a time when Suzy bright was my favorite song in the world But I'm gonna pick Joe versus the machine as your song of the episode by zoinks off bad moves space cadet Although I encourage you to listen to the entire album And if you like it to go back and listen to the longer album Stranger Anxiety where every song isn't amazing but the amazing songs are untouchably good. Okay I think that'll do it. As always thanks for hanging out, thanks for listening. Drop

me an email if you want to discuss any of this stuff. My email address is eric at Jeff's boss dot com. Don't forget I'm on Cameo at Jeff L. Ramsey. I stream at fake Jeff on Twitch. And of course, most importantly, do me a favor. Listen to the regulation podcast if you haven't ever given it a chance or maybe if you gave it a chance once and you forgot about it, maybe give it another shot. That'll do it for me this week. I cannot wait to be back here talking to you again next week. Love you all. All right This is the end of the show