1968-1969 Can you imagine if Denny’s was in Nevada’s casino business? Well, it nearly happened. In 1968 Denny’s Restaurants Inc. had reached an agreement to acquire Caesars Palace in Las Vegas but didn’t go through with it. The next year, it negotiated to acquire the corporation that owned the Cal-Neva Lodge in Crystal Bay (at…
1941 Nevada casinos are known for their big-name entertainment, and it all started in the city of Elko. In spring of 1941, Newton Crumley, owner of the Commercial Hotel and its Monte Carlo Casino, engaged Ted Lewis, bandleader-singer-entertainer-popular radio star, to perform there for a week for $12,000 (about $196,000 today). Other stars…
1964 The Dunes in Las Vegas, Nevada switched from writing off unpaid IOUs to claiming them as income, allegedly to keep Internal Revenue Service agents from harassing its customers — asking guests in the hotel if they paid what they owed. On its fiscal 1965 income tax return, the hotel-casino reported as income $1.3 million…
1968 Howard Hughes, billionaire industrialist, received the Nevada Gaming Commission’s blessing to buy the Stardust hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Nevada for $30.5 million and moved forward with the acquisition. He already owned five such properties on the Strip — the Castaways, Silver Slipper, Frontier, Sands and Desert Inn. (Adding the Stardust would’ve given him control…
1960-1967 Los Angeles mobsters, Louis Tom Dragna and John “The Bat” Battaglia, conversed in a hotel-casino cocktail lounge on the Las Vegas Strip one day in February 1960. But their visit was cut short when Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) agents appeared with local police who arrested the two. They charged them with vagrancy and…
1948 A real or perceived protective relationship with illegal gambling operators got Nevada police superintendent, Lester C. Moody, fired. Governor Vail Pittman, who’d appointed Moody to the position two years before, terminated him in May 1948. The Nevada Tax Commission, charged with regulating gambling, supported Pittman’s action. The governor had lost confidence in Moody’s…
1905 Folklore has it that Wyatt Earp was the pit boss at The Northern in Goldfield, Nevada for George “Tex” Rickard, the proprietor. But it likely is false, according to Nevada historians, Jeffrey Kintop and Guy Rocha. That year Earp was based in the mining town only for a few months, during which he often traveled to…
1960 Bookies throughout Nevada had been taking wagers right and left on who’d win the upcoming U.S. presidential election — Senator John F. Kennedy (Dem.) or Vice President Richard Nixon (Rep.). Suddenly, in November, they were forced to stop doing so when a news story was published about the forgotten Silver State law of 1919…
1956 The Fremont in Las Vegas commissioned a large oil painting that depicted a “lady of chance” to grace a wall in its casino. The hotel-casino’s press agent, Shelly Davis, asked aspiring actress Sandra Giles to pose for the piece for renowned artist, Philip Paval. During the hotel’s grand opening, the piece of art was…
1930 In December, while vacationing in Southern California, Nevada Governor Frederick “Fred” Balzar — foretelling the future — told reporters that gambling already was wide open in his state and that a bill making it official certainly would be brought before the legislature at its next session. It did happen; Silver State lawmakers legalized gaming in March…