Irene Kite

1937-1939

In 1937, an Alton, Illinois woman took on the local gambling-Mobsters and the political machine … with an axe.

Motivating Factors

In Irene Kite‘s county of Madison, gambling was illegal, yet law enforcement and local government allowed certain establishments offering games of chance to operate openly. Her husband Carl’s card club had been one of them until the powers that be, at the behest of the area’s crime syndicate, refused him permission to operate in April 1937 after 15 years in business. This left the Kites without an income.

The majority of approved gaming enterprises were ones run by Mobsters, and they sought to get all independently owned places closed down.

The Syndicate heads in Madison County were: Harry Murdock, Harry Price, Paul Delaney and Cliff Phayer.

“With the exception of a few cities in Madison County, the syndicate had its grip everywhere — Granite City and Wood River being the chief places where the syndicate was barred. Alton, Edwardsville, East Alton, Venice, Madison, Collinsville and some of the smaller places were dominated in their politics, as well as their slot machine business, by one or the other of the divisions of gamblers who were plundering the people of the county,” reported the Alton Evening Telegraph (Nov. 2, 1938).

The article highlighted that the Mobsters’ slots were rigged to rarely pay out and when they did, amounts were small.

Her Killing Spree

On a Saturday afternoon in late December of the same year, Kite contacted a local newspaperman and informed him what she planned to do that night and why.

Later, she went from gambling club to gambling club in Alton, once inside apologized for the disruption and slayed as many syndicate-owned slot machines as she could. Familiar with the devices’ inner workings, she disabled each one with two targeted blows.

Kite maimed 14 slots in 7 bars before police arrested her.

Irene Kite, with axe, in action.

She did it “because that’s the only way I can get at those who allow one man to operate a gambling resort and won’t let the next man,” and she’d intended to embarrass the slot owners, she’d told the reporter (Alton Evening Telegraph, Dec. 20, 1937).

Kite emphasized she’d axe the slots again and again if she thought she had to.

“I’ve got a lot of axes — about a dozen of them — and I’m not going to quit until every slot is out of the city,” she said (Nevada State Journal, Feb. 15, 1938).Kite also had informed the newspaperman that in Alton numerous syndicate-operated gambling places already should’ve been closed but hadn’t been because no officer would serve the warrants. She’d estimated that about 14 of these warrants, all legitimate and signed by a judge, were on file; the reporter looked into the matter and confirmed the total to be 17.

Success And Fame

After spending a few hours in jail that Saturday night, Kite was released. No charges were brought against her for her destructive rampage.

What it did get her was results. Alton’s Chief of Police Paul Smith ordered that all gambling in the city be stopped. And it was … at least for the time being.

“It is true that the slot machines are now in storage,” the Alton Evening Telegraph reported (Nov. 2, 1938), but the gambling syndicate hope, only until after election (on Nov. 8) when the prediction is made, if everything goes right, they will be out and in full operation again.”

Kite also garnered widespread fame. People and groups — the Alton Ministerial Association and the League of Women Voters, for example — admired and supported her. Eventually, the notoriety led to her and her story being featured, in March 1939, in Actual Detective Stories of Women in Crime, a hard-boiled pulp publication.

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Sources

Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Buddy Baer, Joe Louis

1913-1955

Some famous 20th-century boxers got involved in U.S. and Mexico enterprises offering gambling, some of which, but not all, were knockouts.

Jack Johnson

Jack Arthur Johnson (1878-1946) was the first of the group featured here to enter the gambling arena.

This world heavyweight champion between 1908 and 1915 opened and ran two nightclubs in Tijuana during his years of self-exile there, starting in roughly 1913. (He’d fled to Mexico from the U.S. to avoid doing time for his conviction for having violated the Mann Act.)

Johnson had two clubs. One, the Newport, just off of the city’s main tourist strip, catered to black people. Gambling, boxing and entertainment took place there.

His other club, the Main Event, was for whites. It likely offered gambling, too, but this isn’t certain.

Gambling had been legal in Baja, California since February 1908. The law permitted most types of dice and card games and racing but banned roulette and slot machines. However, many casinos and clubs ignored those restrictions.

Johnson curtailed his south of the border entrepreneurial streak in 1920 by returning to the U.S. to serve his prison sentence.

Jack Dempsey

In 1928, Jack Dempsey (né William Harrison Dempsey, 1895-1983) became involved in a hotel-casino in Ensenada, Mexico. At the time, Prohibition was in effect and gambling mostly was illegal in the States. Dempsey no longer was the world heavyweight champion.

That year, construction on Hotel Playa of Ensenada began after Cía. Mexicana de Rosarito acquired the property using mostly capital from U.S. investors.

“The promoters had shrewdly aligned Jack Dempsey to the enterprise,” Maria Bonifaz de Novelo wrote in the article, “The Hotel Riviera Del Pacífico.” Dempsey “was married to a Hollywood star, Miss Estelle Taylor. Their names alone guaranteed a surefire promotion.” One list of the business’ executives showed Dempsey as president; another indicated he was second vice president.

Also, it’s unknown whether he contributed any money to the project or received shares in exchange for his role in it. Reports on both points are mixed. What is known is the company built a luxurious house for Dempsey adjacent to the hotel-casino.

The $2 million resort on the beach opened on Halloween night, 1930. Per Mexican law, the casino only offered gambling between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. daily, and excluded all servicemembers, police and people under age 21 from playing.

Whereas the Hotel Playa of Ensenada remained in business for eight years, albeit somewhat of a struggle but attracting high-profile guests, such as Lana Turner, William Hearst, Marion Davies and Myrna Loy, Dempsey’s involvement with it was short-lived. Reportedly, he resigned shortly after the grand opening because he disagreed with how management was running the hotel. He never stayed in the home built for him.

Also during this period, Dempsey bought $100,000 worth (about $1.6 million today) of shares in the company that built and owned the Agua Caliente Casino and Hotel in Tijuana. Also, he agreed to help one of the principals, Wirt Bowman, “line up a new group to promote fights” at the resort, the El Paso Herald reported (Aug. 6, 1929).

Agua Caliente Casino

In 1931, Dempsey partnered with big time Reno, Nevada Mobster-gamblers in a different type of undertaking. He, William “Bill/Curly” Graham and James “Jim/Cinch” McKay set out to promote boxing locally.

In preparation for a planned upcoming bout in The Biggest Little City, the trio had about $100,000 worth of improvements (about $1.75 million today) made to Reno’s race track and fairgrounds on North Wells Avenue. The upgrades and enhancements included construction of an outdoor boxing arena and a clubhouse featuring a casino, dining room and boxes, installation of a loud speaker system along with grandstand remodeling and expansion.

The work began in late April, not even a month after the Nevada Legislature legalized gambling. The improvements were done in two months, in time for the start of a summer horse racing meet and the July 4, Dempsey-refereed fight between heavyweights Max Baer and Paulino Uzcudun (the latter won by decision in 20 rounds).

At the improved Reno facilities, patrons participated in parimutuel gambling at machines trackside and played games of chance in the clubhouse casino.

Reno fight arena under construction, clubhouse behind it on the left

Buddy Baer

Prizefighter Buddy Baer forayed into the gambling club business in Reno in 1950. In March, Baer (né Jacob H. Baer, 1915-1986) and restaurant-bar operator Fred Cullincini debuted Buddy Baer’s at 136 N. Center St. in Reno, the former site of the Bar of Music club. Buddy Baer’s offered drinks, dining, entertainment and slot machine gambling.

At the time, Baer no longer was boxing and instead was acting and performing in nightclubs. Also, he still owned, with Cullincini, a similar venture (likely without gambling) in Sacramento with the same name (later changed to Bar of Music), which opened in 1945.

About 10 months after debuting the club in Reno, Baer presumably bowed out as Cullincini changed its name to Freddie’s Lair. It went out of business in October 1951.

Joe Louis

In 1955, former world heavyweight champion Joseph Louis Barrow (1914-1981) and other investors built and opened the history-making Moulin Rouge, Nevada’s first desegregated hotel-casino. From the owners and employees to the patrons and entertainers, this Las Vegas hotspot was fully integrated.

Louis was the spokesman for the resort, which featured a hotel high-rise containing 110 rooms and a casino equipped for 21, craps and with slots. Other amenities included a bar, showroom, swimming pool, restaurant and dress shop.

Despite the big names it drew, both black and white, the business closed six months later, and the casino filed for bankruptcy.

Are there other associations between boxers and gambling-related businesses we didn’t include? If so, we’d love to hear about them.

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Photo of outdoor boxing arena: by Paffrath Studio, from the University of Nevada, Reno’s Special Collections and University Archives

Sources

1920s-1960s

Joseph “Doc” Stacher (né Gdale Oistaczer)* was a New Jersey-based Mobster who made his foray into organized crime with Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Meyer Lansky’s Bugs and Meyer Mob in Manhattan, N.Y. and then with Abner “Longie” Zwillman’s Third Ward Gang in Newark, N.J.

Eventually, he teamed up with local Mobsters, including Zwillman and Lansky, in various gambling businesses inside and outside of the United States. We briefly describe some of them.

United States — New Jersey

The East European immigrant, Zwillman and New York Mobster Frank “The Prime Minister” Costello were partners with New Yorker Frank Erickson in a hugely successful bookmaking operation during the 1930s and 1940s, thanks to Erickson’s mathematical acumen. At one point, the large enterprise boasted as many as 600 locations and 3,000 unofficial staff members throughout the U.S.

Also with Costello and Zwillman, Stacher ran “many New Jersey gambling emporia, from ‘sawdust joints,’ meaning undecorated betting factories, to ‘carpet joints,’ whose decor was swank, food exquisite, ambiance muted and clientele selectively rich,” wrote “Voice of Broadway” columnist Jack O’Brian (Monroe-News Star, March 17, 1977).

In 1938, Stacher and fronts, Barney “Sugie” Sugerman and Abe Green, founded Runyon Sales Co. The Newark-based company manufactured and distributed automatic coin-operated machines, including slot machines, pinball machines and jukeboxes.

United States — New York

Stacher ran the Arrowhead Inn, an illegal Saratoga Springs carpet joint, which he and lifelong friend Lansky owned and at times had additional owners, including Joe Adonis, associated with the Genovese crime family, and Jersey Mobster James “Piggy” Lynch. The lake house closed in 1949.

United States — Nevada

Stacher entered Nevada’s gambling industry in 1950, when he purchased, likely at Lansky’s urging, Jack Sullivan’s one-third interest in the then-popular Bank Club, “one of Reno’s oldest and best known gambling casinos in Reno,” (Nevada State Journal, June, 30, 1950). Local Mobsters William “Bill/Curly” Graham and James “Jim/Cinch” McKay co-owned it.

After making the move versus before, as required by Silver State law, Stacher sought a gambling license from the state and the city. He boasted that if he ran into trouble getting those, he simply would pay what he needed to, up to $250,000 ($2.7 million today). to make it happen. Regardless, the Nevada Tax Commission denied him the requisite license, and, thus, he had to forfeit his Bank Club stake.

Stacher and Lansky also focused on Las Vegas. There, along with Costello, the two provided the capital for construction of the Sands Hotel and Casino, which debuted in 1952. Behind the scenes, Stacher ran the gambling there while someone else, Texas gambler Jake Freedman for one, was the front. Also on behalf of Lansky, Stacher allegedly was involved, too, with the casino at the Fremont, which opened in 1956.

“Doc Harris virtually ran Las Vegas with more access to its gambling cash than Howard Hughes has now,” O’Brian wrote in 1971 (Monroe-News Star).

Caribbean — Cuba, Haiti, The Bahamas

During the 1940s when gambling was legal in Cuba, Stacher ran various casinos there for Lansky. Part of his duties included getting payola to then President Fulgencio Batista. Stacher also allegedly had a hand in ensuring the success of Lansky’s casinos in Haiti and the Bahamas.

“Ultimately, he would become one of Lansky’s most valuable aides in the control of international casino gambling,” wrote Hank Messick in the biography Lansky.

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* Stacher also went by these names: Joseph Rosen, Morris Rose, Morris Rosen, Doc Rosen, Joe J. Stein, J.P. Harris, Doc Harris, Doc Weiner, George Kent and Harry Goldman.

Sources

Wertheimer

Myrton “Mert” C. Wertheimer was murdered, William “Bill/Curly” J. Graham ordered the hit and Frank “Frankie” Frost carried it out. This was hearsay from Los Angeles Mobster and made man, Aladena James “Jimmy/The Weasel” Fratianno, as documented in Ovid Demaris‘ biography of Fratianno, The Last Mafioso.

Page 173 (hardback version) contains a conversation relayed to Demaris by Fratianno, between him and two Chicago Outfit members, Sam “Momo” Giancana and Johnny Rosselli. The three were reminiscing after Rosselli was released from prison, and the topic turned to Graham, then deceased. Fratianno says, “‘In his day, [Graham] was a worker. He was telling me one time that he had Frankie Frost clip Mert Wertheimer in Reno. You know, the guy that had the Riverside Hotel.'”

Wertheimer in fact ran the Riverside Hotel casino, called the Riverside Buffet, from 1949 to 1955, first as a lessee then as the owner, and for the three previous years, was involved in the Nevada Club.

Fellow Mobster-gambler, Graham, controlled Reno gambling and organized crime and owned several Northern Nevada casinos, including the Bank Club and the Willows in Reno and the Cal-Neva Lodge in Crystal Bay, between the 1920s and 1940s.

Frost was a hitman, jewelry thief and friend of Graham, who lived in The Biggest Little City for some time.

Were these allegations involving Wertheimer, Graham and Frost true? It Really Happened! investigated.

Circumstances of Death: True Or False?

Mert Wertheimer, the eldest of four brothers, died at age 74 in Los Angeles, California on July 20, 1958. His demise was suspicious in that it happened only two months after his brother Lou’s passing.

At face value, Mert Wertheimer’s death certificate does not indicate homicide, but perhaps it was falsified to hide the truth. The document primarily was typewritten except for the cause of death, time of diagnosis and a few other details that Wertheimer’s personal, Beverly Hills, California-based physician (whose name is indecipherable) handwrote.

The pertinent data on Wertheimer’s death certificate are:

1) Wertheimer passed away in the Cedars of Lebanon hospital at 4:42 a.m.

2) He died from acute monocytic leukemia, diagnosed six months earlier. His obituary in the Los Angeles Times noted “he had been in failing health the last two years” and his wife Bertha flew in from the couple’s Michigan summer home to be by his bedside” (July 21, 1958).

3) Wertheimer’s physician provided medical care to him for seven years, since 1951. He also provided care to Wertheimer’s brothers Lou and Al and filled out and signed their death certificates.

4) The doctor last saw Mert Wertheimer alive the day before his demise.

5) An autopsy was performed, and the findings were  used to determine the cause of death.

6) At the time of death, Wertheimer was living in Reno’s Riverside Hotel but had been in Los Angeles County for 13 days beforehand. Why was he there, to visit family and/or friends or for a medical appointment because he’d been feeling unwell? Or had he been lured there on a false premise?

Many of the above death certificate facts could’ve been verified easily with a check of Wertheimer’s medical records. As such, it’s highly unlikely, though remotely possible, his physician doctored records and the death certificate. If he did, it was at the risk of losing his medical license and career, going to prison and paying a hefty fine.

Question Of Motive

At the time of Wertheimer’s death, Graham was 69 and had been out of the Northern Nevada gambling scene for three years.

Wertheimer and his partners held a 10-year lease on the Riverside Buffet, which they negotiated during a sale of the property in January 1958, six months before Wertheimer’s death.

If Graham had Wertheimer killed, why? Did Graham dislike, envy or have a grudge against him? Did the two gamblers have a longstanding rivalry? What was the point of rubbing out Wertheimer when he was 74 and ill?

Final Determination

After considering the available evidence and information, It Really Happened! deduced that Mert Wertheimer died of natural causes.

In defense of this conclusion, we argue that pulling off a murder and a cover-up secretly and successfully required perfect execution of all of the various steps involved, and that seems improbable. It would’ve needed more than just Wertheimer’s physician to be involved, and it’s unlikely numerous parties kept quiet and for so long. It’s hard to fathom that in perpetrating the cover-up, a physician risked so much and on behalf of the person(s) responsible for the murder.

Tell A Lie Once…

So who lied, Fratianno or Graham? And to what end? Was Fratianno trying to ingratiate himself with Giancana, who revered Graham, with this boast about Graham? Did Graham want Fratianno to think he’d ordered the killing?

Why did author Demaris include this misinformation in his book without at least qualifying it? (Fratianno sued Demaris for allegedly misquoting him in The Last Mafioso, yet at another time, admitted he never read it.)

If it was Fratianno who lied, it calls into question his credibility, which has greater implications. This is because after he became an FBI informant in 1977, he testified against numerous Mobsters, gamblers among them, and his insider testimony helped get 26 La Cosa Nostra members and 11 associates convicted.

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What do you think, was Wertheimer murdered or did he die naturally? If the latter, why would Graham or Fratianno lie about it?

Sources

1936

A man walked into the Greenleaf & Crosby jewelry store in New York’s Rockefeller Center at about 11 a.m. on Monday, January 6. Two others followed through the other entrance. “This is a stickup,” one of them said.

He ordered the two salesmen there, Walter Gibson and Robert Mercadal, to sit and not turn their heads. With the other person present, a colleague from another company, he had his accomplices bind, gag and handcuff him to a table leg in the back room.

The thieves took from the cases the most valuable diamond pieces — one, a pendant, was valued at about $35,000 ($652,000 today). The trio got away with about $125,000 ($2.3 million today) worth of merchandise.

After the six minute long robbery, Gibson and Mercadal identified Frank Frost, by picking his photo out of mugshot books, as being one of the robbers and the trio’s leader, the one who gave the orders.

The Law Comes A-Calling

Three months later, Reno, Nevada police arrested Frost at his home on April 8 and confiscated an unloaded revolver they found in his wife Dorothy’s room. Before Frost went willingly and unarmed, he telephoned Jack Sullivan, the manager of the Bank Club casino, owned by local gambler-Mobsters William “Bill/Curly” Graham and James “Jim/Cinch” McKay.

Sullivan, a close Graham and McKay associate, arranged for an attorney for Frost (William McKnight) and raised and paid his $10,000 ($186,000 today) bail. A now free Frost was to be taken to New York to answer to charges there, but detectives couldn’t find him. Frost had chosen to hide such so that could stay in Reno for an upcoming habeas corpus hearing* that his attorney had requested and, simultaneously, protect his bail and stay out of jail. After some clever legal moves, Frost turned himself in and, again, was released on bail.

A Constructed Alibi?

At the hearing start on Monday, April 20, Frost kicked off a parade of about 40 people who would testify on his behalf. In contrast, the state of New York would present a single witness. The defendant recounted what he’d done up to, including and after January 6, 1936, the day of the heist, in which he claimed he hadn’t been involved.

Frank Frost

January 4: According to Frost, he and Graham left Reno’s Grand Central Garage in the morning and headed to Sacramento, California. They put chains on their vehicle’s tires in Truckee and later removed them at Baxter’s Camp. Once at their destination, they hung out at the Equipoise Club and stayed the night at the Senator Hotel.

January 5: Frost and Graham visited the Capital Clothing Company, where Frost bought three hats and, later, the two bet on some horse races. In the afternoon, they set out for Reno, first stopping on the way at the Rainbow Tavern and later at the Soda Springs Hotel for dinner with two of Graham’s friends. There, Frost phoned Dorothy to check in. Back in Reno, the men drove to Graham’s house, where Dorothy was staying with Graham’s wife. The Frosts drove in Graham’s car to the George Wingfield, Sr.-owned Golden Hotel, their place of residence at the time.

January 6: Frost walked to the Riverside Hotel to pick up some papers and while there, ran into Charles Mayer, a mining prospector with whom Frost had visited various properties. The two discussed possibly meeting up later to take another trip. Frost then went to the Bank Club, bet on a horse named Tamalpais racing at Santa Anita and when it won, collected his winnings. Afterward, he received the lease on a house he and Dorothy were interested in and later discussed it with rental agent, Maurice Burman. At night, Frost, back at the Golden, played cards in the bar room, and chatted with two men.

January 7: Frost signed the lease at Burman’s office, paid two months’ rent and applied for phone and electricity at the house. 

“Were you in New York on January 6,” McKnight asked him.
“No, sir,” Frost answered.
“Were you in New York any time after that?”
“No, sir.”

Graham testified next, saying he’d known Frost for years, having met him in New York. Frost had come to Reno in 1931 for the Baer-Uzcudun boxing match and, subsequently, the two met up a few times in San Francisco. Graham corroborated Frost’s account of their Sacramento trip and said he’d seen Frost at the Bank Club on January 6.

Next, six witnesses from California testified, at Graham’s request. He paid their expenses and even gave one an additional $20. The slew of others who took the stand collectively confirmed details Frost had testified to, and several reported having seen him at various times between January 4 and 7.

On the hearing’s third and final day, Gibson, one of the Greenleaf & Crosby salesmen, testified against Frost. He described the start of the robbery, saying, “I turned and faced him, and my eyes never left him. He directed me what to do — go over to a table and sit down,” he recalled (Reno Evening Gazette, April 23, 1936). Then “I was warned not to turn my head; what went on behind me was a matter of conjecture. My reaction [to the robbery] was not one of fear but was more of bewilderment— I was slightly stunned.”

When Gibson pointed out Frost in the courtroom, Frost interjected, “Look me in the eye when you say that. Look me straight in the eye.”

Gibson continued, “but it was apparent that he was very nervous. He spoke rapidly, and while he related his story, Foster continued to glare at the witness,” the Reno Evening Gazette reported (April 22, 1936).

After two hours of cross-examination by McKnight, Gibson looked right at Frost and said, “I know the man sitting before me is the man who came into the store that morning” (Nevada State Journal, April 23, 1936).

Judge Thomas F. Moran

The opposing attorneys presented their final arguments, and Judge Thomas F. Moran ruled. He made the writ of habeas corpus permanent.

“From the evidence introduced by some reputable citizens of Reno,” he said, “I am led to believe the petitioner was not in New York on the morning of January 6.”

“Frost’s extradition to New York was blocked by a habeas corpus procedure,” noted the Nevada State Journal (Sept. 11, 1953). “It was the first of several legal moves which in later years prevented numerous notorious figures from being returned from Nevada to other states to face criminal charges.”

Eventually, New York dismissed the charges against Frost. The federal government could’ve pursued the charge they previously had filed against him of fleeing across a state border to avoid prosecution of an alleged felony, but it didn’t.

Had Frost been involved in the robbery of Greenleaf & Crosby, he got off scot-free.

Shady Intervention For Frost

Seventeen years later, in 1953, Frost wanted to explain away to Nevada gambling regulators his prior arrests for carrying an unconcealed weapon and for the jewelry store robbery. Regarding the latter, he had in his possession a letter that Sullivan had obtained when recently in New York and, by happenstance, Cartier’s, the jewelry store where former Greenleaf & Crosby salesman, Gibson, now worked. The letter was written by Gibson and indicated when he’d identified Frost as one of the 1936 robbers, he’d mistaken him for someone else and was sorry for his error.

Frost explained to the Nevada State Journal that Sullivan, while in Cartier’s, mentioned he was from Reno, and this led to the subject of the robbery, Gibson volunteering he’d misidentified Frost and then him giving Sullivan the letter.

Underhanded Tit For Tat?

Why did Graham and Sullivan seemingly go out of their way to help Frost? Yes, they reportedly were friends, but the extent to which they went for Frost suggests something larger at play. Perhaps Graham and/or Sullivan had put Frost up to robbing the jewelry store. Maybe one or more people in the Reno Mobsters’ circle owed Frost, perhaps for one or more favors or unpleasant jobs he’d done for them.

Two mysterious events occurred in Northern Nevada that fit the timeline and that might’ve been the outcome of those favors.

Suspicious Vanishing Of Key Witness

The first was the March 23, 1934 disappearance of Renoite Roy Frisch, who was to be the prosecution’s primary witness in Graham and McKay’s upcoming trial for swindling investors out of thousands of dollars via the mail. Frisch was the head cashier at Wingfield’s Riverside Bank, through which Graham and McKay had made their exploitive transactions.

The duo’s initial mail fraud trial resulted in a hung jury. (The two would be convicted in their third trial in 1938 and would go to the U.S. Penitentiary, Leavenworth in August 1939.) The prevailing theory about Frisch’s going missing is that “Baby Face Nelson,” né Lester Gillis, friend of Graham and McKay, killed Frisch and disposed of his body. Perhaps, instead, Frost had been the actual perpetrator. Murder seemed to be part of his criminal repertoire. In 1934, Frost allegedly had been living in Los Angeles at the time, an ideal cover for Frisch’s disappearance as Reno police wouldn’t have known about Frost and, thus, wouldn’t have suspected he’d been involved.

Sketchy Demise Of Miner, Gambler

The other suspicious happening was the death of Reno resident Art Zeller, in his 50s, who never returned from a trip to meet up with Nevada prospector, Tom Dalton, and Dalton’s mining camp near Winnemucca Lake on March 16, 1936. Before he set out that Monday morning, he told Frank Golden, the manager of Wingfield’s Golden Hotel, where Zeller lived, where he was going and that he’d return in the afternoon. However, Golden didn’t notify police that Zeller was missing until 10:30 p.m. Thursday; by that time, he was dead already, it would turn out.

On Friday, Washoe County Sheriff Ray Root and others began searching for Zeller. They discovered his abandoned Buick about 500 yards northeast of Winnemucca Lake and noted its clutch was damaged. From there, they traced footprints, presumably Zeller’s, for 30 miles but lost the trail.

The sheriff discovered Zeller’s frozen body about 10 miles to the southeast of the lake on Monday morning. The lawman hypothesized that Zeller had gotten stranded in the deep sands, had begun walking southward but after a few miles, perhaps confused and/or lost, had started wandering, “the trail sometimes leading to the shore of the lake, and at other times far into the desert” (Reno Evening Gazette, March 23, 1936). Root calculated that Zeller had traversed about 55 miles on foot.

Among the expected items in his pockets — cash, car keys, notebook, etc. — was a small, unlabeled brown pharmacy bottle containing a few drops of amber-colored liquid. Had someone replaced his medicine with something that would render him confused or delirious or, worse, slowly take his life?

Though Root ruled out foul play and the coroner’s jury determined Zeller succumbed from exposure, his death didn’t make sense entirely. For one, he had several years of experience scouting out mining properties. Two, Dalton had given Zeller a detailed map of the route to his property, which included the mile count at every turn. Dalton also had warned Zeller about the sand, telling him his car had stalled in it two weeks earlier. Further, one could see the highway from the place Zeller’s car was found, Dalton said.

“If he had walked west for 17 miles, he would have gotten on the Gerlach Highway,” Dalton told the Reno Evening Gazette (March 27, 1936).

When Zeller died, Frost had been living in Reno for four months and hadn’t been arrested yet for the New York jewelry heist. Oddly, since the Chicago Mobster had moved to Reno, he’d taken regular trips to mining properties with Zeller’s partner, Charles Mayer. Why suddenly had Frost been so interested in mining?

At the time of his passing, Zeller had been funding the excavation of a tunnel on the Manitouwoc property south of Quartz Mountain in Nevada’s Nye County. In the early 1920s, Wingfield, a miner, too, had expressed interest in Quartz Mountain after a new silver-lead discovery had been made there. That reportedly had led to a mad rush to the area, but mining had been short-lived because the deposit had been deemed shallow. Had Wingfield wanted Zeller out of the picture for some reason related to Manitouwoc or to mining?

Zeller also had been running roulette at Incline Village’s Cal-Neva Lodge, then owned by Graham and McKay and the casino run by Northern California Mobster, Elmer “Bones” Remmer. Police discovered a roulette wheel rigging device and a large opium supply in Zeller’s hotel room after his death. Had Zeller been murdered over something to do with gambling or drug dealing?

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* A writ of habeas corpus, which translates in English to “produce the body,” is a court order mandating that an official, such as a warden but in this case, the Washoe County district attorney, deliver an imprisoned individual to the court and show a valid reason for their detention.

Photo from Pond5.com: Diamonds by ivan_kuprevich

Sources

Frost, 1936

1906-1967

Frank “Frankie” Frost (1898-1967) spent about two decades working in Reno’s gambling scene and had close relationships with those in power locally, including gambler-Mobsters William “Bill/Curly” Graham and James “Jim/Cinch” McKay and banker and businessman, George Wingfield, Sr. Frost had a checkered past, which eventually got him blacklisted from Nevada’s gambling industry.

Here we present the “work” (criminal) highlights of Frost, tracking him geographically through Illinois, then California and, finally, Nevada.

Chicago, 1906-1930: Murder Charge By Age 30

Though Frost was born in California, he spent most of his youth in Chicago and eventually became part of its North Side Aiello–Moran gang (Giuseppe “Joe” Aiello and George “Bugs” Moran), which was involved heavily in bootlegging during the 1920s. Frost, who used the aliases Eddie Ryan, Frank Bruna and Frank Citro there, was arrested three or four times for disorderly conduct but wasn’t charged.

Also, Frost was the primary suspect in the November 16, 1928 machine gun murder of John G. Clay, head of the Laundry and Fyehouse Chauffeurs’ Union. Police theorized that Moran ordered the hit because Clay was thwarting Moran’s attempts to muscle in on the cleaning and dyeing racket in The Windy City’s West and South Sides, Alphonse “Scarface” Capone’s territory. Though Frost was arrested for the murder, he wasn’t charged.

In a supposed act of retaliation by Capone, some of his soldiers, disguised as police officers, lined up and machine gunned down six of Moran’s men on February 14, 1929, nearly wiping out his crew. Initially, Frost was thought to be among the victims of what was dubbed the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Afterward, Frost switched his allegiance to Capone.

When Chicago Tribune crime reporter, Alfred “Jake” Lingle was murdered June 9, 1930, police traced the gun, left at the scene, back to Frost but determined that a Leo V. Brothers was the shooter.

Frost

Los Angeles, 1930-1934: Not Staying Out Of Trouble

Frost was indicted by a grand jury for accessory to the Lingle crime because he presumably had guilty knowledge of the killer(s) and their motives, but he was in Los Angeles at the time, using the alias Frank Foreman. He was captured there on July 1, 1930, arrested, returned to Chicago and placed in the county jail. After five months, though, he had to be released by law, so he got out on a $20,000 ($309,000 today) bond.

In March of the next year, Frost testified at Brothers’ trial. Also called to the stand was a witness who said he saw Frost and Brothers flee the scene in different directions after Lingle was shot. One detail the witness recounted was seeing Frost help Brothers light a cigarette afterward so Brothers didn’t have to take one of his hands out of his pocket.

The trial of Frost, for his alleged involvement in Lingle’s murder, was scheduled for April 28, but it never took place because the witnesses disappeared. Frost was back in Los Angeles when he learned, in June, that charges against him were dropped.

In September, Frost was arrested on suspicion of extortion in connection with a scheme to extort money from the widow of soap magnate, Leo Bergin. Bergin racked up a gambling debt of at least $6,000 ($102,000 today) in a days-long dice game run by representatives of New York gambler-Mobster Arnold Rothstein. Bergin wrote some checks for what he owed but later stopped payment on some. Before Rothstein’s men could collect in full, Bergin died, so they went after Gladys Bergin for payment. Due to lack of evidence, Frost wasn’t charged.

The following year, 1932, in February, a patrol officer pulled over Frost, who was working at the time as a bail bondsman. A search of the new car he was driving yielded a fully loaded, 0.45-caliber automatic pistol. Frost also had with him a letter from a “Ben” in New York, possibly Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, which read in part, “Other people out there are trying to keep out of trouble, but are always in touch with New York. Glad you have gone into the bonding business, as that is good cover for the business you are in.” Frost was found guilty of carrying a concealed weapon, a misdemeanor. Because he then failed to appear at a hearing of arguments concerning a possible new trial, the judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

A month later, police in San Francisco raided an apartment in their investigation of a $100,000 ($1.8 million today) jewelry robbery and took the four men inside to the station. Frost was among them. It resulted in a vagrancy charge (that later would be removed) and him being returned to the City of Angels. He was sentenced to six months in the county jail for the concealed weapon offense. Frost, though, disappeared, and a nationwide hunt for him began. Before he could be found, the appellate court reversed his conviction.

Presumably, the man who repeatedly had gotten away with crimes laid low in Southern California for the next few years.

Reno, 1935-1967: Focus On Gambling, Business

Frost next turned up living with his wife in The Biggest Little City. Only five months later, in April 1936, he was arrested for allegedly stealing $125,000 ($2.3 million today) worth of jewelry from a New York City store that January. For the story, see next blog post, Reno Mobsters Aid Gangster From Chicago, Raising Suspicions.

In 1938, the owner of a New York clothing store, Cy Kronfield Inc., sued Frost for $630.85 ($11,500 today) for not paying for goods and services it provided to him between 1933 and 1939.

Using the name Frank Foster, Frost was arrested in Elko, a city about 300 miles northeast of Reno, in May 1940 for attempted burglary of the Reinhart general merchandise store. Two months later, he was arrested and served 30 days in jail in Reno for “prowling through parked automobiles” (Reno Evening Gazette, Dec. 10, 1940). In June 1941, he was arrested for petty larceny after getting caught trying to sell children’s clothes he’d stolen from somewhere.

Frost reportedly ran or helped run the race horse pool at Graham and McKay’s Bank Club for several years, after which he opened and operated his own book, the Reno Turf Club.

In 1947’s first half, Frost applied for another gambling license from the city, this one for a new entity, Washoe Sports News, which was to supply race results from the Trans-America News and Publishing Co. wire service to local outlets. On behalf of Capone, Siegel was tasked with forcing bookmakers on the West Coast to switch to Trans-America from Continental Press. While the city council was mulling over whether or not to eliminate the existing cap on the number of race pools allowed in Reno, because granting Frost the license would’ve exceeded it, Trans-America went bankrupt and folded after its primary owner-operator was murdered. Soon afterward, Siegel was killed, too, and Frost withdrew his gambling application.

In 1951, Frost sold the Reno Turf Club. Afterward, he returned to working at the Bank Club, supposedly wrapping money. However, members of the Nevada Tax Commission, the entity which in 1947 gained the task of issuing state gambling licenses, saw him overseeing a game of faro there once. Because of his criminal background, the commissioners didn’t want Frost involved with running the gambling in any Silver State casino.

However, they spotted him again doing just that, counting money and giving orders at Reno’s Palace Club. After a related brouhaha, the casino banned him from working there in 1953, and after that, according to Frost, he no longer could get a job in the state’s gaming industry.

Dorothy Frost

In 1955, Frost’s wife Dorothy, a Manitoba, Canada native, took her life by overdosing on sleeping pills.

His Final Years

The widower remained in Reno and was involved subsequently in some shady business dealings, which came to light through various lawsuits. Frost held and breached the lease on the Mt. Rose Sawmill. In an incident that led to a lawsuit, Frost physically prevented a competing lumber firm (Frost owned the Nevada Pine Mill and Lumber Co.) from taking from the sawmill wood it purchased. Also, he was sued for failing to pay for lumber he bought from a Lake Tahoe man.

In another arrangement, Frost was a co-partner with McKay and Marion T. Weller in F.M.W. Drilling Co. In 1957, an employee sued F.M.W. for not paying him $1,650 ($15,000 today), the remainder of wages due him for building an oil derrick.

In 1961, a Frank Frost appeared to be working at the local Buick dealership as the assistant general sales manager. It may or may not have been him.

The Mobster Frost, who’d left a trail of crime in his wake, passed away on April 1, 1967 at age 68 in Nevada.

Sources

A young Lansky

Meyer Lansky, né Maier Suchowljansky (1902-1983), just may be the U.S. icon of 20th century gambling, illegal and legal.

After being instrumental in creating the National Crime Syndicate, an amalgam of Italian-American Mafia and Jewish-American Mobsters, he worked his way up to its top position of chairman. His role, self-chosen, was facilitating the development, overseeing the finances and managing the skimming distributions of the syndicate’s many casinos around the world. He did so with only an eighth grade education.

Nicknamed “The Genius” and “The Mob’s Accountant,” Lansky was a visionary, planner, strategist, problem solver and long game player, as described in his biographies.

As for his personal life, briefly, he emigrated at age 9 with his family from Grodno, Poland (now in Belarus) to the States and lived in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in New York. In adulthood, he was married twice and had three children. Lansky admired French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (another man of short stature and determination), most appreciated the poem “Desiderata” and loved the color blue (his wardrobe staple).

Here are 10 interesting tidbits about Meyer Lansky, the businessman:

One of Lansky’s illegal gambling operations was here

1) Lansky’s primary career goals after the National Crime Syndicate formation were to develop a foundation for future operations, become indispensable to the conglomerate’s Mobster members by making them money through gambling and in doing so, keep a low profile and stay mysterious. Once accomplished, which was the case by the 1950s, he pursued further expanding his gambling empire globally.

“Wealth was not the objective, for of that he had more than enough, nor were the trappings of power,” author Hank Messick wrote about Lansky. “It was the exercise of power that Lansky enjoyed; to study others, to profit by their mistakes was his technique.”

2) The gambling enterprises under Lansky’s purview included ones he owned solely, some he co-owned in partnerships and others in which he held points, or from which he received a percentage of the skim.

He was involved with gambling clubs and dog race tracks in the U.S. states of Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana, New York, Nevada, Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama along with Cuba, England, the Bahamas, Haiti and Lebanon.  In his later years, he was working on developing casinos in Jamaica, the Virgin Islands, Hong Kong, Bogota, Hawaii, and the French Riviera.

Due to his auto repair and modification skills, Lansky was called the master of the Model T

3) Along with gambling, Lansky was involved in numerous businesses during his lifetime. They included the tool and die, auto repair and modification, murder for hire, bootlegging, narcotics and coin-operated machines businesses.

“No matter where you went, the Mob had its finger in the pie,” a Mobster wrote about the National Crime Syndicate’s growing portfolio of enterprises, “and usually it was Meyer Lansky’s finger,” as recounted by the authors of The Money and The Power.

Author Albert Fried wrote in The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America that Lansky “more than anyone else grasped the emergent possibilities of gangster-capitalism.”

4) Lansky schemed and facilitated the prison release (a pardon by New York Governor Tom Dewey in this case) for Mafia head, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, in 1946 by helping create and fostering a means by which Luciano could contribute meaningfully to the World War II effort. The opportunity was through Operation Underworld, in which Mobsters (under imprisoned Luciano’s direction with Lansky as the go-between) controlled and prevented mayhem at New York’s ports.

5) Lansky secretly turned against and even orchestrated the fall of some fellow National Crime Syndicate members when it suited his purpose, often to eliminate potential competition. It’s well known that he approved the murder of his childhood friend and fellow gangster, Benjamin “Bugsy” Seigel, but Lansky also greenlighted hits on Abner “Longie” Zwillman, another longtime friend and associate, as well as Luciano loyalist, New York Mafioso Joe Adonis (born Giuseppe Antonio Doto).

Lansky

In another example, Lansky betrayed longtime associate, Louis Lepke (né Buchalter). Four months before Lepke was indicted by a federal grand jury for narcotics smuggling, he went into hiding. Wanting Lepke captured and convicted, Lansky brought about his surrender, through a mediary of course, on the false promise of getting the deal of not being prosecuted by New York state. (Lepke later was found guilty and sentenced to 14 years in prison, after which he was convicted of extortion and sentenced to 30 years to life.)

6) Lansky allegedly blackmailed J. Edgar Hoover in the 1930s with incriminating sex photos he somehow had obtained of the FBI director and his top deputy Clyde Tolson.

“The pictures were said to hold at bay this most formidable of potential adversaries,” wrote authors Sally Denton and Roger Morris.

7) Despite 60 years in the underworld, having committed various crimes and having been arrested many times, Lansky beat six murder charges and only spent 3 months, 16 days behind bars, between May and July 1953.

Alo

8) Lansky’s best friend, confidant and ally was Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo, a high-ranking capo in New York’s Genovese crime family.

“Alo and Lansky hit it off from the start,” John William Tuohy wrote. “Both were small men, 5’3″, and only a year apart in their ages. They were both basically shy men who had crawled out of the almost unbelievable poverty of the New York slums. They were book loving, low profile, chain smokers without much to say to those they didn’t know. Over the years, Alo had grown to represent Lansky’s muscle, a perpetual reminder to the outside world that the reasonable and business-like Lansky was protected by the Mafia.”

9) Lansky purchased a resort in the Florida Keys in 1951 for U.S. Mobsters to go, hide and recreate during the Kefauver Committee’s hearings. The Plantation Key Yacht Harbor was located ideally, close enough to yet far enough away from the mainland.

10) Lansky moved to Israel in 1970 to spend the rest of his years there, but the country rejected and expelled him. Instead, he returned to and resumed life in Miami Beach, Florida, where he eventually passed away in his sleep at age 80 on January 15, 1983 from lung cancer. His net worth at the time was said to have been $57,000 versus its peak in the late 1960s of $300 million.

“I wouldn’t have lived my life any other way,” Lansky told the authors of Meyer Lansky: Mogul of the Mob in 1978. “It was in my blood, my character. Environment certainly had something to do with it, but basically my own personality determined my fate. … I have nothing on my conscience. I would not change anything.”

Sources

From left to right, Mert, Lou and Al Wertheimer

1907-1958

Wertheimer was their name. Three of these four Michigan-born brothers became full-fledged, successful gambling operators in the first half of the 1900s, their reach spanning five states: Michigan, Ohio, Florida, California and Nevada.

“As gamblers, Al, Mert and Lou became almost as well-known Detroiters as the automobile pioneers. However, the only thing the Wertheimers built was their reputation as being fabulous spenders and operators of plus gambling establishments here and in other cities,” wrote Ken McCormick in the Detroit Free Press (June 9, 1953).

The brothers, from eldest to youngest, and their birthdates were:

Myrton “Mert”                    June 12, 1884
Louis “Lou”                        September 19, 1887
Alfred “Al” John                January 30, 1889
Lionel Abraham                 May 30, 1890 (he wasn’t involved in gambling)

Today, Mert’s 136th birthday, we take a chronological look at most (20) of the threesome’s gambling enterprises over five decades.

1900-1910s

The Wertheimers began their careers with offering illegal gambling in Cheboygan, their hometown, using billiards/pool halls as their front.

In 1907, Al and Lou opened and operated the New Cheboygan Billiard & Pool Hall, renaming it the Model Billiard & Bowling Parlor a year later. After a 1911 fire there, Al moved to Detroit; Mert went, too, in 1915. Lou stayed put until 1925.

1920s

Mert and Al spent this decade plying their unlawful trade at various venues, mostly in Detroit. Later in the decade, though, Lou and Al opened a club in Cleveland, Ohio. Because police raids of their unlawful businesses were frequent, the gamblers simply packed up and opened elsewhere.

Grand River Athletic Club, Detroit, Mich. Mert and Al opened this bowling, billiards/pool and gambling club in 1922.

Monte Carlo, Detroit, Mich. Mert ran this club of his from 1922 to 1927.

Colonial Billiard Parlor, Detroit, Mich. Mert and his friend, Raymond Reuben “Ruby” Mathis, opened the Colonial in 1923.

Park Avenue Health Club, Detroit, Mich. One of Al’s gambling enterprises, run out of the Charlevoix Hotel starting in 1923.

Shawnee Club, Cleveland, Ohio. Al and Lou launched the Shawnee in 1925 with the county sheriff’s blessing despite gambling being illegal in the state. A public official closed the club in 1931.

Aniwa Club, Detroit, Mich. Al’s project starting in 1929, this was the Wertheimers’ first high-class nightclub, offering fine dining, dancing and entertainment. After numerous raids for alcohol and gambling, both illegal, he changed the club to members only.

Chesterfield Club, Detroit, Mich. Mert partnered and co-ran the club with Detroit gamblers Lincoln Fitzgerald and Danny Sullivan. The trio operated as the Chesterfield Syndicate with Mert in charge and Fitzgerald second in command. Consequently, that trio would be convicted in 1946 of illegal gambling there, in Macomb County.

The syndicate operated with the permission of the Purple Gang, which controlled the Chesterfield and other gambling operations. Another set of brothers, the Bernsteins — Abraham/”Abe,” Joseph/”Joe”, Raymond and Isadore/”Izzy” — led this violent group, also involved in bootlegging, murder, extortion, armed robbery and kidnapping.

Colonial Billiard Parlor

Aniwa Club

1930s

During this decade, Mert moved to South Florida, and Al and Lou relocated to Southern California. Then, casino gambling in Florida was illegal as were banking* and percentage** games in California.

Beach and Tennis Club, Miami, Fla. For the upper class, Mert opened this place in 1931 in The Shadows mansion formerly of Carl G. Fisher. It offered dining, dancing, illegal gambling and illegal alcohol, no tennis.

Clover Club, West Hollywood, Calif. Al and Lou’s first gaming establishment in California, they ran it from 1933 to 1936.

Dunes, Cathedral City, Calif. Al and Lou opened it in 1936 on 20 acres just outside Palm Springs. Al closed it in 1941.

Colonial House, Palm Springs, Calif. Al aimed to capture the elite as customers with its 1937 debut. “This one masqueraded as a ‘private hotel,’ but just about everyone in town knew there was a secret staircase hidden behind a cupboard in the pantry that led to an underground casino, bar and bawdy house,” Bob Schulman wrote in the HuffPost (May 15, 2013).

Royal Palm Club, Miami, Fla. Miami city councilman Arthur Childers owned the club, and Mert operated its gambling starting in 1937.

Kaufman’s Plantation, Hallandale Beach, Fla. Mobsters Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo, Julian “Potatoes” Kaufman and Meyer Lansky owned the casino, which Mert helped run beginning in 1939.

Beach and Tennis Club

Dunes

Royal Palm Hotel

1940s

This decade took Mert and Lou to Reno, Nevada, where gambling had been legal since 1931, while Al remained in California.

Bonanza Club, Reno, Nev. Lou bought into the business in 1944 and ran it until the Mapes’ 1947 debut.

Colonial Inn, Hallandale Beach, Fla. Mert was involved with this Lansky-owned property only for the 1945 winter season.

Robbin & Robbin / Nevada Club, Reno, Nev. Around 1945, Mert, Fitzgerald, Sullivan and Mathis wormed their way into and took over Robbin & Robbin, renaming it the Nevada Club afterward.

Mapes, Reno, Nev. Lou and partners, Bernard “Bernie/Mooney” Einstoss, Frank Grannis and Leo Kind, leased and ran this hotel’s casino starting in 1947.

Mapes and Riverside hotels

1950s

This decade marked the end of the Wertheimer brothers’ gambling involvement and their lives.

Riverside, Reno, Nev. Mert took over the lease and operation of this hotel’s gambling concession in 1950. In 1951, Lou joined Mert at the Riverside and worked alongside him for a few years.

Al passed away in 1953 at age 64.

In 1955, Mert, Mathis and others bought the entire Riverside property from George Wingfield. In 1958, Lou died at 70 then Mert followed two months later at 74.

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*Banking games = those in which bets are placed against a house, bank or dealer

**Percentage games = banking games with relatively disproportionate odds

Sources

Justi

1923-1945

Reno, Nevada’s Third Ward city councilman during the 1920s and 1930s was “owned by” the local Mobsters, acted in their interests and protected them, contended Harold S. Smith, Jr., Harolds Club co-owner, in his book I Want to Quit Winners. That councilmember was William A. Justi (1873-1945).

The Third Ward encompassed the “liberal” district, which included most of Reno’s gambling establishments (Nevada State Journal, April 18, 1945). The covered  area was between Sierra Street on the west, the railroad tracks on the north, the city boundary on the east and the Truckee River on the south.

Here’s some information about Justi that could support Smith’s allegations:

Mobster Affiliation

Justi worked at the Bank Club, overseeing its bar and cigar store, from 1919 or 1920 until his health failed a few years before he passed away. Heads of the local syndicate William “Bill” Graham and James “Jim” McKay owned the club from 1931 until after Justi died. The three men had to know one another from that association alone. Also, given that the Bank Club was a casino, did a councilmember and, thus, gambling-related policymaker, working there not constitute a conflict of interest? 

Political Dominance

served on the Reno City Council for 21 years, from 1923 to roughly 1944, through four mayoral administrations.* Why did he win every election?

“Mr. Justi dominated the ward and though several attempts were made to defeat him and also to change the ward boundaries by legislative action, they all came to naught and in late years, he had little opposition,”  the Nevada State Journal reported (April 18, 1945).

Further, “when efforts ware made later to change the ward system or provide for the election of councilmen at large, Justi always led the opposition to such moves,” according to the Reno Evening Gazette (April 18, 1945).

On the city council, Justi held a lot of sway, as indicated  by the Nevada State Journal.

“For eight years the entire policy of the city government has been determined by E. E. Roberts, its mayor, and by William A. Justi, the mayor’s chief representative in the city council,” noted the newspaper (April 21, 1931). Later, it reported, “Outspoken, [Justi] was one of the most influential members of the city council” (April 18, 1945).

Casino Interests

Right after Nevada legalized gambling in 1931, Justi introduced an ordinance that would limit gaming to a zone in Reno, bounded, respectively, on the west and east by Virginia Street and the city limit, and on the north and south by Commercial Row and First Street. That restriction would have benefitted the owners of the existing big clubs, including Graham and  McKay.

Justi’s fellow councilmembers, however, rejected the proposal. In fact, the council would not pass such an ordinance until 1947, instituting what would be called the Red Line.

Law Enforcement Control

Justi also was the city council’s police committee chairman, who had “direct charge of police activities under the mayor,” including the power to make arrests (Reno Evening Gazette, Jan. 29, 1929). Justi held the post from 1929 to 1935.   

He “wanted the position from the time he first became a member of the [city council],” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (Jan. 29, 1929). The newspaper later described that in that role, Justi “virtually controlled police affairs” (March 16, 1936).

In one instance in 1930, the Reno Police Department did not take the action that Justi wanted in regard to a man who fired shots in a Lake Street hotel. Justi expressed his displeasure and demanded they heed his word in the future.

“Justi let it be known around the police station that hereafter he will expect his recommendations in such cases to be observed,” according to the Reno Evening Gazette (Oct. 18, 1930).

Waived Procedures

While Justi was the police committee chairman, Graham and McKay seemed to receive special treatment from law enforcement. For instance, when Graham shot Blackie McCracken dead in June 1931 in the Haymarket, police officers arrested but didn’t book Graham and let him go free without paying bail. Witnesses described Graham’s actions as self-defense, in response to McCracken shooting through the club’s front door at around 4 a.m., allegedly intending to kill Graham for having fired him from his craps dealing job at the Stockade brothel.

Further, despite District Attorney Melvin E. Jepson requesting a grand jury inquiry of that fatal shooting and Judge Benjamin F. Curler indicating such a body would be called within the week, it looks like such an investigation didn’t happen, based on no media reports of the same. However, it is possible, albeit remotely, that a grand jury inquiry took place but just wasn’t reported on by the local newspapers.

In September of that year, Justi was seen displaying a gold badge containing two diamonds and engraved with “police commissioner,” which he received  from “friends” (Reno Evening Gazette, Sept. 12, 1931). Reno did not have such an official, yet subsequently, Justi was referred to in the local newspapers as “police commissioner.” Who gave him such an expensive gift and lofty title? And why?

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* The administrations were those of E.E. Roberts (1923-1933), Sam Frank  (1934-1935), John A. Cooper 1936-1937), August Frohlich (1938-1942) and Harry Stewart (1943-).

Sources

Ad in the Nevada State Journal, June 26, 1935

1929-1941

In the early decades of legal gambling in Nevada, Reno’s McKay/Graham combine expropriated legitimate business owners’ casinos in Washoe County.

The local Mob, headed by William “Bill” Graham and James “Jim” McKay, strove to dominate and control gambling in Reno without competition. Thus, anyone who wanted to open a gambling club had to seek their permission first, and the duo may or may not have granted it. Those who failed to ask for entry into the exclusive fraternity suffered dire consequences. Most times, McKay and Graham stole the business outright, but sometimes they infiltrated it and caused its demise.

Here are the stories of some gambling clubs that fell victim to Graham and McKay:

1) Country Club (in Reno)

With the backing of an ex-Nevada investor, Charles Rennie opened the Country Club in June 1935 on Plumas Street (between what today are Moana Lane and Urban Road).* At the time, Rennie was the gambling licensee for the Town House in downtown Reno.

“It was one of the most dazzling, exciting, and glamorous clubs ever opened in Reno,” wrote Dwayne Kling in The Rise of the Biggest Little City.

The $250,000 (a $4.7 million value today) establishment featured a restaurant, dance floor, polo grounds and tennis courts. The Bridge Room casino offered  roulette, craps, 21 and slot machines. Following a debut for which 600 people made reservations to attend, the County Club was doing great business.

Graham and McKay sent one of their henchmen, Jack Sullivan, several times to tell Rennie he should talk to the duo, but Rennie refused, according to Al W. Moe in The Roots of Reno.

Then, only 1.5 months after the Country Club’s premier, Rennie announced he was abandoning it and returning to the Town House full-time. Eighteen days later, the Country Club closed. It reopened soon after with a Graham/McKay man, James Merrell, as the new general manager.

The next year, Rennie tried to take back his Country Club from the Mobsters, without success. Subsequently, on May 15, a fire erupted at 3:40 a.m., under a serving table in the kitchen according to the steward, the only person on the premises at the time. Fueled by strong winds, the conflagration reduced the facilities to rubble within two hours. The fire chief said the fire looked to have been set, but it never was proven. Despite promises by Merrell that the Country Club would be rebuilt, it wasn’t.

2) Monte Carlo (in Reno)

The Monte Carlo opened on June 19, 1931 at 216 N. Virginia Street and boasted varied casino games, 12 in all, including hazard, roulette, big six, craps, 21, draw and stud poker, panguingue, klondike and chemin de fer.

By the end of that year, it was shuttered. According to Harold Smith, Sr., who co-owned nearby Harolds Club, “No warning went to its owners. The clique simply infiltrated its thieves among the employees and stole the bankroll. The Monte Carlo Club was broke in three months.”

3) La Boite Amusement Palace (in Reno)

Clarence Shockey launched La Boite Amusement Park, a keno-pool parlor, on July 21, 1932, to great success. Three days later, a fire broke out in the garbage behind the building but was extinguished quickly, saving the business. On the eighth day after opening, Shockey uncharacteristically failed to show up at La Boite that night, and he never was heard from or seen again. The club re-opened under new management three days later. The full story is here.

4) The Cowshed (in Reno)

Shortly after Belle Livingstone opened The Cowshed, a nightclub offering gaming (21,  roulette, craps), dining and dancing, Graham and McKay sent in their goons to drive her out. They did. The full story is here.

5) Harolds Club (in Reno)

Graham and McKay tried to close down Harolds Club in 1937, about two years after it opened.

One day, William A. Justi, third ward city councilman and police committee chairman, showed up at Harolds with two other councilmen, Harolds co-owner Harold S. Smith, Sr. described in his book. “They were there to examine our big roulette wheel hanging from the ceiling,” Smith, Sr. wrote. “The city’s ordinance imposed a tax on each gaming wheel. The Third Ward councilman was trying to persuade his colleagues to collect the tax instead on each of our 43 roulette layouts since they were placed from a single wheel. Fortunately, he wasn’t able to sell his plan. Forty-three licenses would have put us out of business.

“The real showdown came just before 10 AM a few days later when Raymond [Harold’s brother and co-owner] and I were alone in the place. Seven men sauntered in, all big, all sashaying from side to side to knock over whatever, or whoever, got in their way. I had heard through the grapevine our place was going to be wrecked. I was ready, though I would have liked to have had more witnesses. The men headed straight for Raymond standing behind the crap table, when I reached under the roulette counter for my loaded .38.

“‘You’re not going to shoot any dice,’ I declared, ‘so just turn around walk out that door.’ Not a tremor of vibrato was in my voice. I simply couldn’t stand there, aware of Raymond’s vulnerable mastoidal ear, and let them tear my brother apart or wreck the store. Had any of them taken another step, I’d have put a bullet near his feet and the next one into him.

“They halted and turned to face me. Anyone, I believe, knows when an armed man means to use his gun. They could see by the line of my lips I would use mine. They knew, furthermore, as I knew, that unless I faced them down, Harolds Club was through in Reno. Every hoodlum in the area would take his turn at clobbering us.  We would be their mirth, out in the street dodging our furniture. If, on the other hand, they retreated before a gun, the psychological advantage was ours. We would have made our stand and the word would be all over town by noon. Public opinion might save us from further rough stuff. The seven men put their heads together in solemn pow-wow, turned stiffly and marched out the door. I took my clammy hand off the pistol grip and murmured a silent prayer.

“We were in Reno to stay though I continued to carry the gun and watch every shadow as I drove home nights.”

6) Cal-Neva Lodge (in Incline Village)

“Graham and McKay swept over Cal-Neva at Lake Tahoe in 1929,” Moe wrote in Nevada’s Golden Age of Gambling. As soon as they did, they offered gambling there, which was illegal until 1931.

The Cal-Neva also burned down in a blaze thought to be arson, in mid-May 1937, just before the start of the summer tourist season (the enterprise typically was closed between September and June). It was rebuilt and quickly, however. If Graham/McKay had the fire set, why did they choose that time? It may have had something to do with the opening of the nearby Ta-Neva-Ho.

7) Ta-Neva-Ho (in Crystal Bay)

When John “Johnny” Rayburn opened the Ta-Neva-Ho,** the Cal-Neva Lodge fire had raged two weeks earlier. “The opportunity to own his own club and enter the Nevada gambling scene caused Rayburn to sell the Buckhorn [restaurant]” at North Lake Tahoe,” wrote Bethel Van Tassel in Wood Chips to Gambling Chips.

However, suddenly McKay’s people were running not just the gambling at the Ta-Neva-Ho but the entire place. McKay himself got a gambling license for the casino for 21, craps, roulette, panguingue, slots and a race book.

The Mobsters’ thinking behind taking over the Ta-Neva-Ho likely was that gambling revenue from it would make up for monies lost during the Cal-Neva Lodge rebuild.

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* On the former Country Club property today is the Classic Residence by Hyatt senior living community.
** Rayburn later renamed the Ta-Neva-Ho the Crystal Bay Club.

Sources