Reno, Nevada, 1940s

1945-1946

In the Bank Club, a co-proprietor of a local gambling saloon, Andrew Jackson “Jack” Blackman, shot to death James Lannigan, a small-time thug, on October 30, 1944, an action for which he was acquitted.

In the Palace Club, bouncer Frank Richardson brutally assaulted Alfred E. Cushman on November 11, 1945, leading to a legal resolution in Cushman’s favor.

In the Town House, four employees, on July 9, 1946, bound and beat up Edwin X. Beisel, to whom the court also awarded damages.

“It is nothing out of the ordinary to have disturbances, petty quarrels and arguments in such establishments. The nature of the business invites such occurrences and in order that responsible order may be preserved it has long been the custom to employ ‘strong arm’ boys who can throw out the disturbing elements” noted the Reno Evening Gazette (Jan. 22, 1945).

The above and other high-profile crimes in Reno, Nevada casinos got some locals considering changes to the status quo of security in gambling houses, to solve in part what had become the “bouncer problem” (Nevada State Journal, Dec. 12, 1945).

Distinctive Attire Suggested

In 1945, a Washoe County grand jury recommended mandating that anyone policing in gambling clubs, saloons and the like wear a uniform or easily be identified while working. Later that year, Dr. Earl T. Martin of the Veterans of Foreign Affairs asked the city council to require bouncers to wear uniforms. He argued that patrolmen identified as such by their garb would have a psychological effect on guests, particularly current and former military members, and go a long way toward helping maintain order in gambling establishments. Although the councilmembers agreed to review Martin’s recommendation, nothing came of it. 

Police Officers V. Employees

In the following year, 1946, the third iteration of an ordinance on the issue was introduced at a Reno City Council meeting. It required that all gambling places with more than six game tables or other devices (excluding slot machines), have a uniformed Reno Police Department officer on the premises.

It required the gambling houses to pay the city clerk wages for these officers — $250 (about $3,200 today) per month per officer — and the city then in turn would pay the officers. The monthly salary was to graduate from $200 during their first year of service to $205 in their second and $215 subsequently.

The proposed ordinance also mandated that gambling licensees post a $10,000 ($129,000) bond, holding the city harmless from any liability from damages occurred during an incident involving a city police officer.

A Mysterious End

The council deferred action on the proposed ordinance at the subsequent meeting then didn’t act on it at the following two ones. The measure never even got to a vote.

“No reason for allowing the bill to die was ever mentioned in open meeting of the council,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (April 5, 1946).

Sources

Canada-born Jack Sullivan, né John D. Scarlett, had co-owned and run the Bank Club for two decades and prior to that, the Willows (it burned down in 1932) — both Reno, Nevada casino hotspots. He’d retired a mere six months before his death at age 72. He passed away on April 24, 1951 in a local hospital after a prolonged illness.

He left behind an estate valued at $844,952.00 (about $8 million today) and comprised of these assets:

TYPE	AMOUNT	BREAKDOWN
Cash:	$431,165.85
		$202,951.49 in a commercial account at Security National Bank
		$191,148.00 in a safety deposit box at First National Bank of Nevada
		$20,624.40 at the Bank Club
		$12,381.96 in a business account at a different FNB branch
		$4,060.00 in interest and dividends on investments
Bonds:	$245,893.45
Stocks:	$104,662.70
Loan Balance:	$25,000.00	(Amount due on loan he'd made to the Cal-Neva Lodge in 1948)
Miscellaneous:	$21,380.00
		$10,000.00 Diamond ring, 7 carat
		$4,500.00 Cadillac
		$6,880.00 Other
Real Estate:	$16,850.00
TOTAL:	$844,952.00

Post Mortem Withdrawals

The executor of Sullivan/Scarlett’s estate, First National Bank of Nevada, paid the federal taxes due, which amounted to $121,442.82. This reduced the estate value by 14 percent, to $723,509.18.

Then they paid the legal fees for the settling the estate, which totaled $65,307.16:

$42,619.40 went to Woodburn, Forman and Woodburn, the executor’s counsel
$17,187.76 went to FNB as a statutory commission
$3,500.00 went to Joseph P. Haller, the widow’s attorney
$2,000.00 went to McCarran, Rice, Wedge and Blakey, the heirs’ law firm

These expenses further reduced the estate’s value, by 9 percent.

What remained of Sullivan/Scarlett’s estate was $658,202.02 (about $6.3 million today).

Distribution Of Wealth

Sullivan/Scarlett left a will, which had been created in 1948, three years before his passing. He’d bequeathed the following:

To his widow: Half of all community property and the remainder of the estate after the other commitments were paid; the latter came to about $130,000.

To his daughter: $200,000. Held in a trust, the money was to be invested in U.S. government bonds and she was to be paid $400 a month from the investment returns until age 50. At that time, the trust was to be liquidated and the principal paid to her. 

In the event of her passing, the money was to be distributed equally to Sullivan/Scarlett’s three grandchildren once the eldest reached aged 21.

To his four sisters: $10,000 each.

Scarlett had left nothing to his brother, noting in the will that he’d provided for him when Sullivan/Scarlett was alive.

By year’s end, the gambler’s estate had been disbursed.

Sources

Photo from the University of Nevada, Reno Special Collections

The main street in Elko, Nevada, 1940

1934

After hiding somewhere in the building, a person robbed the Bank Club casino’s safe of $500 in silver change (about $9,000 today) between 4 and 6 p.m. on a Wednesday in early December.

This particular Bank Club — a common name for Nevada gambling houses — was located in the town of Elko. The money belonged to Phil Heidt, who ran the club’s gaming.

Photo: by Arthur Rothstein

Town House gambling saloon, Reno, Nevada

1944-1945

The trial of Andrew Jackson “Jack” Blackman, free on $10,000 bail, began in April 1945, six months after he’d fatally shot James Lannigan in the Bank Club in Reno, Nevada.

District Attorney Melvin E. Jepson, in his opening statement, asserted the state would prove the defendant had committed premeditated and deliberate murder.

Blackman’s attorney, Harlan L. Heward, offered that his client admitted to shooting Lannigan but the act had been in self-defense; that because his client, a man with a solid reputation, was disabled, he’d had to carry a gun to protect himself; and that his injuries had indicated Lannigan likely had used brass knuckles or a similar weapon when he’d struck Blackman.  

Livelihood As Gangster

During the trial, various witnesses revealed snippets of Lannigan’s past. His real name was John Nicholson, but he went by Lannigan because an aunt and uncle with that name partially had raised him. The monikers under which he’d served time were John C. Nicholson, John Cline and James Moran. As a youth, Lannigan, along with fellow gang members, had held up speakeasies routinely and by age 20, had been believed to have committed murder.

In 1928, he’d begun a five-year-to-life sentence at San Quentin State Prison for armed robbery. There, he’d been put in solitary confinement or otherwise punished 16 times for various infractions, including knife cutting an inmate in the face, striking another convict in the head with a length of pipe, stabbing yet another prisoner with a shiv, stealing from the tin shop and insubordination, among others. At one point, he’d been in solitary for 362 days in a row.

In 1932 he’d been transferred to Folsom State Prison as an “incorrigible” inmate (Nevada State Journal, April 11, 1945). There, he’d served eight years, until 1940, when he’d been paroled.

After Lannigan had relocated to Reno in the summer of 1944, several times local police officers had told him to leave town, as they’d considered him an “undesirable,” “dangerous and aggressive” person whose employment was being “a gangster,” (Reno Evening Gazette, November 29, 1944). Instead, he’d stayed.

Soon after, in August, Lannigan had been arrested for armed robbery of $14,000 at the Ta-Neva-Ho casino at Lake Tahoe, along with his accomplice and friend from San Quentin, Marvin Paul Michaels. Whereas Lannigan had been released due to lack of evidence, Michaels was to stand trial, which was about to begin any day. This allegedly was the court case for which Lannigan wanted money from Blackman, for the defense of Michaels, who was facing repeat offender charges.

No Choir Boy

As for Blackman, he’d been arrested several years earlier in Texas for attempting to pass counterfeit money, a mistake, he claimed, because he’d been handed a bill that he’d then tried to use to buy cigarettes. Further, the case had been dismissed. He also admitted to having been fined $10 for gambling and having forfeited $25 in bail once when he’d been arrested for dealing a game of 21.

More To The Story?

In court, Jepson contended there had to be a reason why Lannigan had chosen Blackman specifically to extort. He vowed to unearth and reveal what it was, but he never did.

“One of the puzzling matters in the trial is why Lannigan allegedly persisted in trying to obtain money from Blackman despite the fact he had been advised to let him alone by men who had known him [Lannigan] for years,” reported the Nevada State Journal (April 15, 1945).

Last Ditch Efforts

Six days into the trial, the prosecution called a surprise witness, Lannigan’s widow, Barbara Nicholson, who appeared dressed in a Women’s Army Corps uniform. She contradicted Blackman’s testimony by saying she’d met him before, at her apartment where Blackman had visited once to look at some clothes; that she, her husband and the defendant had a friendly conversation and drink together at the Town House one time previously; and that Hilliard, upon her request, had taken a $100 bill, not a weapon, out of Lannigan’s pocket in the hospital.

A verbal volley, in the form of closing arguments, ensued between the prosecution and defense.

After deliberating for 4.5 hours, the jury found Blackman not guilty.

Sources

Bank Club in Reno, Nevada, 1930s

1944-1945

A thug’s confrontation of a casino owner on October 30, 1944 radically altered both of their lives.

Andrew Jackson “Jack” Blackman, co-proprietor of the Town House gambling saloon* in Reno, left his business for the night at about 2:30 a.m. and went into the Bank Club** to see his good friend, Walter Parman, the manager.

He noticed Edward “Swede” Olsen and three ex-convicts — James Lannigan, Joe Devine (aka Joe Frisco) and George “Pretty Boy” Hilliard — sitting at the bar.

As Blackman, 32, was passing them, Lannigan, 39, said to him, “Come here. I want to see you.” When Blackman replied he was busy and kept moving, his summoner grabbed him by the sleeve and yanked him toward him.

“Am I coming across or not?” Lannigan queried, in other words asking whether Blackman was going to give him the money he wanted. “Are you trying to high hat me?”

“No,” Blackman asserted.

“I’ll kill you,” Lannigan said, among other threats.  He reached into one pocket, then another, and slugged Blackman in the face while saying, “You’re gonna come over.”

A stunned and reeling Blackman pulled his .38-caliber Colt revolver and shot at Lannigan five times. Two of the bullets hit him in the stomach; the other three went into the bar counter.

When the gunfire began, most of the casino patrons hit the floor and stayed there until it was safe to move.

Olsen and Hilliard took the gun from Blackman, who was bleeding profusely from his nose. In the meantime, Lannigan ran out the door and dropped, face down, just outside the club. In the ambulance Lannigan “called out vile epithets several times,” according to police (Nevada State Journal, April 14, 1945).

The Dire Consequences

In the Washoe General Hospital emergency room, when the night nurse supervisor was preparing Lannigan for a blood transfusion, Hilliard appeared and approached her patient, getting in her way. She asked him to leave but he only did so after taking something out of the injured’s pocket.

About a half-hour later, Lannigan succumbed to internal hemorrhaging. The death shot had been the second one, which had entered the body just below the twelfth rib, had traversed upward through the chest, puncturing the liver, abdomen, heart and lungs, and had lodged under his left armpit.

Two police officers arrived on the scene at the Bank Club. Blackman asked them to take him away before Lannigan’s fellow thugs killed him. On the ride to the police station, Blackman, whose nose then was flattened with a jagged cut on it, asked if Lannigan was dead. Upon hearing the answer, “No, not yet,” Blackman said, “I hope he dies, or he’ll get me.” Later, Blackman would say he didn’t remember that conversation.

Soon after, Blackman was dazed and groggy from “a blow of sufficient force to cause a ‘pretty severe’ brain concussion, a doctor said. Although under arrest on the investigation of murder, he also was transported to Washoe General, where he underwent surgery on his nose, which had been fractured into many parts (Reno Evening Gazette, April 13, 1945). Subsequently, Blackman reacted negatively to the sulfa in the nose drops used to treat him and, consequently, remained an inpatient for two weeks.

Following his arrest, he sold his interest in the Town House.

A Repeat Offender

For several months, Lannigan had been attempting to shake down Blackman for money — for “protection” and to fund the impending court case of a fellow gangster (Nevada State Journal, October 1, 1944).

Blackman first had met Lannigan at the Ta-Neva-Ho at Lake Tahoe, where the former managed the gambling games, in 1937. That was when Lannigan had started pressing him for cash. Blackman said that “Lannigan seemed to hound him whenever they met” (Nevada State Journal, April 14, 1945).

While living in Los Angeles, Lannigan had asked Blackman for money to cover bond and an attorney, and even did so in person at Blackman’s business, the Town House, the last time having been two or three weeks before the shooting.

Each time, Lannigan reportedly had made such comments as, “I’ll rub you out,” “If you don’t come across, I’ll take a crack at you,” “I’ve done stretches in San Quentin and Folsom and didn’t like it, but wouldn’t mind doing more to get you” and “If you holler to the police, you’ll be like a cake of ice.” Blackman, however, had always refused.

In fear for his life, he’d applied for a gun permit, to no avail (nobody had successfully gotten one in 1944) and he’d carried a firearm anyway, especially when he’d transported money from the Town House to the bank. Also, confidant Parman had followed Blackman, who’d had a bum leg since a fall during childhood which had caused the military to deem him unfit for service, home each night in his car to ensure his safety.

Having killed Lannigan, Blackman faced a trial and a potential prison sentence.

(We’ll publish Part II on Friday.)

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* The Town House was located at 39 W. First Street.

**The Bank Club was at 239 N. Center Street.

Sources

Photo from Wikimedia Commons: by Vincent Laforêt, Fred and Maurine Wilson, Al Moe

Presumably to gain money, power and notoriety, a small clique of men monopolized gambling in Reno, Nevada during the 1920s and 1930s through violence, payoffs, intimidation, threats and other gangster techniques. The industry mostly was illegal, with some games allowed, until 1931.

The syndicate’s modus operandi became the example of how it was done in Nevada, a guide for their mobster friends who, later, would rule gambling in Las Vegas.

Along with games of chance, the Reno Mob offered endless alcohol during Prohibition and sex for sale. The hotbed of vice that was The Biggest Little City, along with a relaxed divorce law, spurred tourism long before Vegas became the state’s largest metropolis and took over as that industry’s leader. Further, with their dollars (and perhaps coercion), the racketeers were instrumental in getting gambling legalized in Nevada.

George Wingfield

The Strings Puller

George Wingfield, Sr. (born 1876): The man with the vision (and gobs of money at the time), he initially orchestrated the launch of illegal gambling in Reno, choosing the few men to effect his plan, getting them trained in casino operations and having them run games in town. Wingfield wanted the buildings he owned to be filled and believed the offer of gaming in them would achieve that end. Although he, himself, was a savvy card player, he needed what he believed to be a cleaner image to carry out his other pursuits, such as politics.

Bill Graham

Jim McKay

The Deadly Duo

James “Jim/Cinch” Carmichael McKay (born 1888) and William “Bill/Curly” James Graham (born 1888): After meeting in Tonopah, McKay and Graham became fast friends and crime partners. Wingfield had them learn the gaming business at one of his and Abelman’s casinos, The Big Casino in Tonopah, before he summoned them to Reno in the 1920s to establish illegal gaming there. While maintaining a thin allegiance to Wingfield, the pair quickly plotted their own course, which would, for starters, involve launching their own casino (Willows) and brothel (Stockade).  

William Justi

The City Councilman

William A. Justi (born 1873): Justi was the councilman for Reno’s liberal Third Ward, in which most casinos were located, between 1923 and 1944. He also was the council’s police committee chairman for a number of years. In those two roles, he could and did act on behalf of McKay and Graham, who allegedly owned him.

The Loyal Associate

Nathan “Nick” Abelman (born 1876): Abelman was Wingfield’s willing, sensible and most law abiding partner throughout the years. When he made Wingfield’s acquaintance in Goldfield, Nevada in 1904, he already had experience running saloons in the Midwest. Abelman went on to co-own, with various partners, numerous gambling enterprises.

The Willing Henchmen

These Reno Mobsters had a few, trusted men who worked at their various Northern Nevada casinos — Willows, Bank Club, Rex, Cal-Neva Lodge, Haymarket, Monte Carlo, Country Club — overseeing the gaming, ejecting troublemakers, assaulting cheaters, encouraging debtors to square up and the like. They also did other dirty work, such as menacing competitors and delivering graft. They were:

Jack Sullivan

Bones Remmer

Elmer “Bones” F. Remmer (born 1898): Jokingly called “Bones” due to his ample size, Remmer grew up in the Bay Area of Northern California. He was mean and feared. Seemingly more entrepreneurial than Sullivan and Hall, Remmer would go on to co-own the Cal-Neva Lodge, run several casinos and clubs on San Francisco Bay’s east and west sides and become embroiled with both Jewish-American, Italian-American and other mobsters.

Jack Sullivan né John B. Scarlett (born 1879): A professional boxer in his youth, Sullivan “was a large man with a brusque manner and an intimidating personality,” wrote Dwayne Kling in The Rise of the Biggest Little City. He moved to Reno from Tonopah with friend Henry “Tex” Hall in the 1920s. He would help open and run the Willows then own a portion of and operate Bank Club, both popular Reno casinos.

Henry “Tex” Hall (born 1878): A cowboy from Texas, Hall worked as a manager at several Graham-McKay casinos, including the Cal-Neva Lodge, of which he came to own a piece.

The Reno Mob’s dominion began to ebb when crises arose during the 1930s — financial ruin for Wingfield and prison terms for McKay, Graham and Hall.

The Business Model

These were the Mobsters’ 5 main tenets behind running unlawful gambling:

1) Pay Bribes: They paid whatever graft necessary — to members of the police force and sheriff’s office, the mayor, at least one city councilmember and some higher-level politicians — to continue their reign obstacle free. In return, they were permitted to serve alcohol until 1933 when Prohibition ended and offer gambling until 1931 when Nevada legalized it. In the instances they landed themselves in a legal bind, rare because they were generally protected from such occurrences, the officials in their pockets made the trouble go away.

2) Limit the Competition: The quartet decided who, if anyone, could open their own gambling enterprise in town. It usually had to be someone that at least one man in their group knew and/or would vouch for. If approved, however, the mobsters imposed stipulations, such as limits on the quantity or type of gambling offered. They demanded payments for being allowed to operate — 15 percent of the profits.

The gangsters were especially ruthless with men and women who opened shop without asking their permission beforehand and/or after they’d been warned to do so. In those cases, the four would  worm their way in and usurp the operation for themselves or, via threats, destruction of property and intimidation, they’d drive the proprietors out of their businesses and even out of town.

3) Do Whatever It Takes: The existence of laws didn’t deter the group, especially McKay and Graham, when they desired something. They exercised free will always and carried out (or, most often, had someone else carry out) whatever was necessary to remain on top in Northern Nevada’s gambling world. 

“Both were equally ruthless players within and outside the limits of the law,” wrote the authors of Baby Face Nelson about McKay and Graham.

4) Don’t Tolerate Cheating: McKay and Graham had no qualms about mangling and bloodying the bodies of cheaters, both customers and dealers, as punishment. Ironically, the zero tolerance rule didn’t apply to them; they ran various scams on primarily unsuspecting tourists, bilking them for fortunes at a time.

5) Reward Underling Loyalty:  The four acknowledged their subordinate’s obedience and solid work performance by affording them an ownership stake in one of their casinos.

Sources

Photos of McKay, Graham and Sullivan: from the University of Nevada, Reno’s Special Collections
Photo of Wingfield: from the Nevada Historical Society

Teletypewriters

1940-1941

In a series of raids in December 1940, Washoe County deputy sheriffs confiscated gambling-related paraphernalia from three Reno, Nevada locations:

1) Bank Club casino

2) Washoe Publishing Company (WPC) (room 311 in the Lyons Building)

3) Western News Company (WNC) (room 15 in the Fordonia Building).

The equipment taken included teletypewriters,* Teleflash** units, telephones, switch boxes, typewriters and a radio. Documents seized were racing forms and sheets, forms for recording wagers, client phone numbers and account records, and more.

Unlawful Business Segment

These three enterprises received and distributed horse racing information — entries, betting odds, parimutuel prices, results and the like — to western United States locales.

The problem was that bookmaking, pool selling (the selling or distribution of chances in a betting pool) and dissemination of horse race data were against Nevada law. All gross misdemeanors, each carried a penalty of a $500 to $1,000 fine ($9,000 to $18,000 today), imprisonment of one to six months or both. Betting on horse races held in Nevada, however, was legal.

Two information streams involving the Reno businesses occurred regularly:

1) Data from the East Coast were teletyped to the Bank Club, which then phoned them to the WPC. From there, they were forwarded to 900 bookmaking/pool selling places in Nevada, California and Washington.

2) Data from the West Coast were teletyped to the WNC, which passed them on to the Bank Club and Reno’s Palace Club. The flow then continued from the Bank Club as with the East Coast info.

Steps To Eradication

Washoe County District Attorney (D.A) Ernest S. Brown filed a charge of illegal distribution of horse racing info against Bank Club Inc. and eight people, including Jack Sullivan and Raymond J. Poncia.

Sullivan (né John D. Scarlett) was the Bank Club manager and co-owner with mobsters William “Bill/Curly” J. Graham and James “Jim/Cinch” C. McKay, who were serving time in the U.S. Penitentiary, Leavenworth in Kansas at the time for conspiracy and using the U.S. mail to perpetrate fraud. Poncia was the casino’s book operator. The other defendants were linked to the WPC and WNC.

Brown also had phone service to the three entities disconnected and ordered the Bank and Palace Clubs to cease bookmaking immediately due to it being a public nuisance. The gambling houses complied.

The D.A. clarified that the county’s efforts in this regard were to “‘clean up’ a condition which gave Reno a bad name throughout the West,” not to quell horse race wagering, reported the Nevada State Journal (Dec. 2, 1940).

Ultimately, Sullivan and Poncia were arrested but released on $1,000 bail ($18,000 today) apiece.

Gambling Law Revisions

Roughly a year later, in April 1941, the Nevada Legislature legalized both bookmaking and betting on horse races occurring outside of the state. Once that occurred, the Bank and Palace Clubs restarted their bookmaking operations. Distributing horse race information, however, remained illegal.

The Defendants’ Fate

Later in the month, a hearing took place on the demurrer and motion to dismiss the charges against Sullivan and Poncia filed by their attorneys, George B. Thatcher and William Forman. (A demurrer is a response in a court proceeding in which the defendant acknowledges the truth of the allegation but claims it isn’t sufficient as a cause of legal action.)

Before Judge Benjamin F. Curler Jr. in district court, Forman asserted:

• the facts didn’t constitute a public offense
• the alleged offense fell outside the jurisdiction of Nevada’s Second Judicial District Court
• the horse race info law was unconstitutional in that it encompassed a topic not in the title
• the same law interfered with the freedoms of speech and the press.

Brown countered all of the defense’s points. He requested the judge overrule the demurrer and a preliminary hearing scheduled. Forman then responded to Brown’s arguments.

Six days later, Curler delivered his ruling. He ordered the charge against the two men and Bank Club Inc. be dismissed and the bond they’d paid returned.

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* A teletypewriter, teletype for short, was a character printer connected to a telegraph. Teletype also was a brand of teletypewriter.

** Teleflash was the brand name for a system that provided radio-type broadcast programming to commercial entities via telephone lines versus airwaves.

Sources