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Opinion
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — Looking for something to celebrate Friday? How ‘bout Nevada Day — the 79th anniversary of the legalization of gambling in Nevada! Toss in a six-week residency to get a divorce and we've got the makings of a block party…
Mary Pickford would immediately divorce Douglas Fairbanks in Reno, and the rush was on. One Californian was quick to comment, “If you want to get married, do it in Nevada, and do it early in the morning. That way if it doesn't work out it won't ruin the whole day.”
Even after legalization, gambling stayed in the back rooms, until Pappy Smith moved it into the front parlor. Harold's Club in Reno was the first casino in Nevada to attract the non-gambler, the woman. Pappy introduced “Mouse-Roulette,” a spinning cage with a live mouse inside. If the mouse rested on your number you won! The ladies thought it was cute and they loved to bet on the little mouse. Sometimes the spinning cage took longer to stop than the mouse and chopped off the mouse's tail, which was not popular with the ladies. But take it all around, Mouse-Roulette was a huge attraction.
Pappy would walk the floor, cajole the players, give losers a free meal and a bus ride home. (When was the last time you had that happen?) Men in uniform drank free.
Six years after Nevada legalized gambling, a small-time bingo owner from the west coast arrived in Reno. He was a car guy, a free-liver, a roistering dissolute fellow who would eventually give up the booze to become Nevada's biggest gambler, Bill Harrah.
In 1937 Harrah opened a small bingo parlor next to Pappy Smith's place, and the first thing Bill did was to lay carpet down in his parlor. Everybody laughed, especially Pappy. “Bill, the streets are muddy, and the cowboys are going to track that mud onto your carpet and you're going to have one heck of a mess.”
But a strange thing happened — cowboys started comin' ‘round the mountain with ladies on their arms, and they stopped at the front door of Harrah's to wipe their feet. Bill Harrah attracted a new clientele to the gambling hall.
Harrah hired the best entertainment money could buy, and he treated those stars like royalty.
Sammy Davis, Jr. would say, “I don't care where you stay, when you leave Harrah's Tahoe, you're roughing it.”
Bill Cosby would give Bill Harrah for Christmas one year, a Mercedes limousine, and he left a note on the windshield, “What do you give a man who has fourteen hundred cars?”
Harrah enjoyed so much success that he went public, and Harrah's appeared on the New York Stock Exchange. By turning his casinos into corporations Harrah was able to marginalize the mob. Before Harrah the mob pretty well hand the handle on things, and our beautiful lake was their dumping ground.
So we have Bill Harrah to thank for chasing the mob off, but one mobster came back and gave Frank Sinatra some grief at the Cal Neva lodge in the early sixties.
Frank threw a party for Marilyn Monroe, and everybody came, including Sam Giancana, who was in the Black Book. Nevada keeps a list of unsavory mob types that they try to keep out of the casinos, and Sam was at the top of that list.
Well, the next morning, after Marilyn's party, Frank received a phone call from the chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, asking if in fact Giancana had been in his casino. Frank let loose like a cavalry charge with a liturgy of curses, which cost him his gambling license, and earned him the Nevada moniker, “Old Blue Mouth.” Interesting times…
I think tomorrow I'll ask my wife to put on a long black dress, and we can go over the Cal-Neva to celebrate Nevada's fabled battle cry, “Give us laws that give us liberties!” While we're at it we might as well put ten dollars down on Kentucky in the Big Dance to pay for our celebratory champagne…
The main thing is that we not forget to celebrate Nevada Day in March…
— McAvoy Layne is an Incline Village resident who visits area schools as the ghost of Mark Twain.
Mary Pickford would immediately divorce Douglas Fairbanks in Reno, and the rush was on. One Californian was quick to comment, “If you want to get married, do it in Nevada, and do it early in the morning. That way if it doesn't work out it won't ruin the whole day.”
Even after legalization, gambling stayed in the back rooms, until Pappy Smith moved it into the front parlor. Harold's Club in Reno was the first casino in Nevada to attract the non-gambler, the woman. Pappy introduced “Mouse-Roulette,” a spinning cage with a live mouse inside. If the mouse rested on your number you won! The ladies thought it was cute and they loved to bet on the little mouse. Sometimes the spinning cage took longer to stop than the mouse and chopped off the mouse's tail, which was not popular with the ladies. But take it all around, Mouse-Roulette was a huge attraction.
Pappy would walk the floor, cajole the players, give losers a free meal and a bus ride home. (When was the last time you had that happen?) Men in uniform drank free.
Six years after Nevada legalized gambling, a small-time bingo owner from the west coast arrived in Reno. He was a car guy, a free-liver, a roistering dissolute fellow who would eventually give up the booze to become Nevada's biggest gambler, Bill Harrah.
In 1937 Harrah opened a small bingo parlor next to Pappy Smith's place, and the first thing Bill did was to lay carpet down in his parlor. Everybody laughed, especially Pappy. “Bill, the streets are muddy, and the cowboys are going to track that mud onto your carpet and you're going to have one heck of a mess.”
But a strange thing happened — cowboys started comin' ‘round the mountain with ladies on their arms, and they stopped at the front door of Harrah's to wipe their feet. Bill Harrah attracted a new clientele to the gambling hall.
Harrah hired the best entertainment money could buy, and he treated those stars like royalty.
Sammy Davis, Jr. would say, “I don't care where you stay, when you leave Harrah's Tahoe, you're roughing it.”
Bill Cosby would give Bill Harrah for Christmas one year, a Mercedes limousine, and he left a note on the windshield, “What do you give a man who has fourteen hundred cars?”
Harrah enjoyed so much success that he went public, and Harrah's appeared on the New York Stock Exchange. By turning his casinos into corporations Harrah was able to marginalize the mob. Before Harrah the mob pretty well hand the handle on things, and our beautiful lake was their dumping ground.
So we have Bill Harrah to thank for chasing the mob off, but one mobster came back and gave Frank Sinatra some grief at the Cal Neva lodge in the early sixties.
Frank threw a party for Marilyn Monroe, and everybody came, including Sam Giancana, who was in the Black Book. Nevada keeps a list of unsavory mob types that they try to keep out of the casinos, and Sam was at the top of that list.
Well, the next morning, after Marilyn's party, Frank received a phone call from the chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, asking if in fact Giancana had been in his casino. Frank let loose like a cavalry charge with a liturgy of curses, which cost him his gambling license, and earned him the Nevada moniker, “Old Blue Mouth.” Interesting times…
I think tomorrow I'll ask my wife to put on a long black dress, and we can go over the Cal-Neva to celebrate Nevada's fabled battle cry, “Give us laws that give us liberties!” While we're at it we might as well put ten dollars down on Kentucky in the Big Dance to pay for our celebratory champagne…
The main thing is that we not forget to celebrate Nevada Day in March…
— McAvoy Layne is an Incline Village resident who visits area schools as the ghost of Mark Twain.
