Dear Subscribers, First, I’d like to thank you all for your readership and support. It means a lot. On another note, the gambling history book, A Bold Gamble at Lake Tahoe: Crime and Corruption in a Casino’s Evolution, is finally here! I offer you the first chapter below. The nonfiction book now is available for…
This is the last of a series of posts related to and leading up to the release on Dec. 6 of A Bold Gamble at Lake Tahoe: Crime and Corruption in a Casino’s Evolution by this author. The nonfiction book chronicles the often-unbelievable, conflict-filled early history of the Incline Village, Nevada-based hotel-casino that today is…
This is the third of a series of posts related to and leading up to the release on Dec. 6 of A Bold Gamble at Lake Tahoe: Crime and Corruption in a Casino’s Evolution by this author. The nonfiction book chronicles the often-unbelievable, conflict-filled early history of the Incline Village, Nevada-based hotel-casino that today is…
This is the first of a series of posts related to and leading up to the release on Dec. 6 of A Bold Gamble at Lake Tahoe: Crime and Corruption in a Casino’s Evolution by this author. The nonfiction book chronicles the often-unbelievable, conflict-filled early history of the Incline Village, Nevada-based hotel-casino that today is…
1945-1947 Ray Wherrit and Austin K. Wright of San Luis Obispo, California set out in 1945 to build a $120,000 hotel-casino in the Crystal Bay Park subdivision on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. The two had purchased five lots there for that purpose. In November, after hearing the details of the project, the Washoe…
1938 To draw guests, a 1938 newspaper ad for the new casino resort at Lake Tahoe in Crystal Bay touted the cinematic history of the land. It read: “All America enjoyed the beloved Will Rogers in the screen version of Frank Bacon’s Lightnin’. Calneva Lodge is built on the original location of this masterpiece —…
1902-1927 Touted as “the finest clubhouse west of the Rocky Mountains,” the Casino at Tallac debuted at Lake Tahoe’s South Shore in California in July 1902 despite gambling having been illegal in the state since 1860 (San Francisco Chronicle, July 15, 1902). “Tallac, heretofore the staidest and most exclusive resort in the Sierra Nevadas, is…
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…
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…
1957-1960 In June 1957, a federal grand jury secretly indicted the owners of the Wagon Wheel Saloon and Gambling Hall (Harvey’s today) at Lake Tahoe in Stateline, Nevada — Harvey A. Gross, and his wife, Llewellyn — for failing to pay more than $45,400 (about $395,500 today) in joint income taxes over a three-year period. This…