1940-1943 The Barn Club casino’s existence during World War II was rocky and, therefore, cut short. It began in December 1940, when Jack Fugitt, an entertainment machine business owner, and Walter Oswald, assumed the lease of the Northern Club in Reno and remodeled and reopened the place as the Barn Club. It was located at…
1947 The Sonoma Inn hotel-casino debuted on May 27, 1947 at 185 W. Winnemucca Boulevard in Winnemucca in Northwestern Nevada, about halfway between Reno and Wells, likely named after the nearby Sonoma Range mountains. In 1969, the property was remodeled and renamed the Winners Inn and Casino, which is open still today. Ad from the…
1958-1961 The Hacienda in Las Vegas, Nevada held an ongoing promotional contest at its golf course, which was widely advertised, even on the back of the postcard above. Participants would pay 50 cents (about $4.25 today) per attempt at a hole-in-one from 165 yards away, and the casino would award $5,000 ($43,000 today) to anyone who accomplished…
1935 Singer and actress Judy Garland (neé Frances Ethel Gumm) was discovered while headlining with her two older sisters at the Cal-Neva Lodge at Lake Tahoe in Nevada. Theatrical agent Al Rosen was in the audience when The Garland Sisters sang, their mom Ethel on the piano. “Get that kid over here,” Rosen told the…
1946 Mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel’s wife, Esta (née Esther Krakower) filed for divorce in Reno, Nevada after 17 years of marriage. The two had wed when she was 18 and he was 23. In the divorce settlement, Esta got their Hollywood house, their New York apartment, Bugsy’s Cadillac, $600 a week in alimony ($7,500 today)…
1966 The Silver Nugget casino announced it would debut topless, female, 21 (blackjack) dealers during the midnight to 8 a.m. shift. This, too, was the gist of the complaints the Nevada attorney general (A.G.) received in April. Allegedly, the North Las Vegas business had hired women willing to work naked to the waist and told…
1964 When dealer Lue Dennis exited her work, Harolds Club casino, a man descended and hit the pavement in front of her. Reno resident, John Nahirney, age 79, had fallen from the Nevada casino’s fire escape into Douglas Alley; nobody ever determined whether it had been from the second or third floor. On landing, he…
1930s-1952 Salvatore “Tar Baby” Orester Terrano is one of numerous criminals whom Nevada gambling regulators approved to own a casino in the state. In May 1947, the tax commission granted the Northern Californian, then 43, a probationary, 30-day gambling license to offer roulette, craps, 21 and slot machines at the Twin States casino at Lake…
1974 It was a successful scam that cheated the Aladdin Resort and Casino out of about $250,000 (about $1.2 million today) … while it lasted. Four men had some friends take junkets to the Las Vegas property using the identities of legitimate high-rolling customers. (With a junket, the casino provides the guests’ travel, accommodations and meals…
1933-1954 His unfavorable personal opinion about gambling notwithstanding, Patrick “Pat” A. McCarran (D-Nev.) — U.S. Senator between 1933 and 1954 — acted repeatedly on the industry’s behalf. Had he not, it’s likely gaming wouldn’t have emerged as The Silver State’s greatest revenue-producing economic sector — a positive or negative, depending on one’s view. Because gambling…