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Post Cards of Southern Nevada by the Bobbe Lithographic Company of New York (updated April 18, 2022)

 

Bobbe Lithographic Company,

Post Cards of Southern Nevada.

“Three trains is a Crowd”

Delayed in Caliente, Nevada on September 3, 1915, by a train wreck, William spent time at John Shier’s Drug Store located just up the street from the train depot.

He bought several post cards of Caliente published by Shier.

On one card William wrote a friend in Massachusetts “held here on account of a washout.”   He dropped his post card at the Caliente Post Office.

William then headed back to the depot to get a status report on his train which was headed to California.

He found out the wreck occurred halfway between Caliente and Las Vegas.

William wrote “we are tied up here today. We have been here since two o‘clock last night and this is in the afternoon.  The train ahead of us went into the ditch.  We don’t known when we will go.  But I suppose tonight three trains here so you know it’s a crowd.”

William, the pessimist, dated his post card 9-4-15.   He deposited his post card at the Caliente railroad depot.   Soon after he mailed his card the train left the station heading to Los Angeles.   William’s post card is postmarked Ogden & Los Angles R.P.O. TR 2 Sept. 3, 1915.

The first post card, the one he dropped off at the post office, did not make it on the train until the next day.  It is postmarked “Caliente, Nev. Sep 4, 1915.”

When the delayed trains, heading south, made it to the spot of the wreckage, a newspaper reported “the passengers beheld a locomotive almost buried in the sand.  It had left the track when it hit the washout, but the passenger train behind it was not wrecked.”[i]

While the backs of the post cards William in Caliente bought are the same used by the Bobbe Litho Company of New York, there is no credit line on the back other than “Pub. by John Shier –K. 1318.”

In addition to the back design, the type of font used for the caption, Bobbe also used the letter K to identify its post cards.

The color printing process is the same one used by Bobbe.  For example see Bobbe Litho K430 Caliente.

It is likely the post cards at Shier’s drug store had been on the rack for several years, and it is also likely they were printed by Bobbe’s  former  partner M. S. Kraus.

  The Bobbe Lithographic Company’s connection to Nevada

The Bobbe Litho Company connection to Nevada started five years earlier when it announced plans to begin selling post cards directly to retailers. [ii]

In addition to Shier in Caliente, a retailer in Las Vegas responded to Bobbe’s news business plan.   Both retailers would order post cards that would mark key historic event.

Note, this post card from Bobbe Litho and printed for the Wilson Drug Company of Las Vegas used an Albertype post card Wilson had published earlier.  Bobbe Litho not only copied the image, the company simply used the Albertype post card, including the original caption.

What Bobbe Litho did block out, just to the left of the tracks in the left-hand corner is where the Wilson Drug Company credit line was found on the Albertype post cards.

It is clear where the credit line was blocked out when you compare the two post cards.

In Caliente it was drug store owner Shier who sent in an order.  He soon received the shipment of post cards, despite limited communication with the outside world.

Caliente was one of the main Nevada stations on the San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake Railroad, now the Union Pacific, that ran between California and Utah.

A massive storm hit southern Nevada on New Year’s Eve, 1909, knocking out more than 100 miles of the railroad with Caliente almost in the middle.  It took nearly six months to completely re-open the rail line.

Mail and supplies were brought in by wagon from Pioche, twenty-five miles north of Caliente.

Shier was clearly one of the first to order printed post cards of the event.  He used Bobbe as he received his post cards in early April, 1910.  The earliest known Bobbe card post mark Caliente, April 27, 1910 a month before the rail line reopened.

When the railroad line reopened in mid-June 1910, John Shier’s drug store had a ready supply of storm related post cards.

It was Bobbe’s March announcement that caught Shier’s attention.  The price was right and he didn’t have to order thousands of post cards. He also he knew there would be a demand for post cards once the rail line reopened.

Up to that date Bobbe Litho, which both manufactured and imported post cards, primarily sold only to wholesalers.[iii]

Bobbe’s move was the result of action by the Federal Government.

With the approval by the President and the U.S. Congress of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909, the U.S. post card industry was looking at an uncertain future.

In late 1909 Bobbe was looking for a new revenue stream.

With his partner and longtime friend, Maurice Albert Kraus, they made a decision and sent out an press release to a target audience; drug stores.

Several trade magazines including The Pharmaceutical Era, the American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record, and the Canadian Druggist printed the announcement.

The company’s press release modestly described itself as making “a bold move…best explained in the words of S. Bobbe, the well-known lithographer, whose plants in American and Holland are world renowned.”

Before the new tariff on post cards from Europe wholesalers around United States had stocked up on post cards.   Wholesale prices dropped, and Bobbe said the situation was “very sad indeed.”

To this point in time Bobbe said he had kept his companies post card work quiet; “We have sunk our identity for many years” by “printing other names on them as publishers.” [iv]

Now he said the post card part of his company was going public with a new sales plan; “we find that our post card business is best conserved by direct contact with the retailer.”

Bobbe’s enticement to the small shop owners was financial.  The company announcement, said it was sending out a catalogue with prices so “low as to give the dealer the benefit of the jobbers’ profits and the salesman’s commissions.” [v]

Not only would be wholesale price be attractive, Bobbe said his company had “perfected a glazed view which our foreign house formerly made and we now make them equally.”

Bobbe went on to compare his cards to the ‘real photo’ post cards.  He said his post cards have “a photo finish that far excels many of the photographic views cards that are sold throughout the country.” [vi]

Bobbe’s announcements included another inducement for small retailers, he sell his postcards “in lots of 500” and would “deliver views in two weeks’ time.” [vii]

Two southern Nevada drug stores, one in Las Vegas and Shier’s in Caliente  responded to the offer.

           Bobbe and Kraus knew each other                  for more than 30 years

In addition to being his partner and friend, M. Albert Kraus was Bobbe’s naturalization sponsor. [viii]

Bobbe arrived in the United States from England in September of 1876.  He was sixteen.

On October 15, 1885 he became a citizen of the United States.   A year later he listed his occupation as “bookbinder.”[ix]

By 1910, Bobbe had become one of Kraus’ partners, along with Simon Goodman in the Kraus Manufacturing Company, a printing house in New York.[x]

Despite orders from Caliente and Las Vegas as well as responses from retailers around the country, including Lake Tahoe, this was Bobbe last known post card effort.

Kraus Continues on in the Post Card world

 

Kraus Post Card for Broadway show “Mutt & Jeff”  1911-1912. Has Kraus back, not Bobbe.

Kraus on the other hand, using the same back found on the Bobbe post cards, would print at least one Nevada post card, and would go on to create post cards for both silent film stars and Broadway shows.  Kraus’ credit line would often appear on the backs of his post cards he created.

“The Lilac Domino” opened on Broadway October 28, 1914.  Post card published by Kraus, with Bobbe back.

 

 Caliente, John Shier  Las Vegas, Warren Wilson

Shier and Warren Wilson of Las Vegas, owned and operated the major stores in southern Nevada.

Shier had been a drug store owner and operator in the south-east part of Nevada for several decades..

Starting in Pioche in 1880 he opened “Shier’s Hesperian Drug Store.”[xi]  By 1894 he had moved to De Lamar, Nevada and had set up shop as a “pharmacist.”  His new operation was called the “Prescription Drug Store.”

In 2012, a 5 1/8 inch tall bottle from his De Lamar drug store sold for $1,000. [xii]

When the railroad was built between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles the town of Calientes, with an “s” was created.  As De Lamar would soon turn unto a ghost town Shier opened the Caliente Drug Store.

Front page advertisement in July 27, 1906 issue of

The Pioche Weekly Record

Shier, originally from Ringwood, Hampshire, England was 62-years-old when he ordered post cards from Bobbe in 1910.

A few months after receiving is post cards from Bobbe, Shier announced his plans to run for the Nevada Assembly representing Lincoln County.[xiii]  Two decades earlier he had served in the Nevada Legislature.

Late in 1910, after the rail line had been restored Shier, and Charles Squires, publisher of the Las Vegas Age newspaper were named in to the Platform Committee, of the Nevada State Republican Party.[xiv]

Not likely the two men discussed Bobbe post cards.  Although, Squires did use Bobbe post cards to promote his campaign for the Nevada Legislature representing Clark County.

The Squires state senate campaign mailers are the first known use of post cards in a Las Vegas election.

Both Shier and Squires made it to the November general election.  Both lost.

Wilson Drug Store – Las Vegas

In Las Vegas, Warren Wilson had just turned 22 years old when he moved to Nevada in 1906. [xv]

He would soon become part owner and managed the only drug store in Clark County new county seat, Las Vegas. [xvi]

Wilson’s drug store was located on the first floor of the building located on the North West corner of First and Fremont Street.

Wilson Drug Store  Las Vegas.  Albertype Post Card     ca. 1910

It is likely Wilson ordered post cards from Bobbe Litho early in 1907.

Two post cards, without captions, and only with the credit line “Pub. by Wilson Drug Co.” were printed in 1907.

While Bobbe Litho’s name does not appear on the post card, the printing company is identified by the back design as the one the printing company used.

It would be several years before Wilson used Bobbe Litho again, and based on images and post cards, it appears the New York City company likely printed the first and last post cards for Wilson

While Wilson used several post card publishers while he operated the drug store, his company of choice was Albertype of Brooklyn, New York.  He used Albertype starting 1907, as did his processor.

Wilson was sick most of 1910 and was either in the hospital or at home recovering.

In mid-March of 1910, the news hit; “New Drug Store.”  The newspaper reported “Las Vegas is to have another business house on Fremont Street.  The name of the new enterprise is the Las Vegas Drug Company.  The store will be neatly fitted up and will be ready for business within the coming week.  In addition to drugs the concern will carry a stock of optical goods and jewelry.”[xvii]

The store, which specialized in “eye glasses, eyes examined, glasses made and repaired,” also started selling real photo post cards of southern Nevada.[xviii]

Within days of the new drug store opening, Wilson became “quite ill” and was “confined to his house”[xix]     After being “confined to the house by illness for over a week,” Wilson was sent to Los Angeles, and “will stay in the southland some time for recuperation.”   Neither Las Vegas newspaper, while reporting on the Wilson’s illness many times, every mentioned the exact nature of his illness.

At the end of April 1910 the Age reported that Wilson, after being confined to a “California hospital for several days, he is now able to be out.”[xx]

Several weeks later, Wilson after a “sojourn of several weeks returns much improved in his health, and is once more attending to business at the drug store.”[xxi]

It is during this period Wilson probably ordered as many as ten different views of Las Vegas from Bobbe.

Whatever was causing Wilson’s ill health, it hit again 60 days later.  The public was informed at the end of July their primary pharmacist “has been ill for a week past, went to Los Angeles. It is hoped that the change of climate and rest from business will soon restore him to health.”[xxii]

He returned a month later, “much improved in health and spirit from his sojourn in Los Angeles.”[xxiii]

Wilson’s “spirit” did not last long. Less than 30 days later he called it quits.  His mysterious malady was given for his departure.  One report said that “Mr. Wilson has been in ill health for the past year, and on this account felt the need of a change, and will take a much needed rest on the coast.”  The headline to the story simply said Wilson “Disposes of Drug Business.”[xxiv]

Within weeks, the new owner and a new name for the business was announced.  “E.S. Wharton, of Rhyolite has purchased the interest of W. B. Wilson in the Wilson Drug Company and will assume the management of the business.  He has a large stock of goods at Rhyolite which will be moved here and combined with the stock of the local store.”[xxv]

The Wilson Drug Store became the Wharton Drug Store.  Like Wilson, Wharton  ordered his Las Vegas post cards from Albertype.  However, Wharton never placed an order with Bobbe.

Bobbe Nevada Post Cards 1910-1911

The Bobbe post cards were likely produced over a one year period beginning in the spring of 1910. The dates of printing and likely re-orders, are based on Bobbe’s announcement, postmarks and the images and titles of the Nevada post cards.

It is possible that Shier placed an order for a panoramic view of Caliente in 1914.   A post card with a Bobbe Shier back, with only a “Pub by John Shier –K1318” is known to exist with the title “Birdseye View of Caliente, Nevada.”

Known Postmarks.

  • Caliente, Nevada, April 27, 1910.
  • Caliente, Nevada, June 20, 1910.
  • Caliente, Nevada, July 12, 1910.
  • Las Vegas, Nevada August 30, 1910 A.M.
  • Los Angeles, California, September 10, 1910
  • Caliente, November 6, 1910.
  • Las Vegas, Nevada, November 11, 1910.
  • Las Vegas, Nevada, February 16, 1911.
  • Caliente, March 1, 1911
  • Caliente, Nevada, April 11, 1911.
  • Caliente, May 10, 1911.
  • Las Vegas, November 11, 1910.
  • Caliente, Nevada, June 26, 1911.
  • Las Vegas, Nevada, June 29, 1911 A.M.
  • Las Vegas, July 6, 1911.
  • Las Vegas, Nevada, August 3, 1911
  • Las Vegas, September 21, 1911.
  • Las Vegas, October 2, 1911.
  • Las Vegas, December 16, 1911.
  • Caliente, July 1, 1914.
  • L. City & Los Angeles, TR 2 R.P.O. June 30, 1914
  • Caliente, Nevada, August 5, 1915.
  • Caliente, Nevada, August 20, 1915
  • Ogden & Los Angeles, R.P.O, September 3, 1915
  • Caliente, Nevada, September 4, 1915.

 

 

Bobbe Post Card Backs

There are two known Bobbe backs on Calientes and Las Vegas post cards.

Bobbe Litho  Back  Version One

 

Bobbe Litho Back  Version Two

Check List of known Bobbe Litho Nevada Post Cards

Caliente

Series 86,  Also reissued as Series 140

This is a vertical card with three views damaged railroad tracks from the storm of 1910. Each of the three images has its own title.

  • There are two horizontal views on the face of the card and one vertical view.
  • Horizontal “Caliente, Nev.”  Shows twisted railroad tracks.
  • Vertical view “Two Miles above Caliente.” Shows more twisted tracks.
  • Horizontal “One & One Half Miles above Caliente.” Shows washed out track and trestle
  • No publisher listed. Earliest known postmark is Caliente, April 27, 1910.
  • This same view was produced under Bobbe’s Series 140. Version 2 of the back was used.   Possibly a re-order of a popular post card.

 

 

 

Series 95

Title is “MAIN STREET, CALIENTE, NEV.”

  • This is a black and white view look south from the west side of the tracks towards the business section of town and the depot.
  • Earliest known postmark is June 12, 1910. Published for John Shier.

 

 

Series 148

A multi view post card of Caliente.  Each view has a title within the image.

  • “FRONT VIEW OF COMPANY HOUSES, CALIENTE, NEV.”
  • “SAW MILL CANYON, HIGH BRIDGE EAST OF BIG SPRINGS ELEVEN MILES EAST OF CALIENTE”
  • “BRIDGE (TURNED OVER) 20 MILES WEST OF CALIENTE”
  • The images on the post card appear on post cards printed earlier by other publishers..

 

Series K.205

Title, “Caliente, Nevada, 1910”

  • This post card was issued with three different Bobbe Litho numbers,
    • 205
    • 238
    • 1042
    • All three have the same back.
  • All three post cards were “Pub. By Bobbe Litho Co., New York City for John Shier.”
  • Shier’s name is misspelled ‘Ghier’ on the first issue, K.205.
  • On the last print run, K.1042 a small water pond lower right has been colored in.

 

Series K 430

This card, is titled “Caliente, Nevada.”

  • The view shows the town and mountains in the distance from an almost ‘birds-eye’ view.
  • A light green color was added to the sky, a brown to the desert and a dark grey to the town.
  • “Pub. By Bobbe Litho Co., N.Y. for John Shier”

 

 

Series K 1296

  1. A vertical post card with two images of Caliente.
  • Each image has its own title; “Main St. Caliente, Nev.,” and “Depot, Caliente, Nev.” and “Round House,” and “Across the track, Caliente, Nevada
  • Published for “John Shier” by Bobbe.
  1. A vertical post card with two images of Caliente.
  • Each image has its own title; MAIN ST. CALIENTE, NEV.,” and ‘DEPOT, CALIENTE NEV.” However, the second view shows seven men standing at the front of a steam engine number 19.

 Bobbe backs, but no Bobbe credit line.

One has the credit line “Pub. By Kraus Mfg. Co., N.Y.” the other card with the same back has a credit line “Pub. By John Shier- K1318.”

Based on the backs, the “K” number, it is likely that Kraus purchased Bobbe sometime between 1911 and 1914.

 K 1318

  1. This is a color post card titled “Birdseye view of Caliente, Nevada.”
  • The colors are identical to those found in K430 “Caliente, Nevada.”
  • Published by John Shier
  • Earliest postmark is July 1, 1914.

No number.   Kraus Mfg. Company.

  1. The title is “Caliente, Nevada.”
  • This post card has the credit line “Pub. By Kraus Mfg. Co., N. Y.”
  • This is a view of the business district next to the tracks on the depot side of the railroad.
  • The earliest known postmark is December 14, 1916.
  • The post card has an early Bobbe Litho post card back.

 

Check List of Bobbe Las Vegas

Post Cards

Series 140

Another post card printed by Bobbe  records  an important moment in Las Vegas’ history.   

In 1910, Charles P. Squires, who owned and operated the Las Vegas Age, one of communities two weekly newspapers campaigned for the office of State Senator representing Clark County.

In February of 199, the Las Vegas Review-Journal published a series of articles on historic Las Vegas figures.   The late journalist K.J. Evans wrote, “If there is any individual who deserves the title “The Father of Las Vegas,” it is Charles Pember Squires, a native of Austin, Minn., who spent more than 50 years here, building, boosting and ballyhooing his city. Fellow citizens who knew him during that time in Las Vegas greeted him with the sobriquet of “Pop,” and his wife, Delphine, as “Mom.”[xxvi]

As part of his 1910 campaign, Squires sent out post cards in the primary election seeking the Republican nomination.

He used a Series 140 post card from Bobbe Lithographic Company titled “Views at Las Vegas, Nev.”.

The multi view has three images, the Salt Lake Route railroad depot, Fremont Street looking west, and an image of the First State Bank.

On the back of the card, most mailed in August, before the September primary, Squires printed “Dear Sir:  I am asking the republicans for the nomination for State Senator.  I believe I am the man you want.  If you think so too, your vote at the primaries will be appreciated as a personal favor.  I have the interests of the County deeply at heart, as you may know through my paper, The Las Vegas Age, and will esteem it a high honor to represent you.   Yours Very truly, Chas. P. Squires.”

The card was addressed “Dear Sir,” as women were not allowed to vote in 1910.

Other Bobbe Series 140 Las Vegas Post Cards.

The 140 Series use a Bobbe Litho post card back, and series number, but Bobbe does not have a credit line on the back, only “Pub. by Wilson Drug Co., Las Vegas, Nevada.”

Title

  1. “VIEWS OF LAS VEGAS NEV.” In a small triangle in the center of the post card.

This post card has three untitled views on the face of the card.

  • The First State Bank building.
  • The railroad depot
  • Fremont Street look west from Second Street.

Earliest known postmark, Apr. 30, 1910.

  1. “DESERT SCENES LAS VEGAS, NEV.” In a small triangle in the center of the post card.

There are three views on the face of this post card.

  • Two men on horses with three pack mules loaded with prospecting Equipment.  The Newman Post printed this same view for Wilson Card Company, card 2, titled “On the Desert, Las Vegas, Nevada.”
  • A view of two dozen burros, near a creek, with Sunrise Mountain in the background. The same view was printed for Wilson by the Albertype Company of New York, and titled, “Burros, Stewart Ranch, Las Vegas, Nevada.”
  • This is a view of seven burros with backpacks, with what looks like Frenchman’s Mountain in the background. Earliest known postmark is September 10, 1910- Los Angeles, California.
  1. “CHURCHES, LAS VEGAS, NEV.”

This post card has the separate views of the two churches in Las Vegas in 1910-1911.

Earliest known postmark is July 6, 1911 – Las Vegas.

  1. “CATHOLIC CHAPEL, LAS VEGAS, NEV.”

Earliest known postmark Feb 16, 1911- Las Vegas.

  1. “SALT LAKE DEPT. LAS VEGAS, NEVADA.”

Note, different font used for title, and Nevada not abbreviated.

Series 166 and Series 1004

Both the Series 166 and 1004 have credit lines “Pub by Bobbe Litho. Co., New York City,” and “For Wilson Drug Co.” on the back.

  1. “CATERPILLAR OF NEVADA,” SANDSTONE CO., LAS VEGAS, NEV.

Earliest known postmark is November 11, 1910- Las Vegas.

 Series 1004

  1. “SCENE ON CLARK & RONNOW RANCH. LAS VEGAS, NEV.”
  2. “FIELD ON CLARK & RONNOW RANCH. LAS VEGAS, NEV.”

Earliest known post mark is October, 1920-Las Vegas.

The Clark & Ronnow Ranch were front page news in April of 1910.   The Las Vegas Age reported on April 30 in a story titled “Paradise Valley,”  “Where less than two ears ago was only the gray of the desert may now be seen…little bunches of greenery.”   the story went on to say there were “several acres of sugar cane,” as well as corn, and barley” and Clark and Ronnow said “we have 480 acres of land…of this we will probably have 120 acres under cultivation by the end of the season.”  The story ended with the note the Clark and Ronnow Ranch provides an example of why “it is little wonder that the Vegas valley is receiving much attention.”                                     It is possible the story and the publishing of the post cards of the ranch was part of a marketing effort to sell land in Las Vegas.

How many post cards of southern Nevada were produced by Bobbe-Kraus?

It is likely the Bobbe Lithographic Company of New York City, New York printed more than twenty different card images of southern Nevada in 1910.

There are nine known Bobbe cards of Caliente, and 8 of Las Vegas.  Included in the known total of seventeen post cards are 9 multi view cards.  There are a total of eighteen views on the 9 multi view cards.

It is possible the images on the multi view cards were also produced as individual view cards.

For example an untitled three image multi view card of the 1910 New Year’s track washout in Meadows Valley contains three titled views; A card titled “Caliente, Nev” that shows only twisted railroad tracks, a view titled “Two Miles Above Caliente,” that shows more twisted railroad tracks, and a third view titled “One & One Half Miles Above Caliente,” that shows track and a washed out trestle.

On the other hand three image multi-view cards tilted “VIEWS OF LAS VEGAS, NEV.” Shows views that had already been released as individual cards by other post cards producers.

No Bobbe post cards from other parts of Nevada have been uncovered.  There are known Bobbe post cards from the California side of Lake Tahoe.

 

Footnotes

[i] “Marooned Artists Give Charity Show,” September 6, 1915, The Salt Lake Tribune, page 8.

[ii] “Bobbe Litho Co. to Sell Director to Dealers,” March 1910, “The Pharmaceutical Era, magazine, New York, Page 292.

[iii] “Bobbe Litho Co. to Sell Director to Dealers,” March 1910, “The Pharmaceutical Era, magazine, New York, Page 292.

[iv] “Direct to the Retailer,” March 1910, The Canadian Druggist magazine, Toronto, Canada, Page 175. “The Retailer Gets the Bottom Line,” June 27, 1910, American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record, Page A 24.

[v] “Bobbe Litho Co. to Sell Director to Dealers,” March 1910, “The Pharmaceutical Era, magazine, New York, Page 292.

[vi] “Direct to the Retailer,” March 1910, The Canadian Druggist magazine, Toronto, Canada, Page 175. “The Retailer Gets the Bottom Line,” June 27, 1910, American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record, Page A 24.

[vii] “Bobbe Litho Co. to Sell Director to Dealers,” March 1910, “The Pharmaceutical Era, magazine, New York, Page 292.

[viii] “Co-partnership and Corporation Directory of the City of New York,” March 1910, Trow Directory, Printing & Bookbinding Company, New York, Page 93.

[ix]  “Throw’s New York City Directory,” May 1, 1886, The Grow City Directory Company, New York, Page 167. “Petitions for Naturalization” New York City,  Samuel Bobbe, Records of the District Court, 1685-2009, Record group Number, RG21.

[x] “Co-partnership and Corporation Directory of City of New York, March 1910, Trow directory, Printing & Bookbinding Company, New York, Page 449.

[xi] Display advertisement for Shier’s Hesperian Drug Store, June 21, 1890, The Pioche, Nevada Record, page 4.

[xii] http://www.icollector.com/John-Shier-Bottle-NV-Delamar-Lincoln-County-c1894-1903-2012aug-Nevada-Bottles_i13391032

[xiii]  “Political Announcement,” July 23, 1910, The Pioche Nevada Record, page 4.

[xiv]  “Republican Party stands United in Convention,” September 28, 2910, Reno Evening Gazette, page 2.

[xv] Las Vegas Age, November 11, 1906

[xvi]  “Thomas Block Leased, November 24, 1906, Las Vegas Age, page 1.

[xvii].  “New Drug Store,” March 18, 1910, page 1.

[xviii]. Clark County Review, June 11, 1910, page 6

[xix]. Clark County Review, April 16, 1910, page 6

[xx]. Las Vegas Age, April 30, 1910, page 5.

[xxi]. Clark County Review, May 21, 1910, page 6

[xxii]. Las Vegas Age, July 32, 1910, page 5

[xxiv].. “Disposes of Drug Business,” January 21, 1911, Las Vegas Age, page one..

[xxv].   “Local Notes,” March 11, 1911, Las Vegas Age, page 5.

[xxvi] https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/c-p-squires/

 

Who was AP, the pre World War Two California photographer who created several series of Nevada post cards?

The California Photographer who is listed twice in the 1940 U.S. Census in different cities.  And who produced real photo postcards of Nevada.  Who is A.P.?

(Answer, Asher Photo's not Associated Press!)

by Robert Stoldal

(Updated  October 25, 2021)

In the late 1930’s, a California photographer who used the initials AP to identify his work, produced a series of post cards of Nevada towns along U.S. highways 40 and 50.

No name, just an A and a P attached to each other was the only clue as to who the photographer was.

Who was AP?

Continue reading “Who was AP, the pre World War Two California photographer who created several series of Nevada post cards?”

Chapter Two.   Northern Hotel and Bar. Raids, Illegal gambling and alcohol.

In late 2017 the site of what is arguably one of the most historic gambling site fell into the deep hole of ‘Who Cares?’  Add to that, what history is available, is often buried in the fact-fantasy land of the internet.

Yet with names like the Stockers, the Stearns, and Siegel, the Northern Hotel Bar and Club in downtown Las Vegas has a fact based history that will surprise most.  That includes the role the owners had in legalizing gambling in Nevada.

At this point there appears to be no effort on the part of todays’ operators of the property, or the Fremont Street Experience, or the City of Las Vegas to let locals and visitors know of the important and colorful history of this site and the rest of Fremont Street.  (April 3, 2018 I’ve been quietly told, this will change.  The when and how is still a question.  But, at least the discussion has begun.  Will stay on top of it.)

From the day the Northern Hotel and Bar opened in 1912 until he fled town, Lon Groesbeck operated both floors of the building.  His energy was focused on money making possibilities of the first floor, alcohol and gambling.

Six years later, after Nevada and Clark county voters, in 1918 overwhelmingly  approved legislation outlawing the sale of liquor, the future for Groesbeck, whose health was already failing, turned from clouded to clearly dark.

But when the Northern opened, like Las Vegas in 1912, it a welcome oasis on the northern edge of the Mojave Desert.

Las Vegas is also about half way between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City which, with the abundant of water at the time, made it an ideal place for a railroad to build a massive maintenance plant. 

Las Vegas, 1912, Author’s collection

 And with the plant hundreds of men came to Las Vegas, most of them single.

Despite the 1910 statewide ban on gambling, Las Vegas with its red light district-Block 16, (the east side of the 200 block of North First Street.) was at best a controlled “wide open town.”

After operating both floors for two years, in the late fall of 1914, Groesbeck transferred his “saloon license” to Fred Van Deventer.”

Details limited other than the transfer was approved by the Las Vegas City Commission. [i]

Then, not long after the town celebrated its tenth birthday there was a call to clean up the town both literally and morally.

In May of 1916, Clark County District Court Judge Charles Lee Horsey convened a grand jury with specific instructions to look into vice and law enforcement in Las Vegas. Arthur Jerry Stebenne

Judge Horsey would later become a Justice of the Nevada Supreme Court.

At the end of June, the grand jury issued its report.  “Upon the subject of gambling” the report said “the neglect of duty on the part of peace officers, we have found for a long time past, illegal gambling has been openly conducted, with the knowledge of the peace officers who have made no effort to prevent the offense.”[ii]

And in regard to the sale of alcohol, still legal in 1916, the jury’s “Committee on Public Morales,” wrote, “We find upon investigation that for the years 1915 and 1916, 85%of the indigents were made such directly through indulgence in liquor and gambling.” [iii]

And, the grand jury did not stop at gambling and alcohol telling the judge “it is apparent that there are cases of illicit cohabitation in Clark County, particularly in Las Vegas and stringent laws should be enacted over this disgusting offense against public decency.”  [iv]

The grand jury also handed down eight indictments for violations of the gambling laws.

Among those indicted was Groesbeck. He was charged with conducting an illegal casino operation at the Northern.[v]

Groesbeck was specifically charged with taking a percent, a “rake-off” for setting up tables where men could play poker for money.

Groesbeck and his crew, which included early versions of “pit bosses,” ran the games.

Nevada state law at the time allowed people could gamble at poker, but did not allow the house to take a piece of the action.

A poker game at the Northern.  The tables were all line up on the west side of the club, with the bar running north and south on the east side of the building.

Three months after he was busted Groesbeck was found guilty of allowing gambling at the Northern.  The case, at the time, was described as under the new law the “first successfully prosecuted case against illegal gambling in Nevada.”

Clark County District Attorney, A. S. Henderson, in his colorful closing arguments compared Groesbeck to a spider; “When once a man is in its clutches it suck out his life blood.  Like a spider, he grabs the fly and sucks the living blood out of him and leaves him to suffer the torments of hell.  That’s what the gambler does, sucks the living blood until the man is fleeced of everything. [vi]

After Groesbeck was found guilty, the other defendants all pleaded guilty.

The next month, Judge Horsey sentences all six to one to five years in the state penitentiary in Carson City. But, with overall public opinion running against the “actual imprisonment of the offenders,” to the surprise of few the judge suspended sentence of each of the gamblers. [vii]

As far as Groesbeck, the Judge said, “I do not say, I have no sympathy for the defendant.  I say, I have no sympathy for his business of far as his business relates to gambling.  If I had the power” there “would not be any gambling in Clark county or anywhere else.”[viii]

With sale of liquor still legal Groesbeck went back to running the Northern Hotel and Bar for both men and for a while, for women.

The Northern catered only to men in the bar and the poker tables.  In an effort to expand business “Six ‘wine rooms’ were established in the rear which ladies could patronize through a ‘family entrance’ off the alley.” [ix]

(We have been unable to find a photograph of women in the wine room or an image of the ‘family entrance’ to the Northern.)

A year after Groesbeck’s bust for gambling, he was in financial trouble.

In October of 1917, Liddie Groesbeck, his wife, (who lived in Salt Lake City) borrowed $2,800 from Fred T. Van Derventer, aka Fred Van Deventer.[x]

She agreed on October 17, 1917 to pay off the loan in fourteen equal payments of $200.

To “secure payment,” Mrs. Groesbeck put up “all the furniture, bedding, rugs, carpets and utensils of every description now in or about the second story of the building known as the Northern Hotel situate on Fremont Street between Main and First Streets,” also “the safe, desk, cash register and tables and chairs on the first floor.” [xi]

The loan document is signed only by “Mrs. Liddie Groesbeck” and says she “hereby acknowledge myself to be indebted.” [xii]

Ten days later, a notice appeared in the newspaper, “Fred VanDeventer has sold his interest in the Northern Hotel to Lon Groesbeck.”[xiii]

The changes at the Northern appear to be in preparation for the Salt Lake Brewing Company selling the land and the building.

Looking for a buyer in the middle of the winter of 1917, the company didn’t have to go far.

Fred and Nellie Cullen Leonard, who owned several business in Utah, would become the short term owners.

Leonard, in 1912,  was the brewing company’s key representative in Las Vegas.  He negotiated the deal for the brewing company to buy lot 27 in Block 3.

In addition to beverage, candy and hotel operations the the Leonard’s  owned the Cullen Investment Company of Salt Lake City which became the new official owner of record of the Northen. [xiv]

Initially, the Leonard’s kept their friend Groesbeck on as manager of the property.  That would soon change.

At its first meeting in 1918, Groesbeck asked the Las Vegas City Commission to transfer the “retail liquor permit” back to him from Fred Van Deventer.  The request was approved. [xv]

Groesbeck resumed control of both floors of the Northern.

Weeks later, Van Deventer moved to Long Beach with his family.  Instead of opening a bar, Van Deventer was reported “doing his bit” for the war effort in a “shipbuilding plant.” [xvi]

The last half of 1918 was a challenging for Las Vegas and its’ residents and would begin Groesbeck end.

Las Vegas ca. 1912, looking west from First and Fremont Streets.  Author’s collection. The Northern is seen on the left side half way up the street with the extension from the top of the second floor.

Hit hard by the flu that killed millions around the world, dozens died in Las Vegas.

Many of the community’s young men had been drafted and were in France fighting in World War One.

And in November, the issue of banning the sale of alcohol was on the ballot.

In Las Vegas the question of whether to elect a sheriff who would enforce any such ban, or one whose record as sheriff was soft on the saloon crowd was also on the ballot.

As campaigning started, the flu epidemic hit Las Vegas.

By the time it was over the epidemic became a pandemic, killing millions of people around the world.   More than fifty deaths were recorded in the small community of Las Vegas with an estimated population of less than 25-hundred.

Business was bad, travelers stayed on trains that were passing through Las Vegas, school were closed, sick people were confined to their homes, political rallies cancelled.

For the most part, local newspapers reported the 1918 election was quiet.

The most noise came from the ‘wet’s and the ‘dry’s battling over the question of banning the ‘booze.’

Post card cartoons of the day carried the message.

 When the votes were counted in Las Vegas, Clark County, and the state, 22,308 people voted on the prohibition initiative.

Statewide 59% of the voters cast their ballots in favor of the statewide ban.

In Clark County the ‘drys’ whipped the ‘wets’ by a 69% to 31% margin.  In Las Vegas the vote was similar, 63% in favor of the ban to 37% against.

On the flip side, voters elected former sheriff Sam Gay, a former bouncer in the red light district, who had been forced out of office earlier.

For a few days after the election and into the New Year it was still easy to get a drink at the Northern and other saloons, but slowly liquor went under the bar and into the back room.

Saloons along bock 16 began closing their doors and reopening as soft drink parlors. But there was little trouble in securing liquor.

Saloons were located along Block 16 with the two-story Arizona Club leading the pack.                           Author’s collection.

The hotel “bars” along Fremont Street were, less public about their illegal offerings.

Sheriff Gay, recalled, once “the church folks got busy and voted” for the ban, “me being Sheriff, had to dry the town up.  So I sent around word to all the barkeeps to close or start selling buttermilk.  And all but one did.  I had to go in and help drunk up what he had left.”[xvii]

 The Sheriff also took out an ad on the front page of one of the local newspapers;  “I am going to enforce the prohibition law to the letter,” starting on January 6, 1919.[xviii]

He added a warning, “Mr. Bootlegger this is your first and last notice from me.  Your next notice will be a warrant of arrest.” [xix]

Six weeks later, Sheriff Gay would make his first arrest under the new law.

But, it was not a local person.   The suspect, A. P. Chamberlin, had just driven into town from Utah and got a room at the Northern.

The Sheriff went to Chamberlin room in hotel, found several bottles of bonded whiskey and arrested the out-of-towner.

 

Chamberlin was found guilty on February 26 and sentence to 90 days in jail and fined $125 and court costs and left town.

Through the rest of 1919, the saloons, said Sheriff Gay,  “The town was dry for a year” he said “there was “no bootlegging then.” ”[xx]

While there were no desert stills, not yet, the Sheriff said  the liquor that was sold came secret stashes left over from before the Nevada ban,as well as alcohol brought in from states where it was legal.

While the sheriff thought the town was ‘dry’ most would have described it if not ‘wet, a least very ‘damp.’

Reflecting on 1919, the Las Vegas Age reported, there were people “who have been almost openly, and notoriously selling whiskey in this city.” [xxi]

When the next bootlegging arrest was made, it was the district attorney, not the sheriff who filed the charges.

On the evening of Friday, January 2, 1920, Clark County D. A.  Arthur Jerome Stebenne led a raid on the Northern to find the “King of the Bootleggers.”

Unable to find Sheriff Gay, the Stebenne secured the services of a deputy sheriff and the Las Vegas Constable.

Arriving at the Northern they found Sheriff Gay was already there.  The D.A. “demanded” Gay participate in the raid.  [xxii]

The four law enforcement officers found Groesbeck in bed in a back room of the first floor. [xxiii]

A half empty bottom of whiskey was in plain sight.   Groesbeck, according to published reports, pointing to the bottle, told the four lawmen, “There is all I have, you can use that against men if you want to.” [xxiv]

But the D.A. said he had information that there was more whiskey. 

At which point, Groesbeck got out of bed and opened a nearby trunk containing twenty-three pint bottles of McBrayer whiskey. [xxv] 

 

 

 

Las Vegas Age January 3, 1920, page one.

Calling Groesbeck the “King of Bootleggers” Squires wrote in the Age, “the illicit sale of whiskey has been going on in this city ever since the prohibition amendment went into effect.  Groesbeck has been suspected of being the chief violator of the law.  It has been common knowledge that whiskey could be secured there by paying the price.  Numerous cases of drunkenness have been traced to whiskey secured at the Northern.”[xxvi] 

A few days later, Groesbeck pleaded guilty to “the charge of having whiskey in his possession.  He was fined $400 and court costs of $22.50 and to serve three months in the county jail.  The judge suspended the sentence if Groesbeck paid the fine and left town.

Groesbeck paid the fine and quickly left town.

But the district attorney, working quickly, forced a change in the suspended sentence and ordered Groesbeck arrest.  In the few hours  between paying the fine and the district attorney getting the jail time reinstated, Groesbeck left for Utah. [xxvii]

At the end of year Las Vegas newspapers were reporting on Groesbeck death in Salt Lake City.  He was 62.

When Groesbeck fled town early in 1920, and with both alcohol and gambling illegal, it was the Cullen Investment Company turn to begin looking for someone to take over the Northern.

Groesbeck, before he left town, told authorities he had leased the gaming operations to James Germain.

At that moment, January, 1920, Germain aka German had another job, the official Las Vegas Enumerator for the 1920 U.S. Census.

At the end of January, 1920, he interviewed the Stocker family and filled out the census forms for the five members of the family.   [xxviii]

 

The five Stockers were Oscar the father and his wife Mayme, and their three sons, Lester, Clarence and Harold.

Oscar listed his occupation as a “brakeman” with the railroad, which would be the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, also known as the “Salt Lake Route.” [xxix]

When it came to Mayme “none” is listed under occupation. [xxx]   Under the 1920 Census guidelines given to German Rule 158 says, “in the case of a woman doing housework in her own home and having no other employment the entry should be “none.”

Both Clarence and Lester listed their “occupation” as “salesman” in a “cigar store.” [xxxi]

And, finally, Harold, like his father was employed at the rail yards.  He was listed as a “Machinist Helper.” [xxxii]

Before 1920 called it a day, the Stocker family would begin a nearly century long relationship with lot 27 of Block 3 of Las Vegas.

 Coming up, Chapter three.  The Stocker Era Begins.         ‘Three wild and crazy guys!” arrive in Las Vegas.

[i]  “City Board,” October 10, 1914, Las Vegas Age, Page two.

[ii] “Grand Jury Indicts Nine for Gambling,” June 10, 1916, Clark County Review, Pages one and three

[iii] “Grand Jury Indicts Nine for Gambling,” June 10, 1916, Clark County Review, Pages one and three

[iv] “Grand Jury Indicts Nine for Gambling,” June 10, 1916, Clark County Review, Pages one and three.

[v] Grand Jury Indicts Nine for Gambling,” June 10, 1916, Clark County Review, Pages one and three.

[vi] “First Gambling Case Results in Conviction,” September 30, 1916, Clark County Review, page one.

[vii] “First Gambling Case Results in Conviction,” September 30, 1916, Clark County Review, page one.

[viii] “First Gambling Case Results in Conviction,” September 30, 1916, Clark County Review, page one.

[ix] “Poker, Whist, Bridge Only Games Allowed in 1st Gambling Club,” May 16, 1948, Las Vegas Review-Journal & Age, Section B, Page four.

[x]  “Chattel Mortgage,” between Liddie Groesbeck, and Fred T. Van Derventer,” October 17, 1917, Clark County Recorder Office, Las Vegas, Nevada document 10829.

[xi]  “Chattel Mortgage,” between Liddie Groesbeck, and Fred T. Van Derventer,” October 17, 1917, Clark County Recorder Office, Las Vegas, Nevada document 10829.

[xii]  “Chattel Mortgage,” between Liddie Groesbeck, and Fred T. Van Derventer,” October 17, 1917, Clark County Recorder Office, Las Vegas, Nevada document 10829.

[xiii]  “Local Notes,” October 27, 1917, Las Vegas Age, page three

[xiv] “Groesbeck landed by Dist. Atty. Stebenne,” January 3, 1920, Las Vegas Age, Page 1.

[xv]  “Regular Meeting of City Commissioners,” January 5, 1918, Las Vegas Age, Page one.

[xvi]  “Local Notes,” May 18, 1918, Las Vegas Age, Page three.

[xvii] “The old west live, Las Vegas, A desert bloom,” 1930, Illustrated Daily News. Clipping, no page number.

[xviii] “Sheriff-elect gives notice and warning,” January, 1920, Las Vegas Age, Page 1.

[xix] “Sheriff-elect gives notice and warning,” January, 1920, Las Vegas Age, Page 1.

[xx] “The old west live, Las Vegas, A desert bloom,”  1930, Illustrated Daily News. Clipping, no page number.

[xxi] “Groesbeck landed by Dist. Atty. Stebenne,” January 3, 1920, Las Vegas Age, Page 1.

[xxii] “The ‘Northern’ In liquor raid,” January 3, 1920, Clark County Review, Page one.

[xxiii] “The ‘Northern’ In liquor raid,” January 3, 1920, Clark County Review, Page one.

[xxiv] “The ‘Northern’ In liquor raid,” January 3, 1920, Clark County Review, Page one.

[xxv] “The ‘Northern’ In liquor raid,” January 3, 1920, Clark County Review, Page one.

[xxvi] “Groesbeck Landed By District Atty. Stebenne,” January 3, 1920, Las Vegas Age, page one.

[xxvii] “Lon Groesbeck Flees From Jail Sentence,” January 10, 1920, Las Vegas Age, Page one.

[xxviii]  1920, United States Federal Census, Place, Las Vegas, Clark, Nevada, Roll: T625_1004; Page 23A; Enumeration District:3 .

[xxix]  1920, United States Federal Census, Place, Las Vegas, Clark, Nevada, Roll: T625_1004; Page 23A; Enumeration District:3 .

[xxx]  1920, United States Federal Census, Place, Las Vegas, Clark, Nevada, Roll:T625_1004;Page 23A; Enumeration District:3 .

[xxxi]  1920, United States Federal Census, Place, Las Vegas, Clark, Nevada, Roll:T625_1004;Page 23A; Enumeration District:3 .

[xxxii]  1920, United States Federal Census, Place, Las Vegas, Clark, Nevada, Roll:T625_1004;Page 23A; Enumeration District:3 .

Chapter Three. The Northern -To be Owned by the Stockers including 3 “wild and crazy guys” aka “My Three Sons”

                              Chapter Three.   

(updated April 3, 2018)

      The Northern -To be Owned by the Stockers….including 3 “wild and crazy guys” aka “My Three Sons!”

In 1903 the land where lot 27 of Block 3, of “Clark’s Las Vegas Townsite,” would be located was owned by pioneer, Helen J. Stewart.

That year she sold the land to U.S. Senator William A. Clark.  The Senator and the Union Pacific were building a railroad between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles.

The land then became jointly owned by Senator Clark and U.P.

In May of 1905, the railroad sold lot 27 of Block 3 in a land auction.    J. F. Dunn, Superintendent of the Oregon Short Line railroad, which is part of the Union Pacific system, bought the lot.

In turn the Salt Lake Brewing Company, in 1912, bought the lot from Dunn. The new owners built a two-story structure and named it the Northern Hotel and Bar.

The brewing company owned it for five years and then sold it to the Cullen Investment Company of Salt Lake City.

Cullen was owned by Fred and Nellie Leonard, who helped broker the original deal between the Dunn and the beer company.

Then on the 21st of October, 1921 Oscar C. Stocker bought the property.

Stocker paid $12,000 for the building and land.

In addition to the land and the building, the transfer deed also contained the language of the original railroad deed.   This would allow the owner to sale alcohol, if and when it became legal again.[i]

At the time, the 48-year-old Stocker was a brakeman on the Salt Lake Route railroad.

His wife was Mayme and they had three sons, Lester, Clarence and Harold.

A number of internet sites estimate $12,000 in 1921 is equal to more than $150,000 in 2018.

How Oscar was able to save up or where he got the money is still a question.

Lester had just gotten out of prison, Clarence had been working as a clerk in Los Angeles, and Harold said he had to take a job in 1919 in Las Vegas as a machinist; saying he needed money, “I had to eat.”

A simple mortgage arrangement with the Cullen Investment Company is possible, however, often those were part of the deed transfer.  In this case no mortgage is attached to the agreement.

While the sale was finalized in October of  1921, it is clear by late in 1920 members of the Stocker family were “proprietors” of the Northern.

From that point on, the Stockers would all play a significant role in the history of the Northern, Las Vegas, and the development of legal and illegal gambling for several decades.

Who were the Stockers?

Looking for every note that may turn into a nugget as to who and why the Stockers would turn out to be “colorful,” we found contradictions, interesting memories, and a series of facts that turned out to be fiction.

We start first with when the family arrived in Las Vegas.

That date is questioned by Stockers themselves.  It was either 1910 or 1911.

 

The heart of Las Vegas 1911 looking west from middle of 200 block of Fremont Street.

     Mayme Stocker said she and her family arrived in Las Vegas either late in 1911 or as her youngest son Harold, believes, 1910.

Harold would later be elected to the Clark County Commission.  His official biography on the county web site says “The Stocker family arrived in Las Vegas in October of 1911.”[ii]

Based on when the 1910 U.S. Census was taken, the Stocker family was in Los Angeles on April 16, that year. [iii]

In the census, Oscar is listed as a “switchman” on an unidentified railroad. Mayme, who listed her name on the census form as “Mamie V” did not list an occupation. [iv]

Her two oldest boys, 17 year old Lester Wellington Stocker, and 16 year old Clarence listed their occupation in 1910, as “messengers” for the “telegraph co.” [v]

Harold was listed as 8 years old and attending school.  Born on March 8, 1900, rather than 8, Harold would have been ten years old at the time.

Mrs. Stocker was 35-years-old when she said she arrived in Las Vegas for the first time.  She remembers it being May of 1911 and she was on her way to visit relatives in Butte, Montana.[vi]

She said, “I got off the train, along with a number of other passengers to see the town.  The heat together with an array of drab buildings and thick dust under foot, was not conducive to a good first impression.” [vii]

In the 1948 interview, Mrs. Stocker remembered said she told one of the other passengers at the time “Anyone who lives here is out of his mind.” [viii]

But, then she said, “I didn’t know then that I would return to Las Vegas before the year was out to make my home.” [ix]

Her husband Oscar worked for the Union Pacific railroad in Los Angeles.  Mrs. Stocker said her husband was transferred to Las Vegas late in 1911.  She added, “A few weeks following his arrival here, my three sons and I came to Las Vegas to live.”[x]

Harold Stocker was eighty-year-olds at the time of the interview and he remembered his family arrived in 1910.

Whether it was 1910 or late in1911 is important for a couple of reasons.   A labor dispute and school fire.

Las Vegas was the half way point between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City.   The railroad line, the Salt Late Route, as it was called, was owned the Union Pacific Railroad, and former U.S. Senator from Montana, William Andrews Clark.

In 1911, the railroad had just finished building a massive large maintenance plant and complex for its trains in Las Vegas.

At the same time the railroad was building the maintenance complex, it was also building a large dormitory for the expected floor of workers.  In addition, the railroad was also building more than sixty homes for men with families.

The homes, now known as the “Railroad Cottages,” were for the skilled craftsmen, like the senior Stocker.

Several of the cottages have been preserved.  They were moved from downtown Las Vegas to the Las Vegas Springs Preserve and to the Clark County Museum.

Post card from 1911 of the Railroad Cottages on south Third Street. 

 

If Stocker arrived in late 1911, he would have arrived in the middle of a labor dispute.  A strike for recognition of the railroad shop workers started at the end of September, 1911.[xi]

Did Stocker, a strong union man, arrive in Las Vegas in the middle of the 1911 labor dispute, or did he arrive a year earlier in 1910?

If he arrived in 1911, it would be at a moment where the community and the railroad were at odds, but hopeful the dispute would be short.

In a move that upset the town, the railroad kept all the non-striking workers within the yards, building a fence around the entire maintenance complex, including the railroad commissary.  The fences were topped with barb wire.

The men were housed and fed within the yards and were not allowed to go into town.

1911-1912.  The railroad put up the fence around the shops to keep people both in and out.            Author’s collection

   “Las Vegas was still very crude” when she arrived in 1911 Mrs. Stocker said, “there were no streets or sidewalks, and there were no flowers, lawns or trees.  One thing which impressed me was that all the homes were fenced.  Even the court house had a fence around it.” [xii]

As far as housing she and her three sons, “We stayed at the Las Vegas Hotel, the second story of the building now occupied by the Las Vegas Club, until the late Harley A. Harmon, who was then county clerk found housing for us.”[xiii]

In 1911 the Las Vegas Hotel-Club, was on the south side of Fremont, just a door down from where the Northern would be built in 1912.

(The Las Vegas Club decades later would move to the north side of Fremont Street.  I would occupy the Overland Hotel building, rebuilt in 1911, on the north east corner of Main and Fremont Streets.  Both were torn down and became a large hole in the ground in early 2018.)

In Las Vegas the first public sign the strike was informally over occurred on April 27, 1912.  The railroad announced effective May 1, it would no longer provide meals for their workers.

This was good news, according to the Las Vegas Age, “The commissary department at the shops will close,” and “the money which, since the beginning of the strike has been lost to the business of the city will again be thrown into the channels of trade greatly to the benefit of business in Vegas.”  [xiv]

Newspaper publisher Charles Squires, who generally sided with the railroad in labor disputes, ended his story with, “We join with the entire city in a feeling of thorough satisfaction at this action.”   [xv]

This all but ended the labor dispute in Las Vegas.

As the railroad hired replacement workers, the strike locally and nationally would soon fade, coming to a quiet end in a couple of years with the railroad recognizing the unions.

Another railroad strike would take place a decade later, and this time the Northern would play a major role.  This labor dispute would find the governor of Nevada in Las Vegas with a gun in his hand.

While Squires may have had a “feeling of through satisfaction” for the “entire city,” 1912 was a time of stress for the Stocker family.

Starting at the end of 1912, and ending eight years, based on a variety of public sources and interviews with the Stockers, the family would spent most of their time in southern California:  Los Angeles and San Pedro.

It is also likely during this period of time, in part due to the senior Stocker work with the railroad and his travel back and forth the family also maintained a home in Las Vegas.

The trigger to this temporary transition back to southern California was likely the arrest in Las Vegas of one of the Stocker boys.

A command appearance at the brand new Clark County Court House came shortly after the Stocker’s oldest son Lester arrived in Las Vegas.

The nineteen year old Stocker was arrested in September of 1912.

The Las Vegas Age reported a cigar store had been burglarized and “suspicion at once fell upon two loafers who have been hanging around the place.”   The ‘two loafer’ were identified as Patrick Murphy and a second person only identified as “a young blood named Stocker.”    [xvi]

The two were taken to the city jail, “on a charge of burglary in the first degree.”[xvii]

On November 16, still being held on the burglary charge, the “young blood named Lester” celebrated his 20th birthday.

The following week the Clark County Grand Jury met, heard the case against the two men and only indicted Murphy.

All charges were dropped against Stocker, and he moved to Los Angeles.

Lester’s next run in with the law would turn out differently.

Based on voter registration records, and telephone directories it appears that Clarence spent most of his time from 1913 to 1919, in southern California.

Lester spent the early part of the decade with his brothers in southern California, but a visit to Montana in 1916 would require him to spent the next 3 years in that state.

It is likely in 1913 Lester and Clarence were joined by Harold, and for a while their mother.  Harold said the move to Los Angeles was due to a fire at Las Vegas’ grammar school.

As a new building to house both grammar and high school students was being built in October of 1910, a fire hit the existing school at Second Street and Lewis Avenue. [xviii]

Stocker says his mother had just arrived in town.

Harold would later say, the two of them left Las Vegas, “When the school burned down, I had to go to Los Angeles to go to school.  We didn’t have a high school here.”   [xix]

The new school building, at 4th and Bridger admitted students for the first time in October of 1911.[xx]

Harold, didn’t go to Los Angeles after the fire, as he was one of the students at the new Las Vegas school.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A 1911 post card.  The new building was both a grammar and high school.

Harold was still in Las Vegas in the spring of 1912.

After his twelve birthday on March 8, he was put on the third grade Roll of Honor for being “neither absent nor tardy” and having “attained 80 percent cent in scholarship and department.”[xxi]

In 1913 Lester, and Clarence, along with their father were living at 1308 West 51st place in Los Angeles.  Clarence listed his occupation as a telephone operator.

At the time, Lester was unemployed, and their father was a switchman for the railroad.[xxii]

For the traveling public the railroad was called the “Salt Lake Route,” officially it was the San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake Railroad.

Likely the next move was related to their fathers work with the railroad, The three men moved in 1914 to 1409 ½ East 20th Street in San Pedro, California. [xxiii]

At the time, both Clarence and Lester listing said they were working as “clerks,” and their father, as a “brakeman.”[xxiv]

In 1916 Clarence registered to vote in Los Angeles, listing his address as 1021 Hillvale Avenue.    In a different document, his brother Clarence is listed at five feet 4 inches tall, weight “approximately’ 130 pounds, with blue eyes.[xxv]

The next known public report shows Lester Stocker on his way to the Montana State Prison in August of 1916.

In the early summer of 1916 Lester was in Montana, he said he was only in the state “one week” before he got into trouble.   He was said he didn’t have a job he and was just “doing nothing.”

The “doing nothing”, according to the August 27, 1916 edition of the Great Falls Montana Daily Tribune, included the burglarizing of a jewelry store in Great Falls.

Stocker and an accomplice took “several pieces of valuable jewelry containing diamond settings.”

 

On August 31, 1916, in custody, Lester appeared before the judge at the County Court House in Great Falls, Montana.

When asked by the Judge how he pleaded to the charge of “Grand Larceny?’ Stocker said he didn’t have an attorney and pleaded guilty.

The judge sentenced him to serve to three and a half years in the Montana State Prison.

Lester told prison officials he was living with his brother at the Hillvale address in Los Angeles. [xxvi]

He also said  “V. Stocker,” his mother and his father “O. Stocker,” were living in Los Angeles in the fall of 1916.

 

September 1, 1916  the day Stocker arrived at the state prison in Deer Lodge, Montana.

 

Author’s collection

 

The youthful looking 23-year-old Stocker wrote on his prison registration he was only 21 years old and under occupation, wrote “none.”

The following June, still in prison,  he registered for the draft.  [xxvii]  The  registration records show Lester was of “Medium” height, “Medium” build, blue eyes and light colored hair.  To the right is Stocker after the barber provided him with a prison haircut.

After serving eighteen months, prison records show Stocker received his “Final Discharge” from the Montana State Prison on March 31,1919.

Within a few months of his release, the entire Stocker family would either be in Las Vegas or on their way.

Although Lester’s youngest brother would return to Las Vegas in 1920 an experienced gambler, it would be Lester who would become the first Stocker to get a gaming license in Nevada.

And sadly he would be the first one to die.

His brother Clarence also became familiar with the legal system. In the spring of 1917, Clarence was arrested at a “dance hall” in Los Angeles.

In court, “several witnesses testified that he ws under the influence of liquor and staggered, but Mr. Stocker said that was because he did not dance well.”

He was arrested by a “special officer” of the Los Angeles Police Department and “booked as a vagrant.”[xxviii]

The vagrancy charge was dropped, and Stocker took the officer to court asking for $15,000 in damages for false arrest. [xxix]

The former special officer, now working for the railroad as a fireman, claimed he knew Stocker.  He said Stocker had “associated with criminals.” [xxx]

Los Angeles Times April 10, 1917

The judge ruled in Stocker’s favor say a person may not be arrested on “the ground the person formerly consorted with criminals.” [xxxi]

The judge only awarded Stocker $50 saying the “judgement would have been for a large amount if greater damages had been shown.” [xxxii]

The third and youngest brother, Harold, says after moving back to Los Angeles from Las Vegas.  He attended school, and while in high school  he became the family’s expert on gambling.

Over the years, Harold Stocker was interviewed by several journalists including A.D. Hopkins, as well as late UNLV History Professor Ralph Roske.

From those interviews the following is pieced together. Harold’s story didn’t change over the years, it just grew.[xxxiii]

Harold said he started going to the U.S. Mexico border towns  including  Calexico and  Tijuana starting in 1915; “I was fifteen-year-old, I used to work every summer.  I was big husky, weighted 200 pounds you known, played freshman football.   I was working in a studio in Los Angeles, when I was a kid, and (in audio, sounds like he says Tom Mix) this movie director (also later Harold says it was a “producer”) took a liking to me and would take me down to the border.”

Stocker says he met members of the A.B.W. Combination, which operated the Owl Club.  Stocker said he knew a member of the ‘Combination,’ “Carl Withington, who used to be from up around Bakersfield.”

At first, the teenager Stocker said ,”I got a job racking chips at a roulette wheel.  That was the game that had the most play in those days.  That and 21 which we dealt with gold coins and big pesos.”

 

As far as a teenager working in Mexican casinos, Stocker said “It wasn’t illegal, there was no regulation there at all.”

“Being down there” Stocker said he “met a lot of people around the track and those kind of places you know and ah you naturally would pick up things.  You are down there two or three months at a time, my mother was in Los Angeles.”

In addition to helping around the casinos, Stocker said they would “stake me at a card game at the hotel.  Sometimes I win thousand, two thousand.  For a 15 year old kid that’s a lot of money.”

It was now 1917, on April 16, the United States had formally joined the war in Europe.

Stocker recalled one tripe to Mexico, it was in the summer of 1917 his Hollywood friend “staked me to $500 to play in a “21” game while he went over and played Pan. “

 Images of Mexican clubs from Author’s collection.

Stocker said, playing blackjack,  “I’d bet $5, which was the minimum until I had a hand, and then I’d bet $100.  And if I lost, I’d go back to $5.  When the summer was over my cut was $6,000.  A lot of money for a 17 year old.”

When Stocker turned eighteen in March of 1918 he would soon begin his last summer working in Mexican casinos.

When he returned to school in the fall of 1918, he said he volunteered for the “Student Army Training Corp.” 

Designed for university students to be trained as Army officers, Stocker said he was able to join in September of 1918.

Shortly afterwards he said his “unit was pulled out of school for active duty in costal defense at Fort MacArthur at San Pedro.”

Weeks later on November 11, 1918 World War One officially ended.  Stocker would says years later he thought  World War One was just “nonsense.”

“I was only in” the S.A. T.C. for a short time he said, “September to December of 1918.  Then the flu bug came along and closed all the schools. I never did finish high school.  Then I came back to Las Vegas in 1919 and went to work in the railroad shops as a machinist.”

Harold said he needed the job, “I needed to eat.”

It is clear that Oscar and Mayme were already in Las Vegas.  Oscar was still working for the railroad.

With Lester either in prison or just getting out in 1919, where Clarence was is not known, but by the end of the year they were in Las Vegas selling cigars.

The U.S. Census, conducted at the end of January, 1920 shows the entire family in Las Vegas. [xxxiv]

Interesting, the federal census enumerator was James Germain who at the time also held the gaming license at the Northern.

Oscar listed his occupation as a “brakeman” with the railroad, which would be the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, also known as the “Salt Lake Route.” [xxxv]

When it came to Mayme “none” is listed under occupation. [xxxvi]   Under the 1920 Census guidelines given to Germain rule 158 says, “in the case of a woman doing housework in her own home and having no other employment the entry should be none.”

Both Clarence and Lester listed their “occupation” as “salesman” in a “cigar store.” [xxxvii]

Harold, like his father was employed at the rail yards.  He was listed as a “Machinist Helper.” [xxxviii]

Within months of the census, the Stockers would begin first as proprietors , and then as owners of the Northern Hotel and Club.

Nearly three decades after the sale, Clarence would state it was the three brothers who originally bought the place in 1920.

This would be echoed by Harold who said they re-opened the hotel and named it the Northern on September 5, 1920.

Officially, the deed on file with the Clark County Recorder puts the year of purchase as 1921 and the father as the owner.

Another element of the sale stuck in Clarence’s mind for decades. Stocker was required to purchase of all the furniture in the building for $2,500.  This brought the total cost to $14,500.  [xxxix]

This is likely the furniture Groesbeck bought new eight years earlier.

Once the Stockers were able to examine in detail all the furniture, it was “in such a deplorable condition that most of it was hauled into the desert and dumped.”[xl]

At the time the Stockers took ownership of the Northern the social and economic order in Las Vegas began to dramatically shift.

And, the Mr. and Mrs. Stockers  and their three sons were a major part of the “Roaring Twenty’s” in Las Vegas.

   Coming up in part four,  Part four The Northern becomes “A Strike Headquarters” for a massive nationwide railroad dispute  and the oldest of of “My Three Sons” gets the families first gambling license.

[i] “Deeds,” Clark County, Nevada Recorder’s office, October 21, 1921, Book Eight, Page 565.

[ii] http://www.clarkcountynv.gov/parks/Documents/centennial/commissioners/commissioner-h-stocker.pdf

[iii]  1910, Census Place: Los Angeles Assembly District 71, Los Angeles, California; Roll T624_81; Page; 2B; Enumeration District 😉 143;FHL, microfilm: 1374094.

[iv]  1910, Census Place: Los Angeles Assembly District 71, Los Angeles, California; Roll T624_81; Page; 2B; Enumeration District 😉 143;FHL, microfilm: 1374094.

[v]  1910, Census Place: Los Angeles Assembly District 71, Los Angeles, California; Roll T624_81; Page; 2B; Enumeration District;) 143;FHL, microfilm: 1374094.

[vi]  “Woman of the Week,” August 15, 1948, Las Vegas Review-Journal 7 Age, Section B, page 8.

[vii]  “Woman of the Week,” August 15, 1948, Las Vegas Review-Journal 7 Age, Section B, page 8.

[viii]  “Woman of the Week,” August 15, 1948, Las Vegas Review-Journal 7 Age, Section B, page 8.

[ix]  “Woman of the Week,” August 15, 1948, Las Vegas Review-Journal 7 Age, Section B, page 8.

[x]  “Woman of the Week,” August 15, 1948, Las Vegas Review-Journal 7 Age, Section B, page 8.

[xi]  “Great Strike Is Now On,” September 30, 1911, Las Vegas Age, Page one.

[xii] “Woman of the Week,” August 15, 1948, Las Vegas Review-Journal & Age, Page 8B.

[xiii] “Woman of the Week,” August 15, 1948, Las Vegas Review-Journal & Age, Page 8B.

[xiv]  “Commissary Closed,” April 27, 1912, Las Vegas Age, Page one.

[xv]  “Commissary Closed,” April 27, 1912, Las Vegas Age, Page one.

[xvi]  “Tap Hick’s Til,” September14, 1912, Las Vegas Age, page five.

[xvii]  “Tap Hick’s Til,” September14, 1912, Las Vegas Age, page five.

[xviii] “Incendiary,” October 29, 1810, Las Vegas Age, page four.

[xix] “Stocker, Harold.  Interview, 1971, November 30. OH-01773. Oral History Research Center, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada.”

[xx] “History of Clark County Schools,” by Harvey N. Dondero, compiled and edited by Billie F. Shank, 1986, Clark County School District, Las Vegas, Nevada, page 25.

[xxi]  “Roll of Honor,” April 6, 1912, Las Vegas Age, page five.

[xxii]  “Los Angeles City Directory, Stocker, 1913, Los Angeles, California, page 1814.

[xxiii]  “Los Angles City Directory, Stocker, 1914, Los Angeles, California, page 2113.

[xxiv]  “Los Angles City Directory, Stocker, 1914, Los Angeles, California, page 2113.

[xxv]  World War Two registration card, April 26, 1942, Clarence Clifton Stocker, back of card.

[xxvi]  “Registration Card, Lester Wellington Stocker,” June 5, 1917, World War One Registration form, number 4405, pages 1 and 2.

[xxvii]  “Registration Card, Lester Wellington Stocker,” June 5, 1917, World War One Registration form, number 4405, pages 1 and 2.

[xxviii]  “Rules for Police Conduct Outlined,” April 10, 1917, Los Angeles Times, Section II, page five.

[xxix]  “Rules for Police Conduct Outlined,” April 10, 1917, Los Angeles Times, Section II, page five.

[xxx]  “Rules for Police Conduct Outlined,” April 10, 1917, Los Angeles Times, Section II, page five.

[xxxi]  “Rules for Police Conduct Outlined,” April 10, 1917, Los Angeles Times, Section II, page five.

[xxxii]  “Rules for Police Conduct Outlined,” April 10, 1917, Los Angeles Times, Section II, page five.

[xxxiii]  “Adventures in the bootleg business,” by A.D. Hopkins, January 4, 1918, Nevadan-Las Vegas Review-Journal page 26J,   The following are from the “Stocker Family Papers, ID MS-00154 at UNLV Special collections and Archives; “The Day the Strip Was Born,” by Jim Seagraves, August, 1980, Clipping from magazine,  UNLV Special Collection, Stocker Collection and Archives, “Stocker, Harold,”  A. Kepper, March 13, 1918, two page set of notes, UNLV Special Collections and Archives. Stocker Collection. “Stocker, Harold.  Interview, 1971 November 30. OH-01773. Oral History Research Center, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

[xxxiv]  1920, United States Federal Census, Place, Las Vegas, Clark, Nevada, Roll: T625_1004; Page 23A; Enumeration District:3 .

[xxxv]  1920, United States Federal Census, Place, Las Vegas, Clark, Nevada, Roll: T625_1004; Page 23A; Enumeration District:3 .

[xxxvi]  1920, United States Federal Census, Place, Las Vegas, Clark, Nevada, Roll:T625_1004;Page 23A; Enumeration District:3 .

[xxxvii]  1920, United States Federal Census, Place, Las Vegas, Clark, Nevada, Roll:T625_1004;Page 23A; Enumeration District:3 .

[xxxviii]  1920, United States Federal Census, Place, Las Vegas, Clark, Nevada, Roll:T625_1004;Page 23A; Enumeration District:3 .

[xxxix]  “Poker, Whist, Bridge Only Games Allowed in 1st Gambling Club,” My 16, 1948, Las Vegas Review-Journal & Age, page 4 B.

[xl]  “Poker, Whist, Bridge Only Games Allowed in 1st Gambling Club,” My 16, 1948, Las Vegas Review-Journal & Age, page 4 B.

Chapter Two The first Neon signs of Las Vegas 1928-1929 –

(updated April 17, 2021)

As the Las Vegans weres thinking about building a museum to preserve an important part of the community we began throwing notes in a file, “The first Neon sign in Las Vegas?”  

The Neon Museum is now open and a worldwide success.   https://www.neonmuseum.org/

 

As new details have surfaced regarding the early Neon history of Las Vegas we have updated our file.

For years, and still, on many websites, the Oasis Cafe is given the credit as having the first Neon sign in Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Club is named as the first casino to have a Neon sign.

Nope, in both cases.

While the Oasis Cafe, and the Las Vegas Club play important parts in the early history of Las Vegas, neither gets to wear the crown of —First Neon Sign.

First, a brief outline of the history of the Oasis.   Then a moment with UCLA, and the Las Vegas Club, and then back to the Oasis.

1911 Oasis Opens

April 1, 1911, Page eight, Las Vegas Age  “An Oasis in Las Vegas.”  “Mr. and Mrs. G. H. French have opened a new confectionery store next to the Age office, to be called the “Oasis Candy Store.”  All kinds of home-made candies are kept in stock as well as the factory-built article.  Later in the season, a soda fountain will be installed and ice cream will be served.  it is also probable that a shady bower will be made by means of vines where cooling refreshments may be served in the open air.”

1924 Oasis Moves

On April 5, 1924, the Las Vegas Age ran a one paragraph story on page six titled, “NEW OASIS A GEM.”  The story said, “The Oasis is now fairly settled in its handsome new quarters in the Martin-Ferron building.  the new store is a gem and will be much appreciated by the public.”

Pre-Neon Oasis sign – late 1920’s early 1930s’

Initially, the Oasis was a confectionery serving “candy & soda.”  Hanging from the non-Neon light sign  is a small globe providing the owners vistion of the future as a restaurant.  At this point, it only serves “EATS.”   In this case  “eats”  mean sandwiches or maybe fruits, or pastry, donuts.

Pre Neon Oasis Cafe sign.  The post card printers code, lower right, 1A1840 indicates the post card was printed late in 1931.   

Note the first Boulder Club Neon sign on the right side.  In the background, on the south side of Fremont Street, is the tall Northern Club Neon sign.

 

A second  “first” Neon story points to the Las Vegas Club, in 1931 as the first gambling club with a Neon sign.

Here are a few of the many statements, starting off with at a UCLA.edu, quote “the city’s first neon sign at the Oasis Cafe in 1929, the opening of a branch office of the Young Electric Sign Company (YESCO) in Las Vegas in 1933.”    https://aeri.gseis.ucla.edu/AERI%202011%20Posters/aeri11_SB.pdf

Here are a few more;

  • “Las Vegas’ first neon sign, designating the Oasis Cafe on Fremont Street, appeared in 1929. The town embraced the technology and turned it into an art form.”
  • “Here’s a little known fact about the Las Vegas Club: In 1931 they installed the first neon sign on a hotel casino and the second neon sign in the Las Vegas (the first Las Vegas neon sign was in 1927 at the Oasis Restaurant).”
  • “The first Las Vegas installation of neon signage was in 1927 at the Oasis Restaurant. Downtown Las Vegas from Fremont and Second Street. “
  • “The Oasis Café sign was the first neon sign in Las Vegas built in 1929 followed by the Las Vegas Club sign in 1930.”
  • “The first Las Vegas installation of neon signage was in 1927 at the Oasis Restaurant.”
  • “Neon signs, introduced in Las Vegas in 1929 at the Oasis Café on Fremont Street, enjoyed their heyday between the 1930s – 1980s.”

All of the above are from different sites, and there are many, many more.

First, let’s deal with the Las Vegas Club – “First Neon sign on a hotel-casino.”

The Northern Hotel and Club had its neon sign up in 1929, when gambling on card games and some slot machines were legal.

At the time the Las Vegas Club’s hotel, like the Northern was just wasn’t much of a hotel.

When the railroad held its auction for lots in what is now the City of Las Vegas, the deed-restricted the sale of alcohol to Blocks 16 and 17, the area around North First street.

When the auction was held, May 15-16, 1905 those lots commanded top prices.

Then, when the actual deeds were produced, there appeared an asterisk.  If you operated a hotel, with a restaurant, you could serve alcohol.

Quickly, the word hotel was added to the names of buildings.  The first floor was a saloon, but with a ‘restaurant, at least that’s what they called the free cold plates.  On the second a half dozen or more rooms.

Magic, a Hotel with a restaurant that served alcohol.

Both the Northern and the Boulder Club had Neon signs in advance of the Las Vegas Club.

Back to the Oasis Cafe.

 

Oasis Cafe Business card.

 

The Oasis Cafe at  123 Fremont Street installs a great-looking Neon sign in 1932.

A page one story in the April 28, 1932 issue of the Las Vegas Review-Journal says “Neon Sign Being Placed at Oasis.”

According to the story “a truckload of Neon signs, to be placed on various establishments in Las Vegas arrived here this morning and were in the process of installation this afternoon.  Among the signs was a large 10 foot by six-foot sign for the Oasis Confectionery store.”

Early 1930’s Post Card.

The café was owned by E.P. Bihlmaier.  The newspaper story went on to describe the sign; “There is a palm tree, outlined with Neon tubing and a Neoned “Oasis Café” in the center of the sign.”

Although note in Neon, Bihlmaier felt it was important to let potential customers known he only used “women cooks” and he ran an “All American House.”   (Likely no Chinese, French or Mexican food served!)

Back to Neon, Bihlmaier told the reporter “tubing” would also be placed in the window, providing his café with a “Neoned Front.”[i]

A month earlier Thomas Young opened a temporary office in the brand new Apache Hotel located across the street from Bihlmaier’s café.

On the west side of the Apache Hotel was the Boulder Club. It was in need of a new Neon sign.  It’s first Neon was installed three years earlier.

Young convinced both the owners of the Oasis and the Boulder Club  to upgrade thier existing signage.[ii]

The first Neon sign in Las Vegas, preceeded both the Oasis and the Las Vegas Club more than three years.

 

      Overland Hotel Neon Sign, September 28, 1928

   The Overland Hotel’s Neon sign was switch on the week of September 28, 1928.  It stands as the first Neon sign in Las Vegas.

Currently working on part two of the first Neon sign, 1928-1929 in Las Vegas at Vegasarchive.com aka Vegasrecord.com aka Captainhistory.com aka Bigfootnote.com

[i] “Neon Sign Being Placed at Oasis,” April 28, 1932, Las Vegas Review-Journal, page one.

[ii] Display advertisement, Young Electric Sign Company, March 29, 1932, Las Vegas Review-Journal, page six, “A Legacy of Light, The History of Young Electric Sign Company,” 1995, Designed and written by Barbara Barell, printed by Paragon Press, Inc., page twenty-nine.

Chapter One 1928-1929 Ethel Guenter and the First Neon Sign in Las Vegas

 Neon  in  Las Vegas    1928 to 1930,    the First 14 months.

(Updated April 17, 2021)

     Preface. In 2011, Dorothy Wright and I were serving on the City of Las Vegas Historic Preservation Commission.   Dorothy, who fought for years to preserve the history of Las Vegas, was in the final draft of her manuscript on Neon signs in Las Vegas.

In researching early aviation history in Las Vegas I bumped into a small newspaper article about a Neon sign.   I mentioned it to Dorothy and she asked for the clipping.

The reference is found on page eighteen of the book “Spectacular, A History of Las Vegas Neon,” written by Dorothy, Melissa Johnson and Carrie Schomig.

Recommendation, their important work provides a detailed look at the full history of Neon in the Las Vegas area.  Both a good read and reference work.

They write, “The Overland was, if not the first, certainly one of the first neon signs in Las Vegas.”   The same paragraph provides a brief look at signs in the late 1920s before moving on to the 1930s.

At that point, we began tossing notes into a file, First Neon signs in Las Vegas which is the basis for this multi-chapter story detailing the early days of Neon in Las Vegas.

Chapter one, starts in September of 1928 and ends in December of 1929.  During this brief period, Las Vegas would see the first glow of  Neon signs, as well as the beginning of the battles over whose Neon display was bigger and brighter.

Research reveals the Neon sign on the Overland Hotel was in fact the first, and ten more signs would go up in Las Vegas by the end of 1929.

(All the images in this story are from the author’s collection)

THE  FIRST  NEON  SIGN   IN   LAS VEGAS

Las Vegas in the winter of 1928 was weeks away from becoming known around the world.

At the moment, however, all was unusually quiet in the normally wide-open desert outpost.

The prohibition against the sale of alcohol in the United States was still the law, and in Nevada, most forms of gambling were also illegal.

But since its founding in 1905, law enforcement in the areas of liquor, gambling, and prostitution was done with a wink and a nod.

However, starting in the middle of 1928 through early 1929, a heavy lid was placed on illegal gambling and the sale of alcohol.

The “King of the Las Vegas Underworld,” was in jail, the Las Vegas Chief of Police had resigned in disgrace, and the Mayor was about to be busted by federal agents, and face a recall for crimes related to the other two men.

ca. 1928 Post card of Fremont Street looking west.

For most Las Vegans, despite the cool winter days, and the government scandals, a bright future was in the air.

After nearly a decade of debate, the United States Congress appeared ready to approve a bill to build a massive dam across the Colorado River, not far from Las Vegas.

On December 18, following a 166 to 122 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives the legislation was sent to President Calvin Coolidge.

Seventy-two hours later, the President signed the Boulder Canyon Dam bill.

In a story sent nationwide by the Associated Press wire service, “shot-guns and frying pans were pressed into service as noise makers” in Las Vegas “by a joy-mad populace that turned out to celebrate.”[i]

Not only were “joy-mad” locals excited, so were, and using the broadest definition of the word possible, ‘entrepreneurs,’ who saw the light at the northern edge of the Mojave desert.

They were all on their way.  Real estate speculators, business owners, construction workers, and those who saw the empty shoes of the King of the Las Vegas underworld as an opportunity.

Clark County Sheriff Sam Gay received a letter from a company saying, “When Boulder Dam is built, you’ll need a bigger jail, let us build it for you.”

Las Vegans who had been living with the ups and downs of dam possibility began feeling in early the year the project would get the green light.

Ethel Guenter was the owner of The Overland, one of the two large hotels in Las Vegas. [ii]

Late in August of 1928, she felt it was time to improve the marketing of the Overland.  One of Guenter’s answers included the word Neon.

The hotel was in a prime spot located on the northeast corner of Main and Fremont.  On the other side of Main was the Union Pacific Railroad passenger depot.

However, across Fremont Street, on the southwest corner was the Guenther main competition, the Hotel Nevada, now the Golden Gate Hotel.

Of the two, the Hotel Nevada was a bit more upscale.

The Overland catered to business travelers as well as those traveling by bus.   The hotel had a “Large Free Sample Room” where salesmen could display their wares.  A trans-state bus stop was located on the Fremont Street side of the hotel

There were no companies in Las Vegas in the fall of 1928 that provided signs with tubes filled with the rare-earth gas Neon.

Either Guenther saw an advertisement in a Salt Lake City, or Los Angeles newspaper, or she ordered it from a traveling sign salesman.   In August she placed an order for a simple Neon sign.

And Guenther knew exactly where she wanted it installed.

A month later, the following story appeared on the front page one of the September 28th Las Vegas Review newspaper.[iii]

The double-sided sign contained the words “OVERLAND HOTEL.”  But only the word “HOTEL” was fashioned out of the tubes filled with Neon.

It is not known if the word  “HOTEL” flashed on and off, or the color. Likely tubes likely glowed a reddish-orange, the natural color of Neon.

What is known is the sign, with the eight to 10 inches tall Neon letters, left an impression on the reporter who wrote the sign adds “considerable to the appearance of that section of the city.“[iv]

The new neon sign hung down from a pole extended from the corner of the hotel horizontally over the sidewalk.

A review of the cities other newspaper, the Las Vegas Age, published by Charles and Delphine  Squires, for the months of September and October, 1928, revealed no reference to Neon, or the new sign at the Overland Hotel.

Therefore, the award for the “First Neon Sign” in Las Vegas goes to Ethel Guenter and her  Overland Hotel, September 28, 1928.

 

Pause for a moment with a However!

There is a ‘however’ to this historical award.  It comes from newspaperman  Squires who arrived in Las Vegas in 1905.

In 1948 Squires said he believed the first Las Vegas Neon sign was installed “about 1928.” [v]

He thought the first Neon sign that went up was installed on the southwest corner of Second and Fremont, where the Golden Nugget is now located.

Squires said there was “a cigar store operated by Jimmie Powers and Bob Griffith.”

It was the Mission Cigar Store.  And according to Squires “there the first Neon sign in Las Vegas blossomed out with the one word, “Cigars” standing out from the building about four and one-half feet in length.”[vi]

Likely Squires kept track of stories in his own newspaper and not that of his rival the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Squires remember what he printed, in the summer of 1929, but it was a good six months after the Overland Hotel’s sign went up.

 

A photograph, ca 1930,  of the corner reveals the letters in the sign were all upper case; “CIGARS”

Squires added, the Neon sign created “quite a blaze of light for the little town and we all figured they would have to sell a lot of cigars to pay for it.” [vii]

He said the second Neon sign in Las Vegas was “a small one on the M. W. Davis Jewelry store which read simply “Jewelry.” [viii]

Squires’s “small” description may have been based on a comparison of the 1929 Davis sign to the much larger Neon signs along Fremont Street when he made his comments in 1948.

After Cigar and Jeweler  Squires said, “there was a fever of Neon signs, each one larger and more artistic, beautiful and brilliant than its predecessor.” [ix]

There is a, however,’ to the Squires ‘however.’
In early April, 1929, Alexander Barrett, described at the time as a “neon expert” and his partners opened the Las Vegas Neon Electric Sign Company.

Nine months later, on January 1, 1930, the company advertised it had created several of the Neon signs in town.  On the list of signs, The Mission Cigar Store and M. W. Davis Jeweler Company.[x]

If the Las Vegas Neon Electric Sign Company didn’t open its doors until the spring of 1929, the cigar sign, while early, was not the first.

Nor was the jewelry sign in the window of Davis’ shop the first.  After the sign company opened, Davis became a part owner.

Las Vegas Age December 31, 1929

 

In a 1953 article, Squires wrote, “The first neon sign I remember in Las Vegas was placed over the door of the Kiva Club in the old building, corner of Second and Fremont, where the Golden Nugget now blazes.  It said “KIVA” in red letters about three inches high and REALLY WAS A NEW WONDER IN Las Vegas.”   [xi]

The two signs, Mission Cigar, and the Kiva night club were in the same spot.  The Kiva Club replaced the cigar store.

Squires added, “Jack Young thinks there were other small neon signs here prior to that one, but I remember only the “KIVA.” [xii]

Young, of the pioneering Neon sign company, Young Electric, was partially correct, there were signs prior to the KIVA, but they were not “small.”

The two ‘howevers’ do not hold up to additional research.

The award for having the “First Neon Sign in Las Vegas” rests firmly with the historic Overland Hotel,

The sign would only be up for a couple of years.   Its life expectancy was reduced when the city starting adding ornate street lights to Fremont Street in October of 1929.

Also, note the ladder and the ornamental wrought iron fencing being covered or replaced.

When the light pole was installed, the first Neon side was moved to the Fremont Street side of the hotel

Finally, the sign was removed, along with the trees, and replaced with two larger Neon signs.  One on the Main Street side and a second large sign on the Fremont Street side.

 

Up to the mid-1920s, the primary source of transportation in and out of Las Vegas was the Union Pacific Railroad.

Starting in the mid-teens, work began to improve the roads between Utah and California.  Until the early 1920s, the roads were a small step above trails.

Then in 1926, the federal government created U.S. Highway 91, and bus travel became part of the transportation options, in and out of Las Vegas.

Coming in from southern California, through Nevada, and into Utah, the highway was paved.   Paved in terms of the 1920’s definition; leveled, add oil, add gravel, and oil again.

Driving into Las Vegas from Los Angeles highway heading south on 5th Street, (Now Las Vegas Boulevard) then a zig-zag west on Fremont Street to Main Street and turn north to Salt Lake City; 5th, Fremont, Main Streets, all U.S. Highway 91.

A wide shot of Fremont Street showing three of the 4 first Neon signs in Las Vegas as well as a U.S. Highway 91 sign. ca. 1930

By the late 1920’s thousands of cars, a year traveled the highway through Las Vegas.

Several clubs and so-call soft drink emporiums were operating on the first two blocks of Fremont.

The two main operations where you could have a ‘drink’ and gamble legally at poker, and pull a few slot machine handles, were the Northern and the Las Vegas Clubs.

Based on the automobile’s license plate, this photograph is from early 1929.  

With the dam legislation approved, new businesses were moving in and in many cases proving competition to existing operators, including the gaming clubs.

A couple of clubs would be built out past the city limits on U.S. 91.  The first in 1929 would be the Red Rooster, followed by the Pair O’ Dice.

Another early riser was Prosper J. Goumond, and his crew of experienced gamblers from Ely.   In late spring of 1929, they moved to Las Vegas bought the lot at 118 Fremont, and built the Boulder Club.

Just before Goumond arrived, two Neon sign companies opened for business in the city.  With his arrival, the summer and fall of 1929 would mark the beginning of the Las Vegas Neon wars.

The first known neon sign company in Las Vegas opened for business in February of 1929, as the Boski Electric Company.   When its owner Earl K. Bruce convinced his two brothers to join him, the name quickly changed to the Bruce Brothers electric company; “live wire electricians.”[xiii]

Then the brothers cut a deal with the largest Neon firm in the world, Claude Neon Signs. [xiv]

 The Claude Neon sign company was owned by Georges Claude, a French inventor.   Claude was a pioneer in the development of neon lighting.  He would patent his inventions in the U.S. and fought many court battles to preserve his ideas.

Claude is considered to be the first person “to apply an electrical discharge to a. sealed tube with neon as the gas creating the first neon lamp.” [xv]

The same day the Bruce Brothers announced their deal with Claude the Las Vegas Neon Electric Sign Company opened its doors.

Barrett and his partners said they were “here to stay and will handle work on signs of any size or class” as well as “providing servicing after the installation,”

The company opened its shop at 18 Bridger Street with what the partnership called “full equipment.” [xvii]

Bruce Brothers and Las Vegas Neon would become part of Las Vegas’ first battle of the Neon signs.

The fight would start with ‘my sign is larger than your sign,’ and over the years would develop into an artistic, and technological marketing game of who can attract the most attention.

Downtown Las Vegas would combine its Neon and western theme and become known in the 1940’s as “Glitter Gulch.”

Looking west at the tree-lined third street of Fremont with railroad depot on background,   the Golden Hotel in early 1929 before its Neon sign was installed. 

The Las Vegas Neon Electric Sign Company on the night of April 29, 1929, finished its first major installation at the Hotel Golden. [xviii]

 The hotel, owned by Mrs. Thomas R. Hodgens, was located at 323 Fremont on the south side at the corner of 4th and Fremont.

Beyond the fact that it was described as an eight-foot-long Neon sign, no images or other details of the sign have been uncovered.

The story announcing the installation included the following sentence, “When the eight-foot-long sign was turned on, Mrs. Hodges expressed pride in ownership of one of the state-of-the-art electric signs.” [xix]

While Las Vegas Neon was working on the Hotel Golden sign, the Bruce Brothers were working on an even bigger sign for the Boulder Club. [xx]

This early 1931 post card shows the sign was painted green.  And while artists at the post card printing plant often made their own artistic decisions, they were provided with color details by the company ordering the post cards.  In this case, it was William Ferron or his staff.  He owned drug stores in Las Vegas and at the time was the largest post card publisher in southern Nevada.

Since the new club was in the middle of the business district Goumond decided he needed a sign that could be seen at the railroad depot, and drivers traveling on U.S. 91.

 Opened on Saturday night of July 27, 1929, with gaming tables on the west side of the long two-story building and the bar and a few “nickel-in-the-slot-machines” on the east side, Goumond called his place, “Nevada’s Finest Men’s Club.”

His advertisements would not mention gambling, as that was covered in the word “Club.”   Goumond did point to his “Soda Fountain, Sandwiches, Candies, Cigars, Cigarettes, and Tobaccos.”  [xxi]

On opening day, the Las Vegas Age promoted the Boulder Club saying the new business was “crowned with its great twelve-foot Neon sign.” [xxii]

The Boulder Club’s sign was four feet longer than the Hotel Golden’s 8-foot sign two blocks east.

 

 

The vertical double-sided sign on the Boulder Club extended out from the top of the second floor up past the roofline.

And those with sharp eyes,  at the bottom of the photograph, is the “Louis Wiener” clothing store.

The Wiener’s son, Lou would go on to become well known as first, the attorney for the City of Las Vegas and later in private practice as Benjamin Siegel’s attorney.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The original sign was still up when this photograph was taken in late August 1931.  The photograph provides details of where and how the Boulder Club Neon sign was installed.

As the Bruce Brothers were assembling and installing the Boulder Club sign, Barrett’s Las Vegas Neon Electric Sign Company had secured a contract from the Northern Club.

Owned by the Stocker family the Northern Hotel and Club, located at 15 Fremont Street, wanted the largest Neon sign in town.[xxiii]

The need for space to build the large Northern sign required the company to move from its Bridger Street location to Third and Carson.  Two weeks after the Boulder Club sign began to glow, the Las Vegas Neon company owners said they were working on a “big new sign for the Northern Club.” [xxiv]  The announcement said the sign was “almost finished and ready for erection.” [xxv]

The Las Vegas Age reported in its Saturday, August 24, 1929 edition, “The new sixteen-foot neon electric sign at the Northern Club will be flashing tonight, according to Barrett and Clout, builders of the sign.  It is the largest neon sign in the city and will flash the word “The” and then “Northern Club.”

This circa 1930 view, shows the east side of the two side sign.

Once again, the Neon colors were not mentioned.

From the photographs, it appears the sign was painted white or yellow.

 

 

 

Two months later, in October without the “THE” an advertisement appeared in the Las Vegas Age with a graphic of the Stocker’s new sign.

   The one-time ad was an unusual move for the Stockers who normally did not use the local newspapers to promote their club.

 

 

 

While it would be the fourth Neon sign to light up Fremont Street, for a while, it would be the tallest and the flashiest.

This late 1929, early 1930 post card shows the Northern’s first neon sign, as well as being the site for the city’s new light poles.

It appears the only Neon sign the Bruce Brothers installed in 1929 was at the Boulder Club.   Over the next couple of years, the company would change management and focus on electrical work.  That would change after meeting Thomas Young.

At the end of 1929, the Las Vegas Neon Sign Company had built and installed Neon signs at the Golden Hotel,  Gateway Hotel, Northern Club,   M. W. Davis Jeweler, Beckley’s, Professional Pharmacy, and the Mission Cigar Store.

The sign company also said they were the “contractors for the new Las Vegas High School electrical wiring” system.  [xxvi]

 

Gateway Hotel and Main and Stewart Streets

The battle over the biggest and brightest Neon sign would continue into the 1930s.

With gambling legalized in 1931 and clubs opening up and down Fremont, new hotels being built and with the construction of the dam well underway 1932 would become a milestone in the history of Neon in Las Vegas.

At some point before May 1, 1932, the Bruce Brothers Electric Company became simply the “Nevada Electric Company,” with A. M. Bruce as the Manager. [xxvii]

In March of 1932, Thomas Young, of the Young Electric Sign Company set up an office in the brand new Apache Hotel at Second and Fremont Streets.

Young said at the time,  he was “pleased to announce our entering Las Vegas.”   [xxviii]

As part of the initial business plan, Young also said he was working directly with the Nevada Electric Company. [xxix]

Young’s Neon work continues to glow at http://www.neonmuseum.org/about/the-collection/neon-boneyard

Looking for early Neon sign images along Fremont Street, we began to notice as Neon arrived, the trees began to disappear.

        Until a Neon sign is found in Las Vegas before September 28, 1928, the Overland Hotel holds the honor of having the first Neon sign in Las Vegas.

Here is a list of the first eleven known Neon signs in Las Vegas  1928-1929 and when each sign began to glow.

  1. Overland Hotel, week of September 28, 1928.
  2. Golden Hotel, April 29, 1929.
  3. Boulder Club, July 27, 1929.
  4. Northern Club, August 24, 1929.
  5. W. Davis Jeweler, Summer-Fall, 1929.
  6. Mission Cigar, Fall, 1928.
  7. La Salle, after August 24, 1929.
  8. Oak Hotel, after August 24, 1929
  9. Gateway Hotel, Fall, 1929.
  10. Professional Pharmacy, Fall, 1929.
  11. Beckley’s Department Store, October 4,  1929

[i] “Celebration at Las Vegas, Nev.” December 21, 1928, Associated Press.

[ii] “New Management for Overland Hotel,” February 10, 1928, Las Vegas Age, page two.

[iii]  The newspaper would be the Las Vegas Review until took over the “Las Vegas Journal” in July of 1929 to become the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

[iv] “Hotel has New Sign,” September 28, 1928, Las Vegas Review, Page one.

[v]  “New Motel Elwell” by Charles P. Squires, January 25, 1948, Las Vegas Evening Review-Journal & Age, page 12B.

[vi]  “New Motel Elwell” by Charles P. Squires, January 25, 1948, Las Vegas Evening Review-Journal & Age, page 12B.

[vii]  “New Motel Elwell” by Charles P. Squires, January 25, 1948, Las Vegas Evening Review-Journal & Age, page 12B.

[viii]  “New Motel Elwell” by Charles P. Squires, January 25, 1948, Las Vegas Evening Review-Journal & Age, page 12B.

[ix]  “New Motel Elwell” by Charles P. Squires, January 25, 1948, Las Vegas Evening Review-Journal & Age, page 12B.

[x]  “Las Vegas Neon Electric Sign Co.” display advertisement, January 1, 1930, Las Vegas Review-Journal, page four.

[xi] “Observations,” by Charles P. “Pop” Squires, September 12, 1953, Fabulous Las Vegas magazine, Page 25.

[xii] “Observations,” by Charles P. “Pop” Squires, September 12, 1953, Fabulous Las Vegas magazine, Page 25.

[xiii]  “Boski Electric Opens Temporary Quarters,” February 26, 1929, Las Vegas Age, Page two. “Electric Firm Has Two new Members,” March 5, 1929, Las Vegas Age, page one.

[xiv]  “Neon Signs Have Agents in Vegas,” April 5, 1929, Las Vegas Review-Journal, page one.

[xv] http://neonlibrary.com/neon_history_2.html

[xvi] 1930 United States Federal Census, Las Vegas, Clark, Nevada,  National archives and records administration, T626.

[xvii]  “Hotel Golden’ s New Neon Sign Installed,” April 30, 1929, Las Vegas Age, Page one

[xviii]  “Hotel Golden’ s New Neon Sign Installed,” April 30, 1929, Las Vegas Age, Page one

[xix]  “Hotel Golden’ s New Neon Sign Installed,” April 30, 1929, Las Vegas Age, Page one

[xx]  “Boulder Club Holds Grand Opening T’Day,” July 27, 1929, Las Vegas Age, page one.

[xxi]  Display advertisement, Boulder Club, July 27, 192, Las Vegas Review, page three.

[xxii]  “Boulder Club Holds Grand Opening T’Day,” July 27, 1929, Las Vegas Age, page one.

[xxiii]  “New Northern Club neon Sign Completed,” August 24, 1929, Las Vegas Age, Page three.

[xxiv] “Neon Sign Company is now in New Location,” August 13, 1929, Las Vegas Age, page three.

[xxv] “Neon Sign Company is now in New Location,” August 13, 1929, Las Vegas Age, page three.

[xxvi]  “New Northern Club Neon Sign Completed,” August 24, 1939, Las Vegas Age, page three.

[xxvii] “Electric Company, Inc.,” display advertisement, May 1, 1932, Las Vegas Age, Page two.

[xxviii]  “Young Electric Sign Company,” display advertisement, March 29, 1932, Las Vegas Evening Review-Journal, page six.

[xxix]  “Young Electric Sign Company,” display advertisement, March 29, 1932, Las Vegas Evening Review-Journal, page six.

 

Chapter one – 1912, The Northern Hotel and Bar Opens in Las Vegas.

Late in 2017, with the demolition flag flying, the site of where the historic Northern Hotel and Bar once stood on Fremont Street, in downtown Las Vegas, is almost ‘restored’ to when the town was created in 1905.

In 1905 it was a flat piece of land covered in alfalfa, today, 2018 bits and pieces of old tile mark the spot where history was made, several times over.

For decades the rough and tumble development of gambling was made at the Northern.  Now it is just an empty space behind a billboard, hiding ….progress.  

 

An aerial map of central Nevada farm land? Nope!  Just what is left of the site where the Northern Hotel bar once was.

No plaque marks the spot, no effort has been made so far to reveal to the passing public, the history that occurred on this spot.

 

 

 

It is a sad and unnecessary way to put a period after the words Northern Hotel and Bar.

The Northern’s history, on Block 3, lot 27, began in 1912 by starting a beer war.

The Northern would become home to colorful, and infamous characters from Groesbeck, to the Stockers, to the Stearns, to Sedway and Siegel.

Add in Las Vegas resort visionary, Wilbur Clark and you have a building that often changed names and most certainly changed history.

(And, if you like, throw in mobster ‘Russian Louis’ for good measure.)

A review of the details of the story of the Las Vegas “Northern” reveals one the downsides of history on the web.

Once errors are made they get repeated over and over.  Then with many sites making the same mistakes, the fiction get footnoted as fact.

The focus of this series of reports will be, hopefully, to separate facts from fiction covering the first 30 years of the Northern’s life, plus its moments in the Hollywood spotlight.

As we dig into the history of the Northern and its owners, there are natural transitions in the story.   Currently this is the outline, but, it has changed several times since we started this project, and will likely change several more times as more information is unearthed.

Chapter one.  1912 The Northern Hotel and Bar Opens on Fremont Street.

Chapter two.   Northern Hotel and Bar – Raids –Illegal gambling and alcohol.

Chapter three.  The Stocker Era Begins. ‘Three wild and crazy guys!”

Chapter four.    The Northern and the Roaring Twenty’s Las Vegas Style

Chapter five.   The Northern.  1930’s, The Stocker Brothers buy from Mom and Dad.

Chapter six        The Northern and its role in legalizing Gambling.

Chapter Seven.     The 1930’s  The Brothers  lease to other Brothers. 

 (There is a lot to cover in the 1930’s.  Chapter 7 is likely to turn into chapters  8 and maybe 9.)

Tentative  Chapter eight. The Northern- Bugsy Siegel first door to Las Vegas.

Tentative  Chapter nine.   Wilbur Clark changes name of Northern.

Tentative   Chapter eight.   The Northern following World War II.

Tentative       Chapter ten.    The Northern becomes  ?

Tentative        Chapter Eleven.     Tomorrow. and Opinion Piece.

 

Before Chapter One, here is an image of the Northern’s days of glory and a look at Block 3, lot 27’s most recent role on Fremont Street, “a grind joint.”

A link to images of Lay Bayou being torn down.

https://vitalvegas.com/demolition-begins-downtown-la-bayou-casino/

Courtesy UNLV Special Collections 

 

Chapter one.   1912 –   

                               The Northern Hotel and Bar Opens on Fremont Street.

In mid-December of 1911, the Utah based “Salt Lake Brewery Company” purchased a lot on the south side of the first block of Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas.

With an alley separating the two properties, the land was adjacent to the then Nevada Hotel, now the Golden Gate Hotel-Casino.

When the “Salt Lake Brewery” purchased the land the “Baltimore Restaurant” was sitting on the lot.  Lot twenty-seven in Block 3.  The building, owned by Peter Buol,  was moved off the property and the land readied for a new structure. [i]

Las Vegas became an official incorporated city a few months earlier in June of 1911 and Buol was elected became its first mayor.

The land itself was owned by J. F. Dunn, identified as the Superintendent of the Oregon Short Line railroad.

That railroad was part of the Union Pacific Railroad system, which in turn was half owner of the Salt Lake Route railroad, which in turn was the most powerful entity in Las Vegas.   Which in turn would directly impact the the soon to be built Northern Hotel and Bar.

Stories about the railroad and its alleged concern about who owned the Northern would become part of the colorful history of the club.

Fred Leonard a Salt Lake City businessman, representing the brewing company, finalized the deal for the land.

Not quite final.  Before the decade was out, Leonard’s company would own the Northern.

The Las Vegas Age reported in its December 30, 1911 issue, the sale “marks the highest price yet paid for an unimproved business lot in this city, being at the rate of $140 per front foot.” [ii]    Other estimates of the price ran as high as $7,500.[iii]   The last estimate likely included the cost of construction.

The brewery company said it planned to build a two-story hotel, with a “cold storage plant underneath.” [iv]

The second story would house the fifteen room hotel, with “all modern conveniences including electric lights, gas, hot and cold water.”  [v]

The hotel office and a bar “fitted in a luxuriant manner”  would on the first floor, according to the brewery’s press release. [vi]

At the same time, local citizens were informed “Lon Groesbeck, who is known by thousands through the west, will be the local manager of the business and the name, taken from his old friend Tex Rickard, will be the Northern.” [vii]

Groesbeck leased the building, and would furnish the hotel and bar with his own funds.

Then published reports, a week before the hotel/bar would opening confirmed the name; “Las Vegas will soon be in line with other Nevada cities by possessing a Northern hotel and bar.  That is the name given to the handsome new hotel being built by the Salt Lake Brewing Co.”  [viii] 

From its start in Alaska to nearly every town in Nevada, there was a “Northern.”  Whether it was a hotel, or a saloon, no self-respecting Nevada mining camp or community was without a “Northern.”

Images from the author’s collection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On page five of the March 23, 1912 issue of the Las Vegas Age is found; “The building is now practically completed except for some interior painting.  After setting the fixtures and completing the interior finish, which, it is expected may be done within ten days, the Northern will be ready to receive the public.”

“Not pretentious in size” Charles Squires, the newspaper’s publisher wrote, “The Northern will be the best appointed and handsomest architecturally of any similar resort in this city.” [ix]     

The west wall of the two story building was used as a large billboard for its owners, The Salt Lake City Brewing Company.

Groesbeck announced the formal opening of the new resort would be held the first week in April and invited “everybody” to inspect “the handsome new quarters and enjoying a sociable time.”  [x]

His boss, the Salt Lake beer brewer, had a “sociable” surprise for Las Vegas and the town’s saloon owners.

The city’s other weekly newspaper, the Clark County Review, was there opening night; “For a couple of hours Tuesday evening everything was free, including chicken sandwiches, and needless to state, business was rushing.”   [xi]     

  Charles Corkhill, publisher of the Review wrote Groesbeck announced to the already happy crowd he was permanently reducing the price of a glass of beer by more than 50%.[xii]

At that time every saloon in town was charging twelve and a half cents a glass, or two glasses of beer for “two-bits.”

The Salt Lake Brewing Company set the new rate at 5 cents a glass.  The moment, Corkhill wrote “marked an epoch in the miscellaneous history of Las Vegas.” [xiii]

“While the five cent innovation” made a “hit with the ultimate consumer,” Corkhill said, “the same cannot be said of the majority of saloon men, nearly all of whom have added arrows of “gloom” to their regular equipment for the entrapment of patrons.” [xiv]

Thus began the Las Vegas Beer War of 1912.

Adding up the saloons along north First Street and the hotels with bars along Fremont Street, there were 19 establishments where you could purchase beer in Las Vegas in 1912.

Two of the largest operations, Al James and his Arizona Club, and Merrit Pollard of the Overland Bar, at the corner of Main and Fremont Streets, immediately dropped their price to 5 cents a glass. [xv]

Author’s collection

The night after the opening of the Northern, the competing saloon operators met and agreed to contact the Maier Brewing Company of Los Angeles their main supplier of beer.

They hoped Maier would reduce the wholesale cost of bottles and kegs of beer. [xvi]

In the meantime, the agreed, each saloon operator was free to act as they wished. They also appointed Pollard as their representative to go to Los Angeles and meet with Maier.[xvii] 

 

1911 Maier’s Beer advertisement.

Pollard’s visit was unsuccessful.

Maier’s made “no concessions” in its wholesale prices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On his return Pollard, whose bar was on the first floor corner of the Overland Hotel, just across from the railroad depot began promoting the new price.

He put up a big banner with two foot lettering announcing the five cent beer.

Author’s collection

Over the next several weeks the beer war raged to the satisfaction of the consumer.

Soon most other saloon owners dropped their price.  Others held firm on their price, but offered larger glasses.

A couple of retail outlets said their liquid was worth the price, it was just better beer.

John Wesley Horden, owner of the Las Vegas Hotel and Bar said, he would “meet all competition in the price of beer.”  And to celebrate the five cent beer he would throw “a grand lunch and the best orchestra music the town affords.  Manager Horden says he does not propose to remain in the rear of any procession that he is in.”   [xviii]

The last holdout was the Lincoln Hotel on Main Street.  (The building, now known as the Victory Hotel, is still standing, as of February, 2018.)

The price of beer was now five cents a glass and stayed that way for many years.

The Beer War of 1912 marked the beginning of a long and colorful history of the building that started life as the Northern Hotel and Bar.

While Alonzo,“Lon” Groesbeck made many friends in Las Vegas with his five cent beer  he also made important enemies.

In Chapter two, “The Northern Hotel and Bar – Raids –Illegal gambling to alcohol.” 

Also coming up later in Chapter Three, recently uncovered documents reveal one of Stocker brothers was in prison while another brother, as a teenager, was working the casinos in Mexico.

 

 

[i] “Salt Lake Brewery Can Come Back,” December 30, 1911, Clark County Review, page two, “Salt Lake Brewing Co.,” December 30, 1911, Las Vegas Age, page one.

[ii] “Salt Lake Brewing Co.,” September 30, 1911, Las Vegas Age, Las Vegas Age, page one.

[iii] “Salt Lake Brewery Can Come Back,” December 30, 1911, Clark County Review, page two, “Salt Lake Brewing Co.,” December 30, 1911, Las Vegas Age, page one.

[iv] “Salt Lake Brewing Co.,” September 30, 1911, Las Vegas Age, Las Vegas Age, page one.

[v] “Salt Lake Brewing Co.,” September 30, 1911, Las Vegas Age, Las Vegas Age, page one.

[vi] “Salt Lake Brewing Co.,” September 30, 1911, Las Vegas Age, Las Vegas Age, page one.

[vii] “Salt Lake Brewing Co.,” September 30, 1911, Las Vegas Age, Las Vegas Age, page one.

[viii] “The Northern,” March 23, 1912, Las Vegas Age, Page five.

[ix] “The Northern,” March 23, 1912, Las Vegas Age, Page five.

[x] “Northern Opening,” March 30, 1912, Las Vegas Age, page four.

[xi] “Five Cent Beer, Latest Innovation, Causes both Cheer and Consternation,” April 6, 1912, Clark County Review, Page one.

[xii] “Five Cent Beer, Latest Innovation, Causes both Cheer and Consternation,” April 6, 1912, Clark County Review, Page one.

[xiii] “Five Cent Beer, latest Innovation, Causes Both Cheer and Consternation,” April 6, 1912, Clark County Review, page one.

[xiv] “Five Cent Beer, Latest Innovation, Causes both Cheer and Consternation,” April 6, 1912, Clark County Review, Page one.

[xv] “Five Cent Beer, Latest Innovation, Causes both Cheer and Consternation,” April 6, 1912, Clark County Review, Page one.

[xvi] “Five Cent Beer, Latest Innovation, Causes both Cheer and Consternation,” April 6, 1912, Clark County Review, Page one.

[xvii] “Five Cent Beer, Latest Innovation, Causes both Cheer and Consternation,” April 6, 1912, Clark County Review, Page one.

[xviii] “Las Vegas Hotel Meets the Issue,” April 13, 1912, Clark County Review, Page one

Two Nevada Fire Stations listed in the National Register of Historic Places

Two Nevada Fire Stations listed in the National Register of Historic Places

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 9, 2018                             

CONTACT: Rebecca Palmer, 775-684-3443

CARSON CITY, Nev. – Today, the National Park Service (NPS) listed the Ely City Hall and Fire Station in Ely, and the Pioche Fire House in Pioche in the National Register of Historic Places. The NPS also approved Fire Stations of Nevada, a special report on historic fire stations in Nevada produced by the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office. The report, called a multiple property documentation form (MPDF), provides a history of firefighting and fire station architecture in Nevada, and establishes registration requirements for historic fire stations, making it easier for community members to nominate their eligible fire stations to the National Register. The National Register is the nation’s official list of places worthy of preservation, recognizing important places and potentially qualifying them for certain grants and tax incentives.

The practice of firefighting and the construction of fire stations became a standard element of every community in Nevada by the late-nineteenth century. From professional fire stations in urban environments, such as Las Vegas and Reno, to rural volunteer fire departments in communities like Pioche and Winnemucca, firefighting became, and remains, an essential public service in Nevada. Early firefighters advocated for the adoption of building codes, and developed new methods and equipment to fight fires. They also became noteworthy emblems of public service and volunteerism, often being community-supported and, even today, primarily reliant on volunteers. Most of Nevada’s communities have an historic fire station, even if it is no longer used by its fire department. Many historic fire stations have been successfully adapted for new uses, such as offices or restaurants.

As a result of the MPDF Fire Stations of Nevada, both the Ely City Hall and Fire Station, and the Pioche Fire House, have been listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The Ely City Hall and Fire Station was recognized for its role as the seat of the City of Ely’s government from its construction in 1929 to the present, as well as its role as the headquarters for Ely’s Fire Department from 1929 to 1999. The Pioche Fire House was recognized for its role as the headquarters for the Pioche Fire Department from 1928 to 1954, when a larger, more modern station replaced it. The Pioche Fire Department, now a district in the Lincoln County Fire Protection District, still owns the historic fire house near the intersection of Main Street and Lacour Street.

Residents of Nevada who wish to nominate historic fire stations in their community to the National Register using this report are encouraged to contact the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) in Carson City. A copy of the report can be found on the SHPO website at: http://shpo.nv.gov/contexts.

Rise and fall of the Nevada Biltmore. One of 4 Las Vegas resorts built 1941-1942.

(updated February 3, 2018)

  • Motel owner Tom Hull opens the western themed Hotel El Rancho Vegas, on evening of April 3, 1941.
  • The El Cortez hotel-casino with its western motif opens to the public at 6:00 p.m. on November 7, 1941.
  • Famed Hollywood restaurant owner Bob  Brooks opens south seas themed Nevada Biltmore in Las Vegas June 20, 1942
  • October 30, 1942 the western themed Last Frontier Hotel Casino opened.

The four Las Vegas resorts would stand alone until the end of World War Two.

Today, the only one standing is the El Cortez Hotel-casino and it is on the national register of historic places. https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/AssetDetail?assetID=fef848c8-5040-44ca-9bb5-3d90bb9e3475

The histories of El Cortez,  the El Rancho Vegas and the Last Frontier are remembered, in part because of their locations on the Las Vegas strip.  (A quick tangent.  In recent years, the history of the El Cortez because of its owners progressive thinking by adding the resort to the national register of historic places, has been written about extensively.   But there is a lot more to be told, a major change in the social entertainment structure, as well as secret ownership, and we don’t mean Bugsy, that is no secret, nor Meyer, or Sedway, we will just “string” you along on that story.)

Today’s story is about the less known of the four, the Nevada Biltmore.   Less known today,  in part because of its location on North Main Street in downtown Las Vegas.  At the time of its opening it was an important U.S. highway intersection.

Here is a short, but detailed history, with sources that can be used to expand the history of this unique resort.

The Las Vegas Review Journal carried a story on page six of its June 20, 1942 edition announcing the opening of the Nevada Biltmore Hotel under the caption; “Seven Seas Room to Open This Eve.”

The story read, “The colorful Seven Seas room at the new Nevada Biltmore Hotel will be opened this evening at North Main and Bonanza Road, it was announced today by Bob Brooks, owner.” [i]

“Brooks” the newspaper story said, was the ” owner of the Somerset House in Beverly Hills and the Seven Seas in Hollywood, revealed that Johnny Bush[ii] will be in charge of the casino, Eddie Bush, famous Hawaiian band leader, will have charge of the music and Al Smith, noted chef from the Somerset House will supervise the preparation of the food.” [iii]

The newspaper story added, “The decorations of the Seven Seas are both unusual and authentic featuring paintings of the exquisite oils from Tahiti on a background of velvet.” [iv]

 The pool was visible from the from the intersection Main and Bonanza Streets, which was also where  two U.S. Highways, U.S. 91 and 95 connected.  A popular place for locals.  As a child, U.S. Senator Richard Bryan learned to swim in this pool.

The gaming casinos, cocktail lounge and dining room are all done in South Sea Island motif and one of the interesting decorations is a surf board presented to Brooks by the noted Hawaiian swimmer, Duke Kahanamoku.  The board is covered with the autographs of celebrities.” [v]

“The cocktail lounge will specialize in widely known and colorful rum drinks, Brooks’ reports.” [vi]

January 1, 1943 Brooks leases Biltmore to Mr. and Mrs. Clarence P. Martin

Less than six months after opening the hotel Bob Brooks leased the operation, with the exception of the casino, to the Martins.

The January 1, 1943 issue of the Las Vegas Review Journal, on page two, published a story with the caption “Nevada Biltmore Leased to Martin.”   The story said “The Nevada Biltmore hotel, one of Las Vegas’ newest hostelries, has been leased by the owner, Bob Brooks, to Mr. and Mrs. Clarence P. Martin, recently of southern California, but formerly of Florida it was announced today.” [vii]

“The new mangers took over the entire hotel operation today, except the casino, which will continue to be operated by Brooks, Martin said.” [viii]

“Special service for Las Vegas residents will be a feature at the hotel under the new management, with emphasis on luncheons, bridge parties, and private entertainment, it was announced.  Floor shows will be a regular attraction in the dining room.” [ix]

“Martin, who spent 18 years at sea as chief steward on passenger liners, plans to introduce many specialty dishes which were favorites with world travelers.” [x]

“Mr. and Mrs. Martin for many years operated hotels in Miami Beach, Florida.  About one and one half years ago they moved to California and leased the Alessandro hotel in Hemet, California, which had a big success under their management.  They sold out after several months ago and purchased the lease on the famous Hotel Casa de Manana in La Jolla, California.  Recently they disposed of their holdings there to move to Las Vegas and take over the Nevada Biltmore hotel.” [xi]

 May, 1943, Brooks leases property to Del Mar Corporation and it’s President Hernando Courtright.

The Del Mar Corporation, its President Hernando Courtright, signed a five year lease with Brooks for Biltmore in May of 1943 for $31,000.

The “Casino Equipment” inventory included;

“7 Cherry bell Chrome front slot machines. Serial Nos.

458-218-5 cents

460-370-5 cents

458-250-5 cents

448-765-25 cents

468-077-25 cents

468-296-25 cents

448-850-10 cents

“2  21 Tables (Noll & Co.)

1 crap table  9 ½ by 4 ½

1 Roulette table (carved head)

1 Console 4-Bell Machine # P.J.-4141”

1 complete set checks for roulette table,

1 complete set of markers

12 Coral leather upholstered seat and back casino stools.”[xii]

 September, 1943 A. L. Leesone listed as “Manager” of Nevada Biltmore Hotel

Another change of hands for the Biltmore operation.   A display advertisement in the September 8, 1943 issue of the Las Vegas Evening Review Journal lists  “A. L. Leesone, Manager,” of the Nevada Biltmore Hotel. [xiii]

And, Leesone time in management was short.

October, 1943, Brooks announces his “return” to the Biltmore with new “Hotel Managers,” the Kehrlein’s.

Brooks announced  in the October 4, 1943 issue of the Las Vegas Evening Review Journal.

The advertisement was “announcing the return of Bob Brooks’ owner of the Nevada Biltmore Hotel.”  In addition Brooks also listed Mary and Emil Kehrlein as “Hotel Managers,” and Johnny Hughes as “casino managers.”[xiv]

Brooks takes out display advertisement September 1944  Biltmore “has not been sold and is not for sale.”

Bob Brooks, in a display advertisement in the September 8, 1944 issue of the Las Vegas Review Journal declared;

“NOTICE Contrary to reports, the Nevada Biltmore Hotel has not been sold and is not for sale.  No other party or parties have any interest in the business except myself.  I am the sole owner and operator.  I have always had faith in the future of Las Vegas and I still hold that faith.  I like the people of this community and the climate and western hospitality of Southern Nevada.  Las Vegas is my home and I pledge to you good people the finest in entertainment, tasty drinks and excellent food amid comfortable surroundings.  It will be a pleasure to personally greet you and your friends. BOB BROOKS.”[xv]

A month after taking announcing the resort was not for sale, Brooks solid it.

Brooks sells Nevada Biltmore November, 1944 to G.E. Kinsey

While announcing the resort had “not been sold” Brooks was clearly in discussion to sell the property.

On November 1, 1944 Brooks along with G.E. and Mattie Kinsey filed papers with the county detailing the sale. The sale would not become public for two weeks, on November 14.

Brooks made the announcement to his staff and friends at what was described as a “farewell dinner,” on the evening of Monday, November 13, 1944. [xvi]

The general public got the official word when they picked up their morning newspaper.[xvii]

The cities two newspapers reported the “transaction” involved “properties valued in excess of $600,000.” [xviii]

By the afternoon of November 14, 1944 more details were revealed when W. H. Grunwald, representing the Kinsey’s told reporters, “We intend to make the Nevada Biltmore a real part of the city of Las Vegas.  We want to bring it into the city of Las Vegas and make it a place where the people of the community can meet and enjoy wholesome entertainment and good food.”  [xix]

Grunwald added, “as soon as the government restrictions are eased so we can get material, we expect to make improvements at the hotel.  We intend to have the Nevada Biltmore take its place alongside the other fine establishments which this community well can boast.” [xx]

As part of the deal, Brooks would acquire “the Westchester apartment hotel, a class-A, seven story structure on Pico Street in Los Angeles.” [xxi]

At the time of the sale, George Kinsey was reported to be “quite widely known in Las Vegas, having been a regular visitor to this area since 1940.  He became interested in the Las Vegas area though Bill Froelich, Ford dealer of southern California, and Frank Muller, wealthy laundry man of the Los Angeles area, who brought him her firs for a fishing trip on Lake Mead.” [xxii]

Kinsey retained Jack Walsh to run the Hotel, and Johnny Hughes, to run the gambling side of the Nevada Biltmore.  Hughes described in the Kinsey announcement as a “popular casino manager” was first hired by Brooks when he opened the resort in 1942.[xxiii]

 

 

 

 

 

Hughes, seen here in a sketch by well known Reno graphic artist Lew Hymers, would open his own place on U.S. 91, “The Players.”

 

 

 

 

A review of the casino inventory provides an inside into the scale of the gambling operation.

Based on the casino inventory it appears Kinsey added one 5 cent Bell slot machine, a console 4-bell machine,  and put in a large crap table, from a 4 ½ x 9 to a 4 ½ x 12 foot.

    The “Casino Equipment” inventory included;

“8 Cherry bell Chrome front slot machines. Serial Nos.

465-863-5 cents

458-218-5 cents

460-370-5 cents

458-250-5 cents

448-765-25 cents

468-077-25 cents

468-296-25 cents

448-850-10 cents

“2  21 Tables (Noll & Co.)

1 crap table   4 ½ x 12’

1 Roulette table (carved head)

1 complete set checks for roulette table, 2 complete sets of markers.

1 Console 4-Bell Machine # P.J.-4141

14 upholstered seat and back casino stools – upholstered in sheepskin fabric.”[xxv]

 18 months later,  in April of, 1946, Kinsey sells Nevada Biltmore to Horace Heidt, famous band leader.

“Horace Heidt, nationally famous band leader…has purchased the Nevada Biltmore hotel in Las Vegas, it was announced” Sunday, April 28, 1946 “by Thomas Campbell, who represents Kinsey in all Las Vegas operations and who handled the Biltmore deal for him.”[xxvi]

“While the purchase price was not announced, definitely, it is understood that Heidt paid George E. Kinsey, former owner $500,000 for the entire facilities.”

The band leader  told the Review Journal “Jack Walsh definitely would remain as manager of the hotel.”

Heidt immediately began looking for investors, as he had little interest in running the property.

December, 1946, Heidt Sells half Interest in Biltmore and Jack Walsh returns as General Manager of the Biltmore, Heidt reveals change in casino operation.

Horace Heidt, owner of the Nevada  Biltmore hotel, announced the week of December 19, 1946 that he had sold a half interest in the hotel to Jules Le Baron, described at the time as the son of William LeBaron, French film director working in Hollywood.[xxvii]

Heidt said he made the change because he was getting his band back together for a featured spot on a radio broadcast in 1947. [xxviii]

Heidt said at the time that he would return to Las Vegas on a regular basis to assist in the operation of the hotel. [xxix]

Heidt announced on December 19, 1946, “Jack Walsh, prominent Las Vegas hotel man, has been hired as manager of the Nevada Biltmore and will return to the duties he had earlier this year at the hotel. Walsh recently returned from Del Mar, California, where he operated the famous hostelry there.”[xxx]

Heidt also announced “Earl Jones will continue as casino manager and Joe Devereaux will be in charge of the bar as in the past, Heidt said.” [xxxi]

That quickly changed Heidt cuts deal with national known east coast nightclub operator, Frank Barbaro.

On February 5, 1947, Ralph Stoughton and Frank Barbaro signed a one year lease to operate the hotel.

The name of the entertainment area of the resort would be  changed to the “Bowery-Biltmore” to reflect Barbaro’s plans for the business. [i]

Barbaro, a Detroit nightclub owner, was in Las Vegas to get a divorce. [ii]

He billed himself as “known from coast to coast” and “your host from coast to coast.”

Barbaro said met Stoughton who came up with the idea of the two of them forming a partnership to take over the Nevada Biltmore. [iii]

 

 

 

Barbaro began advertising the resort  as “Frank Barbaro’s Bowery.”  The Biltmore Bowery opened on April 30, 1947 with Martha Raye.[iv]

 

 

As far as Barbaro got with his name change is seen in this publicity shot with Barbaro in the middle, and just above his head is the neon script letter “Barbaros Bowery.”

 

Barbaro take over made the national enternament news outlets. From “Hollywood Nite-Life” April 25, 1947, page 12, a column “Las Vegas Life” by Melba Arnold.

“Personality of the week-Frank Barbaro, affable owner of the Nevada Biltmore, has the fun-lovers jamming his night spot despite the fact that he is in the process of drastically remodeling the famous dining room.  Guests purr happily surrounded by stripped walls and raw ceilings while enjoying the sparling wit of Ben Blue and his Hollywood Revue.  The grand opening of the Bowery Room is slated for 30th of this month with Martha Raye in charge of the merrymaking.”

Page 15 of the same issue has a photograph of Barbaro with the caption, “Frank Barbaro.  Thar’s a handsome cowhard in that thar Las Vegas these days by the tag of Frank Barbaro. He hails from the fair city of Detroit where he was lord and master of the swank Bowery Café.  Mr. Barbaro recently purchased the Nevada Biltmore and immediately began doing things in a large way, namely throwing $50,000 into revamping the hotel’s boite which he will name the Bowery Café, natch.”

“Frank has appointed a well-known and much-liked gent by the name of Jack Walsh to manage his beautiful bistro.  Mr. Walsh began his duties duly by announcing the Bowery would purvey nothing but big time talent inside its portals, and to prove this he signed Ben Blue, who is now taking bows in the Bowery.  Next on the list of big acts is Martha Raye who starts April 30th.  Leo Carrillo with the Ben Yost Troupe makes their entry May 14th.  Mr. Barbaro also signed Jack Ponds, a very talented MC and comic as a regular at his sipping heaven.”

In May of 1947 Barbaro filed for divorce in Las Vegas.  His wife and children were living in Detroit.  [v]

The decree, granted by Judge A. S. Henderson, “transferred title to his million dollar” Bowery Club in Detroit to his wife and “gave her the expensive home and furnishing.” [vi]

Barbaro’s national press did little to change the direction the Biltmore was headed. That change lasted for a few months.

In its future were two more efforts to keep the resort alive.  The first step was in early 1949 provide service for the African American community, locals and tourists, who were without access to any of the major resorts.

The Las Vegas Review Journal reported on July 19, 1949, “the ill-fated operation of the Nevada Biltmore hotel as a colored resort for the past five weeks ended abruptly today, as the place was ordered closed by Homer W. Snowden, a stockholder of the Texas-Nevada corporation, which has attempted to operate the hostelry since May 1” 1949.[xxxii]

A full story on the short, but historic integration of the Nevada Biltmore will be featured on this site.

  Biltmore Closed by Snowden July 19, 1949 To open under new name and as a motel

A public announcement was made,  “Negotiations were underway between the former owners of the Biltmore, Louis Wiener, Jr., Mahlon Brown, James Still and Carl Amante and band leader Horace Heidt, to reopen the place as a deluxe motel.” [xxxiii]

“Weiner said if he and his partners again take over the Biltmore, the name will be changed and its operation as a hotel will cease in favor of a motel venture.  He reasoned that as the biggest motel in Las Vegas and the only one with a swimming pool, the operation would stand an excellent chance of running successfully.” [xxxiv]

It was revealed that Heidt still holds a $180,000 mortgage on the Biltmore and “does not want to operate the hotel and is instead only in a deal which will get his money out of it.” [xxxv]

Gambler, Carl Amante said “we want to make this the most unique motel in Las Vegas.”[xxxvi]

Heidt once again had direct control of the property.

One of Amante’s partners, Wiener, said he was talking with Heidt and the band leader is “coopering with us 100 percent.” [xxxvii]

The deal with Wiener and Amante’s group did not work out.

A new set of owners, and this time a name change which did not provide luck to anyone involved.

 

 

In 1948 Clem Malone, who had come to Nevada to work on the construction of Hoover Dam,ran for the Clark County Commission.

According to the Clark County Government’s official web site, Malone “easily won a seat on the commission in that election.”

The next year, 1949, Malone and others took over the Nevada Biltmore and changed the name to the Shamrock Hotel.  Malone and his partners operated it for a number of years.

Shortly after aquiring the Bilmore, Malone contacted the same Massahcutres post card company that created the pool side view, to update the title of the resort.

The name change did not allow Malone to see the evil spirits that were in his future.   Like the hotel, Malone’s political career was filled with trouble.

Again, from the official Clark County government web site, “Malone’s time on the commission was filled with contention. In 1950, he was charged with soliciting bribes from George Crockett at the airport. Malone claimed that James Cashman, Frank Gusewelle, and A.E. Cahlan were setting him up.”[vii]

In 1950, Malone filed to run for governor. He lost his bid in the primary, and then lost his county commission seat in May of 1951.

Losing is stake in the Shamrock, Malone filed bankruptcy in 1954.

The hotel would eventually become the Shamrock Furniture store.

Today a lone palm tree marks the spot of one of the “swank” hotels of Las Vegas in the 1940’s.

The Biltmore’s original builder Bob Brooks would take the money for the sale of the resort and begin buying property on what would become the Las Vegas Strip.

He and Moe Dalitz would soon become close friends.

[i] “Seven Seas Room To Open This Eve,” June 20, 1942, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page six.

[ii] Note the newspaper story said that Brooks said that Johnny Bush would be in charge of the casino.  The display advertisement in the same issue of the newspaper named the casino boss as Johnny Hughes, a well-known local gaming figure.

[iii] “Seven Seas Room To Open This Eve,” June 20, 1942, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page six.

[iv] “Seven Seas Room To Open This Eve,” June 20, 1942, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page six.

[v] “Seven Seas Room To Open This Eve,” June 20, 1942, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page six.

[vi] “Seven Seas Room To Open This Eve,” June 20, 1942, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page six.

[vii] “Nevada Biltmore Leased to Martin,” January 1, 1943, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page two.

[viii] “Nevada Biltmore Leased to Martin,” January 1, 1943, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page two.

[ix] “Nevada Biltmore Leased to Martin,” January 1, 1943, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page two.

[x] “Nevada Biltmore Leased to Martin,” January 1, 1943, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page two.

[xi] “Nevada Biltmore Leased to Martin,” January 1, 1943, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page two.

[xii] Clark County Miscellaneous Book 19, May 20, 1943, Nevada Biltmore, pages 408-422.

[xiii]  Display advertisement, Nevada Biltmore, September 8, 1943, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page three.

[xiv] Display advertisement, Nevada Biltmore, October 4, 1943, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page five.

[xv] Display advertisement, Bob Brooks, September 8, 1944, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page eight.

[xvi] “Nevada Biltmore Owner Plans Big Development,” November 14, 1944, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page three.

[xvii] “Nevada Biltmore Sold,” November 14, 1944, Las Vegas Morning Tribune, page one, “Nevada Biltmore Owner Plans Big Development,” November 14, 1944, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page three

[xviii] “Nevada Biltmore Sold,” November 14, 1944, Las Vegas Morning Tribune, page one.

[xix] “Nevada Biltmore Owner Plans Big Development,” November 14, 1944, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page three.

[xx] “Nevada Biltmore Owner Plans Big Development,” November 14, 1944, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page three.

[xxi] “Nevada Biltmore Owner Plans Big Development,” November 14, 1944, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page three.

[xxii] “Nevada Biltmore Owner Plans Big Development,” November 14, 1944, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page three.

[xxiii] “Biltmore Plans big Expansion,” November 18, 1944, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page three.

[xxiv] “Biltmore Plans big Expansion,” November 18, 1944, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page three.

[xxv]  Clark County Miscellaneous Book 21, November 1, 1944, Biltmore Hotel, pages 261-267.

[xxvi] “Purchases Biltmore,” April 29, 1946, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page one.

[xxvii] “Heidt Sells Half Interest in Biltmore,” December 19, 1946, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page fifteen.

[xxviii] “Heidt Sells Half Interest in Biltmore,” December 19, 1946, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page fifteen.

[xxix] “Heidt Sells Half Interest in Biltmore,” December 19, 1946, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page fifteen.

[xxx]  “Heidt Sells Half Interest in Biltmore,” December 19, 1946, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page fifteen.

[xxxi] “Heidt Sells Half Interest in Biltmore,” December 19, 1946, Las Vegas Evening Review Journal, page fifteen.

[xxxii]  “Biltmore closed by Snowden; change to motel is looming,” July 19, 1949, Las Vegas Review Journal, page two.

[xxxiii]  “Biltmore closed by Snowden; change to motel is looming,” July 19, 1949, Las Vegas Review Journal, page two.

[xxxiv]  “Biltmore closed by Snowden; change to motel is looming,” July 19, 1949, Las Vegas Review Journal, page two.

[xxxv]  “Biltmore closed by Snowden; change to motel is looming,” July 19, 1949, Las Vegas Review Journal, page two.

[xxxvi]  “Biltmore Hotel to Blossom with new glamor and name,” July 27, 2919, Las Vegas review Journal, page

[xxxvii]  “Biltmore Hotel to Blossom with new glamor and name,” July 27, 2919, Las Vegas review Journal, page

Second set of footnotes with the addition of the Barbaro saga.

[i]  “Frank Barbaro takes over Nevada Biltmore,” May 29, 1947, Las Vegas Review Journal, page one.

[ii] “Frank Barbaro takes over Nevada Biltmore,” May 29, 1947, Las Vegas Review Journal, page two.

[iii] “Frank Barbaro takes over Nevada Biltmore,” May 29, 1947, Las Vegas Review Journal, page two.

[iv]  Display advertisement Nevada Biltmore, April, 1947, Las Vegas Life, page twenty.

[v] “Barbaro gets divorce here,” May 26, 1947, Las Vegas Review Journal, page six.

[vi]  “Spectacular Barbaro career echoes heard in court suit,” May 28, 1948, Las Vegas Review Journal, page three.

[vii] http://www.clarkcountynv.gov/parks/Documents/centennial/commissioners/commissioner-c-malone.pdf

 

 

    Las Vegas Attorneys are looking for a $10,000,000 golden door for Artist image on Lady Liberty Stamp

The first resort on what would become the Las Vegas Strip had a theme, the Hotel El Rancho Vegas.  A western theme, which was followed by another western theme, the Last Frontier, and then it was onto the desert, from the Sahara, to the Dunes, Sands, to the Mirage.

Eleven years ago this month the New York, New York opened with its theme, and with it came the Statue of Liberty.  The Las Vegas version, according to the attorney representing the artist is “a more delicate, modern, feminine and fresh-faced statue.”

Hard growing old, Lady Liberty in New York, was dedicated October 28, 1886.  That would make her 131 years old.

  An image from the New York, New York web site

https://www.newyorknewyork.com/en/hotel.html

We need to go back a few years when the U.S. Post Office decided to issue a state featuring the Statue of Liberty.

A stamp design is created based on the Statue of liberty in the New York harbor.  And stamps are printed.  Whoops.

Turns out the statue of liberty on the stamp was not based on the one in the New York harbor, it was based on the one on the Las Vegas strip.

 

ABC News pointed out one of the differences.

 

 

Here’s a link to ABC’s story. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/statue-liberty-stamp-mistake-wrong-las-vegas-casino-new-york-13387491

As the TV networks, and national newspapers pointed out, the Nevada sculptor, a bit upset, got a hold of a Las Vegas law firm, Pisanelli Bice PLLC and is suing the post office.

A few weeks ago his attorneys told the court their client is owed between ten and 11 million dollars for using the artists copyrighted image without his permission.

As part of the filing, the artist’s work is a “Re-imagined lady Liberty” and is “the artistic creation of one person, Robert S. Davidson.”

The matter is before Judge Eric G. Bruggink, a judge with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington D.C.

Both sides presented their arguments to the judge during a multi-day hearing last year.

Now, the artist’s attorneys,in the new filing, told the judge their client is owned millions based on the number of stamps printed and other factors.

It is likely the judge will ask both sides to appear before him once more before he makes a decision.  It is likely that decision will be appealed.

No matter how the judge rules, we can visit the new “more delicate, modern feminine and fresh faced” statue on the Las Vegas strip,

Or head east and visit the less delicate, old-fashioned, less feminine, tired-looking 131 year old statue in the New York Harbor. Or take a look at one of these live web cams.

https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm

We will keep an old eye out for the Judge’s ruling.