1950-1979

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

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

Photo from Wikimedia Commons: by AnelGTR

Craps game at Harolds Club

1952

“Someone very dear to you is being held and will be killed if you don’t give me the money.”

This was the content of the note, a bluff, Frederick Charles Will, handed to the manager of the American Trust Company branch in San Francisco on July 28.

Walter Blomberg, whose wife was at home that Monday afternoon, gathered and handed $20,000 in small bills (about $188,000 today) to the robber, a 33-year-old draftsman and war veteran originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Will, aka Frederick Charles Klose, had Blomberg accompany him out of the Northern California bank and even onto a public bus — the escape vehicle — so as not to arouse suspicion among the other employees. At some point, the two men parted ways.

Just In Case

Will went to the apartment of a friend, Martha Dorn, where he opened the briefcase he had with him and showed her the money inside, scattering bills on the floor as he did so. He explained that he’d won $30,000 at the racetrack. She soon ushered him out, as she was expecting a guest. Before leaving though, he hid a wad of $20 bills in her sofa, which she would later discover and turn over to the authorities.

The Yen To Gamble

Next, Will spotted and asked an idle cab driver if he’d take him to Reno, Nevada. Anthony Gelini, 44, agreed. After switching to his personal car, Gelini drove Will to his apartment to pick up his roommate, Sidney Dubowy, also 33. From New York, he was an accounting student at Golden State College in the Bay Area.

Once all three were in the car and en route to Nevada, Will/Klose pulled out a gun and opened his briefcase to display the copious bills inside. “Well, I stuck up the bank,” he told Dubowy. “You didn’t think I would do it. But it was easy—just like in the movies” (Reno Evening Gazette, July 29, 1952).

Upon arriving in The Biggest Little City, at around 4 a.m., Will/Klose instructed Gelini to drive them to Harolds Club, which he did. Will and Debowy locked the briefcase in the car’s trunk and took the key with them into the casino, leaving Gelini outside to wait for them. The roommates gambled at the club for hours.

Now, What?

When they left Harolds, they discovered Gelini and his car were gone. While they were inside, he’d phoned his wife, relayed to her the events and instructed her to call the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local police. Then he’d sped back to The City by the Bay.

Subsequently, San Francisco Police Department officers retrieved from Gelini’s trunk the briefcase and the $17,000 inside. They asked Reno authorities to apprehend Will/Klose and Dubowy.

By that time, however, the two men had caught a flight back to San Francisco. Shortly after their return, law enforcement agents arrested them at their apartment. 

Willing Or Unwilling Accomplice?

Eventually, more than $19,000 of the stolen $20,000 was recouped. In August, Gelini went to collect the bank reward for recovery of the money but was denied it. Instead, he was arrested soon after, following indictment on the charges of comforting and assisting a fugitive, hindering and preventing his apprehension, and concealing and transporting stolen bank funds between states. He, too, was arrested.

“He is deeply involved,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Karsh told the grand jury. “He was never under any coercion at all, and there was opportunity galore when he could have gotten away.” He only came back “because he knew the jig was up.” Karsh’s office had evidence, he said, that Gelini had planned to take all of the money that he could if he hadn’t gotten the $5,000 promised him.

Gelini countered, “All I was trying to do was to be Will’s friend until I could make a break. Too many cab drivers have been killed by not being friends.”

A jury found Gelini guilty of receiving more than $100 of the stolen money, $140 specifically. He was sentenced to a year and a half of probation.

Punishment Meted Out

As for the other two, Will/Klose was indicted on charges of bank robbery and interstate transport of stolen funds. Dubowy was charged with receiving, possessing and concealing stolen funds under $100.

At arraignment in federal court, Will/Klose told the judge: “I don’t want no jury trial. I want to plead guilty and be punished for what I’ve done” (Reno Evening Gazette, July 30, 1952).

Dubowy said, “I’m just a good natured kid; I was taken advantage of.”

On sentencing, in November, Will/Klose was given eight years in prison for each charge, both stints to be served concurrently. Dubowy got three years’ probation.

Sources

1949

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

Gamblers’ Outcries

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

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

• Extended daylight reduced night life.

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

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

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

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

Playing Hot Potato

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

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

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

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

Time Change Fallout

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

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

Sources

Illustration from pond5: “Antique Clock Face” by StellaL 

1947-1953

Harolds Club bustled on Christmas Eve in 1947 with revelers enjoying the gambling and camaraderie when an unexpected event instantly silenced the din. Panic followed.

Since the previous morning, Reno, Nevada police had been trying to locate a suspect: white male, approximately 20 years old, 5 feet 8 inches, 150 pounds. He’d robbed two taxicabs at gunpoint — one for $17 and one for $5 (about $184 and $54 today, respectively) — and had failed a third attempt.

At around 12:30 a.m., detective sergeants Francis Quinn and James Franklin spotted the alleged criminal entering Harolds Club. They followed him inside, where they informed patrolman William Reeder, working his regular beat there, of the situation. The three quickly fanned out then closed in on their target.

“Take your hands out of your pockets,” Quinn ordered.

The young man shot at the officers. All three fell, wounded. They didn’t fire back for fear a bystander might get hurt. Meanwhile, casino guests darted under tables or ran. Amazingly, none was hit.

Pursuit Of Fugitive

The suspect fled out the door. He got into a taxicab and after riding for a few minutes, pulled a gun on the driver (who hadn’t heard about the shooting), robbed him of $20 ($216 today) and got out.

About an hour later, 15 policemen, sheriff’s deputies and FBI agents traced the gunman to a used car lot where they cornered him. Again, he tried to shoot his way free, but that time a gun battle ensued. A bullet entered his shoulder and another grazed his head behind his ear. At that point, he gave up willingly.

He was arrested and processed then taken to the local hospital for medical treatment.

The culprit, Bobby Carter, originally was from Kentucky. He’d deserted the Navy a few months earlier, having abandoned his post in an Eastern state. He’d gone to Reno from San Francisco.

Of the hurt police officers, Franklin suffered the severest injuries as a bullet entered his abdomen, ruptured his spleen, passed his internal organs then lodged in his back. Reeder sustained a gunshot wound to his hand and an abrasion on his torso. Quinn was hit in the right thigh. Physicians said they expected them all to recover fully.

Punishment Delivered

In January of 1948, Carter was found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and was sentenced to a prison term of 1 to 14 years. (Strangely, at the time, the penalty for shooting someone was more lenient than that for grand larceny; 1 to 14 years was the maximum punishment for assault with the intent to kill whereas 2 to 14 years was the minimum for grand larceny!)

After serving about 5½ years, Carter was paroled, in May 1953.

Sources

1968

For a few months, Harolds Club expanded its exhibited items beyond antique guns and Old West memorabilia.

The Reno, Nevada casino displayed a collection of 150 dolls — including the 1930s Shirley Temple — in two areas, flanking the Roaring Camp Bar on the second floor and opposite the elevator on the third level.

Belonging to Lois Mathewson, the menagerie included figures that ranged in height from under an inch to three feet and some as old as 100 years.

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

Soon after Harolds Club opened in Reno, the main attraction, for only about a week, was mouse roulette, “where customers bet their small change on what color or number a scampering rodent would choose to rest up from his running,” wrote Robert Laxalt in Nevada: A History. 

In his book, I Want to Quit Winners, Harold S. Smith, Sr., one of the club’s co-owners, recalled that he’d returned to Reno from a business trip and found mouse roulette being offered in his very own casino, featuring gray mice caught in the attic. The media picked up the story, erroneously reporting the club used white mice.

“Harolds Club suddenly had an international reputation as the casino that ‘started from a mouse roulette game.’ Twenty-five years later, people still ask to see the game and won’t believe it was here only a week,” he wrote.

Photo from freeimages.com: “Spice Mouse” by David Guglielmo

1970-1971

In the summer of 1970, a package and suitcase found in a Sparks Nugget Motor Lodge room in Northern Nevada with a note affixed saying to please deliver the items to Nugget owner John Ascuaga’s office. A $20 bill was attached as a tip.

A few days later, Nugget manager Gil Padroli opened the package. It contained a bomb — an explosives-filled cardboard tube attached to a timing mechanism and battery! (Police discovered, though, it wasn’t wired to detonate.)

A handwritten message with the device demanded a total of $1 million from the Sparks Nugget, Harolds Club and Harrah’s Club. The casinos were to exactly follow two outlined steps to deliver the cash. First, they were to mail $100,000 to two different California post office boxes. The money had to arrive within four days (Wednesday, June 24). If it wasn’t, wired bombs like the one in the package would be planted in their casinos.

Padroli, however, hadn’t even opened the package left for Ascuaga until the day after the deadline. But no bombs exploded or were found. Police, however, sent a portion of the $200,000 to the mailboxes and posted surveillance teams at each. Nothing happened.

A similar extortion case would take place in Southern Nevada two years later, in which a different perpetrator demanded 21 Las Vegas hotel-casinos pay a total of $2 million or get bombed one by one.

Instructions, Part Two

The second step was for the casinos to place another $200,000 in the trunk of a car parked on a rural street south of downtown Reno. If this wasn’t done by 10 p.m. Tuesday, June 30, then 84 bombs in various places would detonate. In the trunk would be the location of 40 explosive devices along with final directions for where to leave the remaining $600,000. At that site, a note would indicate where the remaining 44 bombs were placed.

That day, about 60 law enforcement officers, many disguised as campers and hunters, staked out the area around the drop site. But by 11:20 p.m., when the police chief aborted the operation, no one had shown to retrieve the money.

Pursuit Of Suspects

Having worked the case for days, the police identified some suspects:

• One was arrested on an unrelated charge in California soon after the package had been left at the Nugget.

• Police booked the primary suspect, a second California man, Eugene Raymond Dill, a 32-year-old contractor, and charged him with extortion.

• Three months later, Frank Richard Gunn, a friend of Dill, also was apprehended in Seattle and charged with being an accessory after the fact.

The district attorney’s office, however, only pursued charges against Dill, who pleaded innocent, and the case went to trial in March 1971. A latent fingerprint examiner testified that Dill’s fingerprints were found on the sample bomb. When the prosecution called Gunn as a witness, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment. The judge, however, threatened him with contempt of court charges, forcing him to testify, during which he denied any knowledge of the crime.

After four hours of deliberation, the jury decided Dill was innocent.

A month later, Frank Gunn billed the Washoe County Board of Commissioners for $45,000 in damages as compensation for a false arrest in the bomb extortion case. Commissioners denied the request.

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

1926-present

By 1963, major casino owners in Reno, Nevada thought the downtown fixture was outdated and ugly compared to their modern buildings on Virginia Street. They even offered to pay for it and its maintenance for five years.

That was the Reno Arch, a famous city landmark.

They probably had a point. The arch originally had been installed in 1926 to celebrate completion of Highway 40 and advertise the associated exposition slated for the next year. In fact, the sign had read: “Reno / Nevada’s Transcontinental Highways Exposition June 29–Aug 1, 1927.” It spanned Virginia Street at Commercial Row.

The city, however, had changed the verbiage in 1929 to: “Reno / The Biggest Little City in the World.”

Some of the initial slogans in the running (oh, my) were:

• Reno, The West’s Highest Assay
• In Progressive Reno, Loiter, Linger, Locate
• Reno, Biggest Little Town On Earth
• Reno, A City You’ll Like
• Reno, The Best Out West
• East Or West, Reno Serves Best

Five years later, after numerous complaints about the new tagline, primarily by local organizations (some residents even wanted the entire sign taken down), the city had removed it, having left simply the word “RENO” in neon green letters. This change, too, upset some Renoites. Ultimately, in 1935, Reno had returned the slogan.

The new 1963 arch spotlighted the same wording but featured a mod style and colors — yellow, white and blue. A revolving star, encircled with lights, topped it. Creation of the sign cost Reno’s gambling consortium — Harolds Club, Primadonna Club, Nevada Club, Colony Club, Horseshoe and Poor Pete’s — about $100,000 (roughly $777,450 today).

Today’s arch, the third version, debuted in 1989, having undergone a makeover.

Sources