Ed Robbin

1941-1956

The Nevada Club (1941-1987) in Reno exemplifies the stereotypic mobsters-and-gambling connection that pervaded The Silver State for decades during the 1900s.

The business began as Robbin and Robbin, opened by Harry Robbin, 65, and his son Isadore Edward “Ed” Robbin, 45, in April 1941, and boasted 21, craps, roulette, bingo and slot machines. Located at 224 N. Virginia Street, it had been Langley’s Tango Club previously. Today, it’s part of Harrah’s property.  In November 1941, the name was changed to Robbins’ Nevada Club.

Three or four years later,* mobsters allegedly wormed their way into the club and usurped the Robbins’ control. Despite no evidence they sought any, the two familial proprietors suddenly had these “partners” in 1946:

• Lincoln Fitzgerald, 52
• Daniel “Danny” W. Sullivan, 55
• Myrton “Mert” C. Wertheimer, 60
• Raymond Reuben “Ruby” Mathis, 55

These new Reno gambling house operators were former members of the Chesterfield Syndicate, which had owned and run resorts, casinos, clubs and speakeasies primarily in the Detroit area. They’d recently relocated to The Biggest Little City due to a crackdown on illegal gambling in Macomb County, Michigan, in which they’d been involved for two-plus decades. Wertheimer, however, had moved from Florida, where he’d run casinos for Meyer Lansky.

Robbins’ Nevada Club “was the foothold the Detroit syndicate needed to transplant the operators into the Reno area,” wrote Jeff Sunzeri in The Nevada Club.

Name Is Changed

In March 1946, Robbins’ Nevada Club underwent a $250,000 (about $3.2 million today) makeover, including a building addition and a remodel of the existing part, likely funded by the newcomers. After, it debuted as simply the Nevada Club, offering 21, craps, roulette, keno, chuck-a-luck and slots. The building was three stories, one underground.

Paying The Price

Five months later, in August 1946, a Macomb County grand jury indicted Sullivan, Fitzgerald and Wertheimer with illegal gambling and obstructing justice by paying bribes and requested their extradition back to Michigan. Wertheimer surrendered and, ultimately, paid a fine. Sullivan and Fitzgerald, however, successfully fought and delayed extradition for two years. The duo was extradited in August 1948 and paid fines.

By that time, Wertheimer and Mathis had left the Nevada Club to run the gambling concession at George Wingfield, Sr.’s Riverside Hotel in Reno. Also by this time, Harry Robbin presumably had bowed out as well, as he already was at retirement age when he and Ed had launched Robbin and Robbin.

Out of Commission

About three months after being extradited to Michigan, someone shot Fitzgerald in his home’s driveway in November 1949, about three months after he’d been extradited to Michigan. Critically injured, he didn’t return to running the Nevada Club until spring 1950.

Used As A Straw Man

Until this time, for nine years, all pertinent business applications, such as those for gambling licenses and building permits, had been in Ed Robbin’s name only. This suggests the syndicate members had used him as a front until they knew Nevada gaming regulators would approve them for a gambling license despite their tainted background.

That happened in 1952 after Fitzgerald, Sullivan and Ed Robbin formed the partnership, Nevada Club Enterprises Inc. Sullivan was the club’s general manager; Fitzgerald was the casino manager. Had Ed Robbin then become a co-owner in name only?

Move Made To Fly Solo

Four years later, Sullivan passed away at age 67 in September. Soon after, Fitzgerald bought Ed Robbin’s stake (Ed was 61) and became the Nevada Club’s only owner. Did Ed Robbin have any say in that?**

Fitzgerald continued to run the Nevada Club, along with his other casino properties, until his death at age 88 in April 1981. That event marked the departure of Chesterfield Syndicate members from the ownership and management of the iconic casino.

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* A newspaper article noted the Chesterfield quartet began operating Robbins’ Nevada Club in summer 1946, but perhaps it was earlier because Sullivan and Fitzgerald, at least, had been living in Reno since May 1945.

** Note that Ed Robbin had a 20 percent interest in Lincoln Fitzgerald’s Nevada Lodge in Crystal Bay at Lake Tahoe when it opened in 1958. (The Nevada Lodge previously had been the Tahoe Biltmore, the name it again has today.

Sources

Interesting age and marital status restrictions are specified in this help wanted ad for casino personnel:

Ran on June 18 in the Nevada State Journal

Clockwise: Vegas Vic, Bucky Buckaroo, Last Chance Joe, Wendover Will

1940s-Today

They’re one of a kind. Dazzling. Captivating. Iconic. Pure Nevada.

They’re the mascots of the state’s gambling industry. They graced the facades of casinos in the gambling meccas, and some still do. Rather than merely signs, they’re like citizens, but atypical ones — larger, brighter and cartoony.

Here’s a look at four of them:

1) Vegas Vic (Las Vegas)

The 40-foot-tall cowboy resulted from an advertising campaign the Walter J. Thompson firm launched in 1946 that boasted “fun in the sun” and a smiling cowboy whose thumb directed toward Las Vegas. The ads appeared in Esquire, the Saturday Evening Post and other national magazines. A year later, a different agency personified in print the Western figure with the name, Vegas Vic, and a voice saying, “Howdy, pardner.”

In 1951, artist Pat Denner designed the Vegas Vic who’s become the icon, and the Young Electric Sign Company manufactured a neon version of him for the Pioneer Club. The cost was $90,000 (about $835,000 today). For the more than half-century since, Vic has remained at 25 E. Fremont Street, greeting passersby with “Howdy pardner, welcome to downtown Las Vegas.” He even gave an interview to the Las Vegas Sun in 2000.

2) Wendover Will (Wendover)

After Vegas Vic, in 1952, the team of Denner and the Young Company, created Wendover Will, another cowboy but much taller at 63 feet, for the State Line Casino in Wendover. Named after the border locale and the casino’s founder, William Smith, the neon mascot’s job was to lure travelers off of U.S. Highways 40 and 50 (today, Interstate 80) and into the gambling club/hotel/café/bar.

In 2001, when the casino’s ownership changed to the Wendover Nugget, 9-ton Wendover Will was donated to the city. He was restored and relocated to Wendover Boulevard in the heart of town, now West Wendover, where he stands today.

3) Bucky Buckaroo (Reno)

In the 1940s, caricaturist and commercial artist, Lewis “Lew” Hymers, designed Bucky, aka Nevada Bob, yet another cowboy but this one in the shape of Nevada.

Three or four versions were built, which hung on the marquee in the front and back of the Nevada Club at 224 N. Virginia Street. One of the Buckys, owned now by Will Durham, founder of the Nevada Neon Project, is 9 feet high and 7 feet long.

Unlike many of the neon signs manufactured in Nevada at the time, Bucky Buckaroo was made out of porcelain enamel rather than being painted, which helps it “look pristine,” Durham said. It’s impressive for 70 year old.

4) Last Chance Joe (Sparks)

Last Chance Joe is 35 feet high, 8 feet thick and 5,000-plus pounds! Roscoe “Duke” Reading designed the statue, and R.H. Grosh Scenic Studios in Los Angeles built it.

To construct him, workers first used structural angle iron to create his frame then covered it with chicken wire. Next, they applied many, many, many layers of papier mâché followed by two coats of celastic. Lastly, they painted and sprayed Last Chance Joe with plastic.

Once completed, they shipped him in three parts on a Southern Pacific flatcar to Sparks, where he was installed outside of Dick Graves’ Nugget for the 1958 grand opening.

Today, Last Chance Joe can be seen outside of the Sparks Heritage Museum at 814 Victorian Avenue.

Ever-Lasting Symbols

Whether in an original or new location, these vibrant, fun characters, along with many of their peers, endure as symbols — of a U.S. industry once unique to Nevada, gambling, and in turn, of the state’s historic identity. As well, today these icons boast the well-deserved label, Americana.

Sources

Photo of Bucky Buckaroo by Brian Ball, I Shoot Reno

1957

After Robert Van Santen and Cecil Lynch’s business partnership in the Las Vegas, Nevada Fortune Club soured (Lynch broke off to open his own gambling club at the Golden Slot site), the two fought over use of that name for their respective casinos.

The dispute led to Van Santen suing Lynch for $100,000 in damages ($860,000 today). Eventually, Van Santen re-named his place Nevada Club but still didn’t want any downtown enterprise using the moniker Fortune Club.

When Clark County commissioners threatened to resolve the issue, though, the men came to an agreement, and Van Santen dropped the lawsuit.

1961-1966

Early in 1961, Michael Catrone, 60, an apartment complex owner, presented to the Nevada Club in Las Vegas a winning keno ticket for $25,000 ($198,000 today). Yet the casino’s general manager didn’t pay it because it was suspicious — the ink on the ticket was lighter than on other ones.

An internal inquiry revealed a discrepancy between the machine-generated original and duplicate. The copies typically were locked up and used to confirm a winning ticket.

Catrone complained to the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) the gambling house had stiffed him. The casino’s owner, Robert Van Santen, went to the police, claiming Catrone had tried to cheat the house and hired a private eye to look into the incident. Law enforcement, the NGCB and the district attorney’s (D.A.’s) office investigated.

Concluding that Catrone and two Nevada Club employees — Robert Pearson, 27, and Stanley Wagner, 28 — had colluded to take the casino, detectives theorized the perpetrators had run a blank ticket through the keno machine, then after the winning numbers had been posted, had opened the machine and had marked those digits on the ticket. The D.A. charged the three with attempting to obtain money under false pretenses (the doctored keno ticket) by defrauding the club.

NGCB agents looked into the matter and after receiving a confession from Wagner, told Van Santen he didn’t have to pay the $25,000.

In the preliminary hearing, the prosecution tried to introduce into evidence Wagner’s written and signed confession of his involvement, but the defense objected, noting the Nevada Club had offered Wagner $1,000 in exchange for the confession. (Was this true?) Later, claiming the casino had only given him $250 of the agreed upon $1,000, Wagner retracted his previous admission of guilt.

Prosecution’s House Of Cards

D.A. John Mendoza pursued a case against the three, all of whom pled innocent.

During the trial, which began in April 1962, the prosecution’s key witness, Frank Cirinna, a bartender at the Log Cabin, testified that Pearson had approached him about participating in an illegal keno ticket scheme. Cirinna, however, lied on the stand about his meetings with Van Santen, asserting he’d only met him once informally. (Had Van Santen asked or paid Cirinna to testify as he had about Pearson?)

Despite defense attorney Harry Claiborne grilling him about meeting with Van Santen more than once, Cirinna stuck to his story. When Mendoza questioned him, Cirinna admitted he’d lied but wouldn’t say why, so the judge had him jailed for contempt. After several hours, though, the judge freed him.

John Baptist Pollett (aka Johnny Dean) a former friend of Wagner and an ex-convict out on bail at the time for a disorderly charge in Reno, took the stand for the prosecution. During his testimony, it came out that someone, Dean refused to say who (perhaps Van Santen or his P.I.), offered him $3,500 to get a confession out of Wagner for the Nevada Club’s private investigator. Dean claimed he never got the $3,500. (Had Dean gotten the money or not? Was Dean supposed to give $1,000 of it to Wagner for his confession but only gave him $250?)

While Dean was on the stand, Mendoza filed a motion to dismiss the charges against all three defendants, as Claiborne had discredited his two key witnesses, Cirinna and Dean, and he didn’t believe he could win solely based on two document experts’ testimony. He noted that Cirinna and Dean, while testifying, had divulged information that Mendoza hadn’t known when he’d filed the complaint against the defendants. District Judge Compton agreed with the motion.

Back To The Money

Following the ruling, Van Santen reiterated his refusal to pay the disputed $25,000 because “the trial had nothing to do with the validity of the ticket” (Las Vegas Sun, May 2, 1962).

Claiborne tried to get the NGCB to force Van Santen to pay, to no avail. Mandating that a gambling win be paid or not wasn’t part of the NGCB’s role, Chairman Ed Olsen said.

“Our function is merely to determine whether the circumstances are such as to warrant the board in proceeding against a club’s license for unsuitable method of operation on the basis of a failure to pay a gambling win,” he added (Las Vegas Sun, Oct. 27, 1962).

Catrone and his attorney pursued a different tack for getting the money. They sued Van Santen and his corporation for $750,000 in damages for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.

District Judge George Marshall, however, handed down a summary judgment in favor of the Nevada Club. On appeal, the Nevada Supreme Court, in 1966, unanimously affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

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

When customer Mrs. Curt Whitney entered the Nevada Club at 3 a.m. on a Sunday in May 1953, her shoe allegedly got caught in a hole in the floor, and she fell.

More than a year later, she and her husband sued the casino. She sought $35,000 in damages for injuries to her right leg and back and having been hospitalized at various times for a total of seven weeks. Her husband sued for $12,812.05 for medical and household expenses and loss of his wife’s companionship.

This is one example of the accident liability lawsuits that became common after Nevada legalized gambling in 1931. Here are three more cases, all filed in Reno in 1954:

• Antonio Rodriguez was playing the card game, panguingue, in a gambling club when he allegedly stepped on a beer bottle while rising from his chair and, consequently, broke his ankle. He sought $5,000 in general damages and $1,400 in special damages for medical expenses and lost wages.

U.S. West-themed mural on exterior of Harolds Club in Reno, Nevada

• Mrs. Lillian Walker was stepping onto the escalator in Harolds Club to descend from the second to first floors when her shoe allegedly got caught and she wobbled. An alert casino employee grabbed her to keep her from falling, injuring her back and limbs, she and her husband claimed in their subsequent lawsuit.

She demanded $35,000 for bodily pain and nervous shock; her husband asked for $2,250 for medical expenses and compensation for the injury of his wife.

• Also in Harolds Club, a Mrs. McCall allegedly fell while climbing the stairs near the casino’s entrance, suffering “severe” injuries (Nevada State Journal, Dec. 23, 1954).

She and her husband sued, claiming management had failed to keep the stairs safe. She asked for $35,000 for her injuries; her husband requested medical expenses.

While these incidents truly may have happened, it’s interesting that most occurred in the city’s major gambling clubs and not the rinky dink ones.

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