1907

A faro game with a $50 limit (at least $1,200 today) was underway in the Tonopah Club on a Thursday night in February. Colonel Abe F. Brown, one of the three proprietors of this mining camp saloon in Central Nevada, was playing. A wealthy man, he’d accumulated his assets via gambling enterprises and playing the stock market.

Soon, Brown lost $25,000 ($630,000-plus today). He wanted the maximum bet removed, but this required consent of his partners — George Wingfield and Ed Kennedy. The manager of the Tonopah Club telephoned and explained the situation to Wingfield, who was in the town of Goldfield at the time. Wingfield permitted him to raise the limit to $5,000 ($126,000-plus today).

Brown began betting $5,000 on a single card, and before long, he was about $100,000 ahead. But then his winning streak reversed and he lost repeatedly. Roughly 24 hours later, he’d amassed a debt of  $300,000 (at least $7.5 million today)!

“It is doubtful if ever such an enormous sum of money has been lost by one man,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (Feb. 25, 1907).

Brown wanted to play $50,000 more, but the dealer convinced him to stop. The gambler seemed nonplussed by the misadventure.

“Brown was as cool as a cucumber after he had lost his fortune. He arose from the table, sauntered to the bar, where he took a drink, and bidding his friends goodnight, went off to bed.”

However, the next day and subsequently, he wouldn’t discuss the event and tried to keep it out of the local papers, to no avail. It was the talk of Tonopah.*

Settling Up

Kennedy, the club’s third owner, arrived from Goldfield shortly to settle Brown’s debt with him.  Because faro was a game played against the house and Brown had a one-third interest in it, in his capacity as co-owner he won $100,000 of his personal $300,000 loss, so his net debt was actually $200,000 (at least $5 million today).

To pay it off, Brown supposedly gave his Tonopah Club co-owners 11,000 shares of the Mohawk mine, valued at $17 apiece at the time, and some other stocks.

“His fortune went the same way it came,” the newspaper noted.

The whole unpleasant incident didn’t stop Brown from twisting the tiger’s tail. The very next night, he sat in on another faro game, albeit one for smaller stakes.

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* Tonopah began in 1900 when prospector Jim Butler discovered silver ore in the area.

Sources

Grave markers at San Quentin State Prison

1915-1935

James “Jimmy” Sidney Rogan, an active student and football player, was well liked by the principal of his high school in Tonopah, a mining boom town halfway between Las Vegas and Reno. In 1915, when the available ore in the town dubbed Queen of the Silver Camps was believed to be petering out and numerous residents, therefore, moved to the next hot spot, Rogan quit school in his junior year but wouldn’t tell Principal Chauncey Smith why. Smith encouraged him to stick with his education, to no avail. Rogan went on to work as a Southern Pacific brakeman running out of Sparks, then as a taxi driver in Reno.

In 1924, when in his mid-20s, Rogan got in a brawl in public in Reno, which led to a disturbing the peace charge. A judge fined him $20 ($475 today).

The next year, also in The Biggest Little City, Rogan and a friend, Bobby Gray, a Reno prizefighter, beat and robbed a miner of $80 and his shirt. When police questioned Rogan, he confessed and returned the money to his victim, who declined to press charges. The same judge, before whom Rogan had appeared in the past, gave him roughly 12 hours to get out of town. He did and found work as a seaman. (Gray was released and admonished to choose better associates.)

In Deeper Trouble

In 1932, Rogan, “the debonair adventurer,” and known San Francisco gangster, Rollie D. McAllister, lost $100 ($1,700 today) in the early morning hours while gambling in a speakeasy in Los Angeles’ exclusive Westlake neighborhood (Nevada State Journal, Oct. 14, 1933).

Around 5 a.m., they returned via taxicab after having decided they’d been cheated out of their money. Brandishing guns, they tried forcing the club’s owners, Harvey Crosby and Ben Harris, to return it. Also inside were Deputy Sheriff Rudolph Vejar, 36, who was investigating vice conditions, a bartender and a dealer.

McAllister forced the proprietors to remove their shoes and lie down on the floor while Rogan kept the other people there on the opposite side of the room covered with two pistols. Finding only $68 in the owners’ pockets, McAllister ordered Vejar to remove his shoes and lie down with Crosby and Harris. McAllister began burning Crosby’s bare feet with lit matches to get him to disclose where the cash was hidden.

Suddenly Vejar drew his pistol and shot Rogan in the leg. The former Renoite returned fire, a bullet hitting Vejar in the mouth then penetrating his neck and spine. Vejar emptied his firearm at McAllister, mortally wounding him. Rogan peppered the room with gunshot as he backed out of the establishment. He then took the waiting cab away from the scene and asked to be let out at Washington Boulevard.

Vejar died in the hospital the next day. Rogan went on the lam.

Eleven months later, police found the “underworld character,” as he was described, in San Francisco, where he was visiting his mother before his planned exit from the United States (Nevada State Journal, Dec. 16, 1933). They arrested and extradited him to Los Angeles.

In late 1933, Rogan was tried on robbery and murder charges. During the court proceedings, he insisted that he was innocent in that McAllister had killed Vejar. The jury, after six hours of deliberation, however, found Rogan guilty on both counts.

The judge sentenced him to death on the gallows. In the meantime, he was to remain behind bars at San Quentin State Prison.

Attempts At A Reversal

The Supreme Court of California heard the case on appeal and upheld the conviction and death sentence.

Rogan’s mother and one of his sisters implored California Governor Frank Merriam to commute Jimmy’s death sentence. Five of the jurors who’d found Rogan guilty previously signed a petition for clemency as did Nevada Senator Pat McCarran, a friend of Rogan’s father.

In early February 1935, Rogan wrote a letter to Smith, his former principal/football coach/math instructor, telling him he was sorry for never following his advice way back when. He revealed why he’d dropped out of high school: he hadn’t made the basketball team while younger classmen had.

“In case the worst happens I certainly wanted you to know that I appreciate the things and the efforts on your part to assist me in every way,” Rogan wrote Smith (Reno Evening Gazette, Feb. 13, 1935).

On Feb. 8, 1935, the 32 year old was hanged at 10:04 a.m. Eleven minutes later, the prison physician pronounced him dead. To the end, Jimmy had maintained his innocence.

Sources

Photo from the Los Angeles Times: by Rick Meyer

Wyatt Earp’s Northern saloon in Tonopah, Nevada. 1901

1905

Folklore has it that Wyatt Earp was the pit boss at The Northern in Goldfield, Nevada for George “Tex” Rickard, the proprietor. But it likely is false, according to Nevada historians, Jeffrey Kintop and Guy Rocha.

That year Earp was based in the mining town only for a few months, during which he often traveled to various other locales prospecting for ore. “There was not a lot of time to be working in Goldfield that year,” the two wrote (The Earps’ Last Frontier: Wyatt and Virgil Earp in the Nevada Mining Camps, 1902-1905). It’s true that Earp had worked as a floor boss for Rickard in Nome, Alaska prior to their time in Nevada — possibly the origin of the myth.

Further embellishment of the story had Wyatt dealing faro at the Goldfield Hotel in Nevada’s mining town of the same name. Although fact that Earp was highly skilled at that card game of chance, the statement couldn’t be true as his stint in Goldfield was three years before the hotel’s 1908 construction.

Tonopah, Nevada in 1913

1904

An industrious individual tunneled beneath the Tonopah Club in Tonopah, Nevada, cut a hole through the casino floor and stole $1,000 in gold and silver from the box under the faro table – all while a game was in progress!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

1920

It was 3 a.m. on a Monday. About 15 men were gambling in the Desert Club. One who’d been there all night, sitting alone, watching and waiting to make his move was George Strickland. In his mid-30s and a self-named Wobbly, he’d arrived in Tonopah, Nevada, a few days earlier.

Suddenly, he stood, brandished a gun and demanded everyone put up their hands. He relieved each of his money and valuables then stole about $150 ($1,800 today) from the cash register. He backed out the door, instructing those he’d robbed to stay put.

The police tracked Strickland to the town of Millers, Nevada. When they ordered him to surrender, he shot at them and fled along the Tonopah & Goldfield railroad track. He came upon a passenger train heading to Mina, Nevada and decided to hold it up and get the engineer to bypass the next stop. An express messenger on board, however, shot Strickland in the arm, thwarting his plan.

When the officers arrested him, the alleged thief had $375 ($4,500 today) on his person, about half the amount the victims claimed he’d stolen from them. They confiscated the cash, which was to be held in police possession until the court instructed them what to do with it.

Spectacle In Court

During his arraignment, Strickland acted bizarrely.

“He pleaded guilty and then withdrew the plea repeatedly until the attorneys were confused and did not understand what his final decision was — until he was halted in a rambling discourse and induced to go on record with a plea of guilty,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (July 16, 1920).

During the trial, it came out that he’d planned to get to Mina to acquire more ammunition then return to Millers to fight the officers pursuing him — surefire suicide by cop.

Strickland’s ongoing behavior pointed to some type of mental imbalance and violent tendencies. While in the Tonopah jail, he’d picked several fights. In the courtroom, he attacked the bailiff in the hopes of commandeering his weapon and escaping. Committee members assigned to evaluating Strickland’s sanity offered diverging opinions. The sheriff believed the only safe place for the accused was the penitentiary.

“It is surmised by officers who have been brought in close contact that he is either an escaped convict or a fugitive from an insane asylum,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (July 16, 1920).

The judge sentenced him to five to 25 years in Nevada State Prison, and Strickland thanked him.

As for the money the convicted criminal had pilfered, if it were returned to the original owners, the men could be convicted of illegal gambling (only some games of chance were allowed then). Thus, the money instead likely wound up in the county treasury.

Tragic Finale

A month later, in August, while in the prison hospital, Strickland picked the lock and found his way into the yard. At risk of being shot by a guard, he scaled the perimeter wall and hotfooted it.

He’d made it about 12 miles when bloodhounds tracked him down in a Carson City mill fewer than three hours later. Recaptured, he was returned to the pen.

The following February, Strickland snatched a razor from the prison’s barber shop and used it to fatally cut his throat.

Sources

When Nevada legislators legalized gambling in 1931, they didn’t consider one significant caveat.

The omission came to light in January 1955 when an industrious Las Vegas casino patron was arrested for using Mexican 10 centavo coins in 25 cent slot machines — an act called slot slugging. Apparently, the coins fit perfectly.

The judge ruled the gambler hadn’t broken any law, dismissed the case and suggested lawmakers revise the statute.

They did. In February 1955, Nevada Governor Charles Russell signed into law AB70, which read in part: “It shall be unlawful to use anything but a coin minted by the U.S. government in a slot machine. Violators may be punished by up to six months in jail and/or a $500 fine.” It also forbade cheating casinos by using marked cards, loaded dice and other devices. Violation would be a misdemeanor.

That didn’t stop people from trying to get away with it, though. At least three more incidents occurred that same year. A 64-year-old Salt Lake City resident was caught and arrested in the rural town of Tonopah for feeding Mexican coins into a one-armed bandit. He’d had a roll of the currency hidden in his coat sleeve. In May, two Californians were arrested for the same infraction in another rural place, Smith Valley. In June, a 30-year-old woman from Texas also was busted in Reno.

An Unexpected Tender

Later in 1955, casino operators began finding specific wooden nickels in their slot machines, which displeased them.

They were pieces that merchants in Sparks (city adjacent to Reno) had handed out as part of the Chamber of Commerce’s celebration of the city’s 50th anniversary; 10,000 had been distributed. They were redeemable for five cents’ worth of merchandise or cash from the chamber.

Some people, though, were gambling with the promotional discs instead. Chamber officials apologized, noting there wasn’t much else they could do.

“The old adage which says, ‘Don’t take in any wooden nickels’ is being bandied all over town. The whole thing is pretty funny to everybody except the harried gambling club owners and to law enforcement agencies,” a United Press reporter noted (Nevada State Journal, Sept. 20, 1955).

Sources