Les Galst no longer recognizes the bustling city full of 50,000 people that surrounds him.

Nathan Bruttell/News-Herald Photo Evie Cistaro, left, and Les Galst laugh with friends at the Pioneers of Havasu Reunion Sunday afternoon at the Nautical Inn Convention Center.

From the shops to the roads to the houses, little of it resembles the same thing he saw as he stepped out of a small plane and looked at Lake Havasu City for the first time in 1968. But the 91-year-old, who helped shape the city that most know today, lights up when he sees his favorite thing about Lake Havasu City — the people.

“It’s wonderful to see so many great people again,” Galst said while looking out at the hundreds he knew at the Pioneers of Lake Havasu reunion Sunday afternoon at the Nautical Inn Convention Center. “Some I haven’t seen for 15 years or more. It really is great to share stories and laugh and smile with people who were in it from the beginning.”

The Pioneers of Lake Havasu, a group of local residents who lived in the town before 1973, meet every other year to share stories, reminisce about old times and above all else, see familiar faces. Most of the pioneers knew Havasu before tourism, before the London Bridge, before recreational homes and even before roads and people.

Galst, who served as one of the first chairmen of the Lake Havasu City Chamber of Commerce and many other boards, helped bring the first London Bridge Days to the city in 1972.

“We only had about 3,000 people here when I first showed up,” he said. “But then there was Robert McCulloch and his ideas, and we all just started turning this town from nothing into something.”

Other pioneers, like Lyle Matzdorff, said he remembers exactly what the town looked like when he moved to Havasu in 1963.

“We didn’t have schools, stores or telephones. The basics were not here,” Matzdorff said. “Nothing was here and nobody was here when I got here. Starting a new town is not as simple as it sounds. If you locate it next to (Los Angeles) or Phoenix, it would be quite easy because of all of the infrastructure is already there. But we didn’t have any of that.”

Matzdorff, who also works as the president of the Lake Havasu Museum of History, said he often tells visitors about the town, but he loves talking about the people.

“The people here, we’re the ones who definitely created a town from nothing into what it is today,” he said. “I’ve been here since day one. I saw the first house built, I saw them bringing in the London Bridge, I saw them building the first roads.”

Matzdorff said he hears people from time to time criticize Lake Havasu City for what it has become.

“I always shake my head when I hear things like that,” he said. “I was one of the guys that was here at the beginning and this is what we were trying to do. And guess what, it happened. … People can say what they want about our tourists or whatever, but it’s what makes this town great. We are very lucky to have all of these people come here like we do in the summer and winter.”

For a few pioneers, the reunion sparked not only nostalgia of the town, but of the people who made it a city.

“It’s just real amazing to see the people who turned this thing around,” said Roger Echelberger, a Pioneers of Havasu Committee member. “To talk to people you haven’t talked to in 30 years and see what they’ve been doing all this time. Nothing beats that. Some of them you don’t recognize right away, but when you start talking to them, you remember and you see them like they were 30 years ago. That’s when it becomes something special. That’s why we do this.”

The list of members for the reunion read more like a Who’s Who amongst city founders. Reuniting for the first time in years were Ernie Smith, one of the city’s first fire chiefs, Gene Milam, the first resident Sheriff’s Deputy and first Desert Hills Fire Chief Larry Van Bynen.

“This is our chance to catch up and also see old friends that were down in it from the beginning and helped build this place from the ground up,” Smith said. “I was responsible for getting the paramedic program started for our fire department and I’m very proud of that.”

Milam, who now lives in Kingman, said he barely knows his way around town now.

“Everything has changed,” he said. “When I started, there were nine or 10 of us in the Sheriff’s Department and now there’s almost 100. That’s quite a change.”

But the years have been kind to the city, Milam said.

“To me, nothing here is recognizable, but that’s such a great thing,” he said. “We’ve grown so much. I look back and I think, that was the point of what we were doing.”

Smith said the change he sees in the town today is unbelievable.

“I never dreamed that I would see somewhere around five fire stations and about 100 men working in the department and doing it as well as the boys do today,” Smith said. “We have such great programs in this town now. Guys like me, we were just trying to get it started. We never thought it would turn into something this big. This community has grown tremendously. I mean, when I first got here the road into Havasu was dirt.”

You can contact the reporter at nbruttell@havasunews.com