1950-1979

The Harolds Club casino, in Reno, Nevada, held an annual winter holiday party for employees at its Harolds Trapshooting Club in the neighboring town of Sparks, on the Pyramid Highway.

The fêtes, which featured dancing, live music, food and alcohol, lasted 24 hours, so every worker could attend.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons: by AnelGTR

1949-1979

Harolds wasn’t the only Northern Nevada club with gambling that the Smiths owned for decades. In 1950, the renowned gambling family purchased Jabberwock Gun Club, located on the Pyramid Lake Highway in what today is Spanish Springs,* and renamed it Harolds Trapshooting Club.

“For more than two decades, [it] was where the elite met to compete,” according to the Trapshooting Hall of Fame website.

Well-known locals who frequented it included Evelyn Primm, wife of Ernest J. Primm, owner of the Club Primadonna; Raymond A. Smith, Pappy’s son and co-owner of Harolds Club, along with his wife Olga Smith; and Charles “Charlie” Mapes, Jr. and his sister Gloria Mapes Walker, co-owners of the Mapes hotel-casino.

The Smith patriarch, Raymond I. (“Pappy”) had been instrumental in getting the trapshooting club established. He and Charlie Mapes each had donated $2,500 to secure the building, and Pappy subsequently invested $24,000 into developing the facilities.

Upon opening, in January 1949, they included 12 traps, eight skeet fields and two flyer fields along with a lounge, sundeck, dining room, bar and locker rooms. Later, cases displayed guns of famous trapshooters like Fred Etchen and Arnold Riegger, and the walls showcased hundreds of photos of event attendees. Eventually, the fields would number 32.

The Requisite Gambling

By March, Pappy had gotten licensed for and had added gambling and a bar to the “gun club,” as it was called familiarly among Harolds Club employees. Initially, one craps table and three or four 21 games were available. Over time, though, the offerings grew to six to eight 21 tables, two craps tables, a roulette wheel and 50 to 60 slot machines.

The gaming concessions were open only during shoots. On those days, a pit boss and dealers from Harolds Club would pack up a car there with money, trays and whatever else was needed. This included a bankroll of about $50,000 (about $518,000 today) — which the boss carried around in his pocket all day — and close to $100,000 in chips ($1 million today). They’d drive the 12 or so miles out of Reno to the gun club and be open for business at 7 a.m.

In between shooting, guests would gamble, and there were some big-time players, said Marcia Schwarz, a former Harolds Club dealer who’d worked at the gun club a few times. Some shooters had lines of credit as high as $10,000 or $20,000 (roughly $103,000 to $207,000 today).  

“I saw the biggest action that I ever saw in my life at some of those shoots,” wrote Dwayne Kling, former Harolds Club pit boss, in A Family Affair. “In those days you could bet seven hands on a 21 game, and we would have people that would bet $1,000 each on all seven hands. We’d also let them bet $1,000 on the crap table.”

The gambling operation stayed open until the patrons were done playing, which meant the staff members could be there until the wee morning hours, occasionally all night long. Typically, when they left for the day (or night), they returned to Harolds Club and dropped off the money, chips and equipment. Sometimes, though, when the gambling went all night, the employees couldn’t fit that in, and massive amounts of money would remain in the gun club.

Showman Harold

Of the three Harolds Club owners — Pappy and sons Harold S., Sr. and Raymond A. Smith — Harold was enamored with the gun club and shooting the most. He was involved in developing and hosting the inaugural Golden West Grand, the first major Amateur Trapshooting Association tournament, in 1952. He dreamt up the trophy of an engraved, silver belt buckle containing a historic $20 gold piece.

At the events, he’d often pass out gifts to shooters and guests. One year he distributed 1,000 white Stetson cowboy hats; another year, it was slot machine-shaped bottles filled with Jim Beam. He’d give rides to contestants’ wives and children up and down the yard line in a yellow dune buggy or on his motorcycle while decked out in a New York Yankees uniform and cowboy hat.

A Dead Target

Harolds Trapshooting Club closed on June 30, 1979, when the casino and the landlord of the gun club property failed to agree on terms for a new lease.

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* On the site of the former Jabberwock/Harolds today are the Lazy 5 Regional Park and the Washoe County Library’s Spanish Springs branch.

Sources

1949

Casino owners balked when the question of going on daylight saving time (DST) arose in Nevada in 1949.

Gamblers’ Outcries

Charles Mapes, owner of the Mapes hotel-casino in Reno, made a few arguments:

• “It’s difficult to put on a floor show at 9 p.m. with the sun just going down. A spotlight can’t compete with the sun when it comes to showing an attractive star to best advantage. It cuts the glamour. She should be in a bathing suit at that time of the day.”

• Extended daylight reduced night life.

• It caused restaurant patrons to alter their eating habits and all crowd the restaurant at the same time, creating problems.

• It confused out-of-town guests about hotel checkout time.

Raymond “Pappy” I. Smith, co-owner of Harolds Club, also in Reno, cited loss of business, saying casino owners would “lose their shirts unless the clocks stay put” (Nevada State Journal, May 6, 1949) and were united in this opinion.

He said his casino had lost $1,000 ($10,000 today) per night the previous year due to DST, which had been effected due to a power shortage. This year, his business couldn’t withstand such a hit as revenue had decreased 56 percent. He pointed out that another club was $70,000 in debt ($707,500 today), primarily due to the influx of California visitors having plummeted the summer before.

Playing Hot Potato

By Nevada law (as of 1946), only the governor had the authority to call or not call for daylight saving time each year. Yet in 1949, Governor Vail Pittman left the choice to each of the 13 counties because “the heads of the local county and city governments are in a better position to know the needs and desires of their people in matters of this nature than is the governor,” he said (Reno Evening Gazette, May 2, 1949).

Immediately, in April, counties began deciding. White Pine County opted to begin DST on April 17. Elko County followed suit, choosing a May 1 start date. Nye and Esmeralda Counties planned to spring forward on May 15. Likewise, based on a slew of requests for it, Washoe County tentatively agreed to DST effective May 15 pending formal approval.

When the Washoe County commissioners next met, DST opponents, including the casino heads, made their cases against a time change. Then District Attorney Harold Taber informed the governing body that, after conferring with state Attorney General Alan Bible, the two had concluded the counties lack the power to proclaim DST legally.

Consequently, Washoe County reversed its stance and tossed the issue back to Pittman. Ormsby County (now Carson City) did the same, accusing him of “passing the buck” (Nevada State Journal, May 3, 1949).

Time Change Fallout

Pittman’s final word was he wouldn’t proclaim DST on a statewide basis. This left 4 counties with their clocks already set ahead or about to be and the remaining 13 counties on standard time.

“It was presumed that the counties can remain on daylight time as long as they want to — although such action by commissioners is not legal technically,” noted the Nevada State Journal (May 10, 1949). “In other words, as long as nobody raises the point legally, any county can adopt daylight time — or any other time system — it wants if its residents are satisfied.”

Sources

Illustration from pond5: “Antique Clock Face” by StellaL