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1980 Thirty-five years ago, on August 27, an intricate bomb blasted a chasm that spanned six of the 11 floors of Harvey’s Resort Hotel. The explosion hadn’t been intentional but, rather, the result of the…
1975 The blaxploitation thriller, Lady Cocoa (also titled Pop Goes the Weasel), was filmed in Northern Nevada. It starred singer-dancer Lola Folana, former San Francisco 49er Gene Washington and former Pittsburgh Steeler Joe Green, The…
1947 This year, the United States’ Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) co-financed construction of a gambling enterprise via its $975,000 loan for the Mapes hotel-casino in Reno, Nevada. Under Attack Three years later, Senators William Fulbright…
1934-1935 Today, 80 years later, the circumstances of actress Thelma Todd’s death remain a mystery, and the case still is one of Hollywood’s infamous unsolveds. A deep cover-up precluded the truth about the incident from…
Early 1900s In The Silver State (Nevada), casinos hired men for the sole job of picking up dice that rolled off the game tables. Only these workers were allowed to touch the cubes to keep cheaters…
1937-1947 The bustle and liveliness of the Ghost Casino have long been dead. All that remains is a specter of the club’s former self in the form of a rundown, abandoned building — a state…
1889 Nevada passed a law mandating that gambling houses couldn’t open any earlier than 6 a.m. and couldn’t close any later than midnight. The sentence for violation was a $200 to $500 fine and/or 30…
1935 In 1934, John Petricciani regained use of his Reno, Nevada, property he’d owned for 10 years and first licensed his saloon, the Palace Bar, for roulette and 21 games, one apiece. Prior, he’d leased…
1937 The director of the Works Progress Administration, the New Deal agency that employed individuals to construct public works projects, informed all Nevada workers that it wouldn’t tolerate “gambling, drinking or other unnecessary expenditure” and…
1920 Some shady business went down between Felix Turillas, Sr., who owned Reno’s Espanol hotel and who went on to own several Northern Nevada casinos, and two men, Joe Musso and Joe Stropin. According to…
1971 Adult magazine publisher Hugh Hefner announced to the media that in two years’ time, Nevada would be home to a Playboy casino in either Las Vegas or on Lake Tahoe’s South Shore. It didn’t…
1861-present Since becoming a U.S. territory, Nevada has undergone periods of full, partial and no legalization of gambling. Here’s a timeline of what types of games of chance legislators allowed or disallowed and when: 1861:…