Joseph “Doc” Stacher (born Gdale Oistaczer, 1902-1977) was a “a genial, shrewd, witty gent” who could be “homicidally tough,” wrote “Voice of Broadway” columnist Jack O’Brian (Monroe News-Star, March 17, 1977). Closely aligned with fellow Jewish Mobsters, Meyer Lansky and Abner “Longie” Zwillman, this immigrant had “galvanic” power and extreme wealth. Here are some facts…
1957 Inside the Golden Bank Casino on a Saturday afternoon, security personnel saw Merle Naughton, 40-year-old salesman, yanking and pounding on slot machines. When they told him to leave, he did. He went across the street, where he stood and yelled profanities at them. A while later, he went back inside the Reno, Nevada club…
1945-1946 In the Bank Club, a co-proprietor of a local gambling saloon, Andrew Jackson “Jack” Blackman, shot to death James Lannigan, a small-time thug, on October 30, 1944, an action for which he was acquitted. In the Palace Club, bouncer Frank Richardson brutally assaulted Alfred E. Cushman on November 11, 1945, leading to a legal resolution…
1945-1946 Alfred E. Cushman entered the Palace Club, in uniform, shortly after 5 p.m. on Sunday, November 11, 1945. Prior to that, the recently discharged U.S. Army veteran participated in the Armistice Day parade in Northern Nevada. After the procession, he drank eight to 10 beers then shared three or four quarts of whiskey with…
1939-1941 Bernard “Bernie” Einstoss was a well-known gambler in Northern Nevada for nearly two decades, between 1947 and 1965.* Prior to that, he masterminded and executed a scheme to fix horse races** in California by bribing and threatening jockeys to “pull” the horses they commandeered, or keep them from winning. Einstoss went by the name…
1972-1977 A $25,000 ($146,000 today) offer for the murder of 27-year-old John “Johnny” W. Hicks had been circulated, it was rumored throughout Las Vegas in mid-1972. The son of Marion B. Hicks, previous owner of the Thunderbird Hotel, and his wife Lillian, then proprietor of the Algiers Hotel next door, Johnny was working as an…
1954 Arthur R. Schultz of Ely, Nevada, who’ previously had held a gambling license for slot machines, asked then District Attorney of White Pine County, Jon R. Collins, to rule on whether or not a coin-operated bowling machine (think early version of Skee Ball) constituted a gambling device. Because the machine dispatched tickets that could…