Roland Henry Wiley

Roland Henry Wiley was born on May 30, 1904, in Avoca, Iowa, and came to Las Vegas in 1929 to establish a law practice, arriving in the same year he was admitted to the Nevada bar. His practice grew into a successful one, and he became a fixture of the legal community in a Clark County that was still small and largely undeveloped at the time.

Over a long career in public and professional life, Wiley served as Clark County district attorney and twice ran for Governor of Nevada. In 1936 he purchased an approximately 14,000-acre ranch in Pahrump Valley, straddling the Nevada - California border, which he held and cherished for the rest of his life. Beginning in 1972, he transformed a box canyon on that ranch into Cathedral Canyon, an open-air sanctuary lined with statuary, stained glass, and inspirational verse, which he kept open to the public without charging admission.

Roland Wiley died on August 15, 1994, in Las Vegas at the age of 90, and is interred at Palm Downtown Cemetery. His grave marker bears the words he lived by: "Blessed are those who dream dreams, and make them come true."