1949-1979

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

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

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

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

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

The Requisite Gambling

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

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

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

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

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

Showman Harold

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

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

A Dead Target

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

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

Sources

1946

A tastefully attired gent in his 40s sat at a craps table around 7 p.m. on a March Tuesday and began to wager with bundles of $1,000 ($12,000 today).

After betting Harolds Club’s house limit for a while, which yielded $7,500 a point on a win, management waived it. The game lasted 36 hours, during which the mystery man drank coffee but never ate. His playing drew the attention and awe of other guests of this Reno, Nevada casino. Who was this man?

He was a “gambling fool — a gentleman, win, lose or draw — who takes it like a man,” described a Harolds representative (Nevada State Journal, March 16, 1946).

Rumors identified the craps marathoner as R.L. Carnahan from Wichita, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri, as a person with such a name was registered at Reno’s Riverside Hotel. It’s unknown, though, if that was his real or fake identity.

At one point, Carnahan won $76,000 on a hand and on another, lost $100,000. At 7 a.m. Thursday, after just winning $150,000, Carnahan wanted to stop. He was down $360,000 ($4.4 million today).

He proposed to Harold Smith, a club co-owner known to participate in high-stakes gambling, a final, $500,000 bet. Each would roll a single die; whoever landed a higher number would win. If Carnahan lost, he’d pay $500,000. If he won, he’d remit $220,000, the difference between $360,000 and $140,000, the latter being $500,000 minus what he owed. Smith agreed.

Both men tossed the ivories, each showing a snake eye. Smith took his turn and got a deuce. Carnahan followed and landed a trey, or three spot, winning the wager but owing $220,000 ($2.7 million today). The men shook hands, had a drink together and parted ways.

While Harolds Club executives wouldn’t address the events, give the man’s name or specify if he won or lost and by what amount, they offered this: “The man from Kansas City is a man to be respected” (Nevada State Journal, March 16, 1946).

Sources

August 5, 1943 Help Wanted ad

1937-1970

Card dealing was a male-dominated profession in Nevada’s casinos until 1937, when Harolds Club, in Reno, put the first woman at a 21 table to deal.

Co-owner Harold Smith previously had been hiring women, mostly family members, for other jobs on the gambling club floor — chip stacking and roulette wheel spinning, for instance — but never dealing.

Smith’s concern had been that women would be too-easy targets for cheaters and, consequently, the casino would get fleeced. (A total of up to 10,000 silver dollars sat on the various tables during a typical night.)

Smith, though, soon realized women could hold their own, and both genders enjoyed gambling with a “pretty, smiling dealer” (Lima News, Aug. 4, 1943).

With World War II and the resulting shortage of men to employ, women filled the gap at Harolds Club. By that time, 90 percent of the employees there were female. Smith launched a school to train women to become professional dealers. They learned how to deal cards, spin wheels, rake in chips, compute payoffs and watch for cheaters’ tricks, among other skills.

Smith advertised in local newspapers’ Help Wanted sections for recruits in ads indicating, “Men Please Do Not Apply” (Nevada State Journal, Aug. 4, 1943). The pay was $25 per week while attending his school, then up to $60 per week when hired. Students ran the gamut, and included housewives, divorcées (women living in Nevada the requisite six weeks to get an expedited divorce), telephone operators, school teachers, sales clerks, stenographers and newspaper reporters.

By 1943, casinos throughout Northern Nevada were hiring graduates of Smith’s school.

Slow To Change

It was the opposite in Las Vegas. Although women worked as dealers in nearby towns such as Henderson and North Las Vegas, none did on the Strip or in downtown Sin City until 1970, nearly three decades later.

That year, the Silver Slipper, a Howard Hughes-owned casino, hired the first — 47-year-old Jean Brady, who had years of experience from dealing at other Silver State gambling houses.

Sources

1946-1947

On the third Tuesday of April 1946, after work at the Southern Pacific Shop in Sparks, Nevada, Sam Lemel took the bus to Reno and went to Harolds Club where he played craps. He began by betting two half-dollars, which he lost. He left the casino and returned a bit later, only to lose four more half-dollars and a dime — ultimately down $3.10 (about $39 today).

From this point on, the version of events the self-described victim and the alleged perpetrator gave diverged.

What Lemel Relayed

Lemel asked for new dice, and Benjamin Shade, the dealer, provided two. When he asked for a selection from which he could choose, Shade wouldn’t accommodate him. Lemel informed the bouncer, Jack Filtzer, that Shade wasn’t following the state law on dice shooting. Filtzer, though, sided with his co-worker.

Lemel asked to speak to the casino’s co-owner Harold Smith about the game’s rules but was denied. So he sought out Smith’s office and knocked on the door, at which time two Reno policemen, Charlie Nichols and George Stone, arrested him and jailed him overnight. Lemel never swore, yelled or threatened to sue the police.

Harolds Club’s Perspective

Casino workers asserted Lemel was asked to stop playing craps because he loudly swore every time he lost. He demanded to see Smith and was told he couldn’t enter the money vault where Smith was. Lemel refused to leave the club and challenged Filtzer to toss him out or call the police. Filtzer did the latter, and when Nichols and Stone arrived, they arrested Lemel for disorderly conduct.

Drunk Tank Experience

Lemel sued Harolds Club and the Reno Police Department, claiming he was arrested falsely and detained “in a vile and loathsome cell with drunken, diseased and unclean people” for 18 hours (Nevada State Journal, Sept. 6, 1947). He stood most of the night, he said, to avoid catching germs. However, body lice and other bugs bit him, he claimed, resulting in a skin problem. At breakfast, because there weren’t enough dishes, in the form of pie plates and tomato cans, for everyone to use, he didn’t get any food. Worse, Lemel wasn’t allowed to communicate with his wife or attorney and wasn’t processed until the next morning. At that time, he pleaded guilty to vagrancy and was given a suspended sentence.

Lemel Seeks Recovery

Based on these allegations, he sought $25,000 (about $333,000 today) in damages.

The trial took place in August. Harolds Club’s counsel, M.A. Diskin, asked that the action be dismissed because Lemel had pleaded guilty upon arraignment, thereby nullifying any scenario in which he’d been arrested without grounds.

Lemel’s attorney, Ernest Brown, countered that his client hadn’t pleaded to disturbing the peace but, rather, vagrancy, which meant he could sue and potentially collect damages.

Attorney George Lohse, representing the two officers, stated that if police officers aren’t permitted to do what Stone and Nichols had done when they’d arrested Lemel, “then it would be useless to try to operate a police force in any city” (Nevada State Journal, Oct. 12, 1946). Lohse added that Lemel had been loud, boisterous, heated and argumentative in Harold’s Club after losing and yelled, “You can’t run your _______ game that way,” an admonition meant for Smith (Nevada State Journal, Oct. 12, 1946).

The Judge Pontificates

Judge A.J. Maestretti ruled that Harolds Club, Smith and Nichols had been justified in acting as they had, and he scolded Lemel for having brought the suit. He told him he should’ve been thankful the parties involved had “rendered him a kindness and the service of protection” (Nevada State Journal, Oct. 17, 1946) as the situation could’ve escalated radically had they not stopped Lemel when they had.

On the issue of whether he could sue for damages after pleading guilty, Maestretti sided with the defendants, reiterating that a guilty plea or conviction should make it impossible to later claim false arrest. Instead of having pleaded guilty, Lemel could’ve requested an attorney, the course an innocent man would’ve taken.

Despite the reprimand, Lemel persisted in pursuing a case. In mid-December, he petitioned for a new trial, but Maestretti refused to afford him one.

In February of the next year, 1947, he appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court.

In September, oral arguments were presented to those jurists, who ultimately sided with the lower court, denying Lemel a new trial.

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