A Brief History of Downtown (cont.)

March 27, 2007

The Golden Nugget (western corner):

The Golden Nugget now takes up the entire block between First and Second but it hasn't always. On the corner of First and Fremont once stood the California Club which had an animated bear that moved its head up and down. In the mid-1960s, the bear would be replaced by an animated chaser bulb arrow. In 1969, the Golden Nugget expanded and put a small bullnose on the corner. In 1978, the Friendly Club opened on the corner but within two years, it closed and reverted back to being part of the Golden Nugget.

In about the mid-section of today's Nugget, once stood the Oasis Cafe. This was a popular restaurant with both the locals and people passing through. The Oasis gave way to the Las Vegas Sweet Shoppe. The Sweet Shoppe was a popular after school hang out for students from the Grammar and High Schools. The Sweet Shoppe ultimately closed and the White Spot Cafe opened in its place.

In 1954, the White Spot gave way to The Nevada Club. The Nevada Club, like most of the gaming halls on Fremont Street had air vents on the floor in the doorways. You could come in out of the heat, stand there and be blasted by cool air. The floor vents are still in the doorways but that rush of cool air no longer hits you like it used to. The Nevada Club gave way to Diamond Jim's. Finally, around 1970s, it too became part of the Golden Nugget expansion.

Between the Nevada Club and the original part of the Golden Nugget stood a small clubs: the Fortune Club which became the Frontier Club. The Frontier Club became the Lucky Strike with its massive neon and flicker bulb pylon sign shooting into the sky. The Lucky Strike shortened its name to the Lucky Club before being annexed by the Nugget in 1968.

The Golden Nugget (eastern corner of Second and Fremont):

This originally was a two story Post Office. Robert Griffiths was the postmaster in 1926. Next to the Post Office was the Majestic Theater which may have been owned by Ernie Cragin before he built the El Portal. Cragin and Pike Insurance had an office upstairs above the Theater. The Post Office and Majestic Theater gave way to the Mission Bar. It was only in business a short while before it became the Kiva Bar. The Kiva gave way to the Golden Nugget.

It's original bullnose and signage was designed by Young Electric sign designers Kermit Wayne and Hermon Boernge. The 1905 on the sign led many to believe that the Golden Nugget had been part of the original development of Fremont Street but that was a myth. Because of its bullnose and signage, the Golden Nugget became one of the most photographed buildings on Fremont Street. "Everyone knew the Golden Nugget sign" said the late president of the LVCVA, Manny Cortez.

Steve Wynn bought the Golden Nugget and gave the building a total make-over. Some of the smaller signage is in the Neon Museum boneyard but the original large rooftop sign was destroyed. There is reported to be a small model of the original bullnose and signage in the Smithsonian.

Outside on Second Street for many years was Sammy's Newstand that carried papers from around the world.

A Brief History of Downtown (cont.)

February 3, 2007

The Pioneer Club (western corner)

This was home to the Isis Theater in the early days of Las Vegas. There were a couple of movie theaters in those early years. The Majestic and the Airdome were also on Fremont Street. The Airdome was an open air theater with some canvas walls, a screen and chairs. In the summertime, they were the one theater to show movies outside, and as there was no air conditioning, they did good business on a summer's night.

The Isis gave way in the 1920s to the Las Vegas Hotel and Cafe and then became the Smokehouse Restaurant. The Smokehouse had a tough go of it at that time. The Union Pacific had pulled out of Las Vegas during the strike of 1922. While trains still came through hauling passengers and freight, the machine and welding shops were closed. "Live was pretty tough in those days", remembers Ed Von Tobel, Jr.

As the population dwindled down to only the most heartiest who continued to believe in the town, the Smokehouse closed. The Bank Club opened very briefly and then in 1930 reopened as the original Las Vegas Club. The Las Vegas Club received one of the first gaming licenses offered in 1931.

The Las Vegas Club would remain at this location untlil the late 1940s. It was then that owner Kell Houssels, Sr moved the Club across the street to its present location.

In 1947, Housels took on a partner, a colorful Texas gambler by the name of Benny Binion. When Houssels moved the Las Vegas Club across the street, Benny Binion opened The Westerner with its moving neon sign and mural opened in its place.

The Pioneer Club (eastern corner):

Jake Beckley came to Las Vegas with Ed Von Tobel, Sr. They were both young men looking for another chance. They found it here in Downtown Las Vegas. Together they would start Von Tobel Lumber. It was originally on Main Street, south of the train depot. But in a small town just beginning to grow, Von Tobel Lumber was considered too far out of town and was one of almost ten Lumber Yards. Times were tough.

Jake Beckley decided that perhaps what people needed more than Lumber and Hardware was clothes. His brother Will was just the guy for the job. The Beckley brothers bought a building on the south side of Fremont Street on the corner of 1st Street. There they opened Beckley's Mens Wear. The three-story building featured the store on the ground floor and offices upstairs. One of the rooms on the second floor was used as a social gathering place by the Mesquite Club and other women's auxiliaries. Jake, shortly afterward, amicably ended his partnership with Von Tobel.

Beckley's Mens Wear soon branched out to other fashions as well. The business did well, surviving the Depression. In the mid-1940s, the store was closed. The building was leased to Tudor Scherer and his partners, Farmer Page, ChuckAddison and Bill Curland. The Beckley's kept the land. Scherer and his partners opened the Pioneer Club in 1942.

In a smart move in 1951, the Chamber of Commerce approached Young Electric Sign Company about designing and building a neon cowboy for the Pioneer Club. Vegas Vic was to become the icon of Fremont Street. Myths over the years having various designers being responsible for Vic and many others purported to be the model. Vic was designed by one of Yesco's Salt Lake City designers, Patrick Denner. Vic was 75 feet tall, had one moveable arm with a glowing cigarette in one hand and the other arm moved back and forth. He had a voice box that proclaimed "Howdy Podner" every 15 minutes. Vic stopped talking in 1966 when Lee Marvin and Woody Strode, tired after a day of working on location in the Valley of Fire for the film "The Professionals", were kept awake by Vic's friendly greeting. Taking a couple of bows and arrows from the prop department, one night they commenced shooting at Vic from their hotel rooms across the street at the Mint Hotel. City Fathers decided that perhaps it was best if Vic stopped talking. Vic has an older brother of sorts, Wendover Will located fittingly enough in Wendover, Nevada. He, too, was designed by Patrick Denner.

The Pioneer Club had various owners over the years including Circus Circus executives, one of which was the grandson of Will Beckley. The Pioneer finally closed in 1995 and became the large souvenir shop it is today. It is now owned by Schiff Enterprises.

The signage over the years has changed very little. The rooftop sign that faces east towards the Golden Nugget is endangered. Leroy's Sports Book and Mike's Liquor which used to be on First Street next to the Pioneer have recently been demolished. Across Fremont Street, there once was a roof-top sign on the old Las Vegas Pharmacy building. This colorful neon sign had a neon Vegas Vic face with signage proclaiming There it is! The Famous Pioneer Club and an arrow pointing across the street towards the Pioneer Club. That sign was destroyed in the late 1950s when the Pharmacy Building was demolished to make room for the Silver Palace.

Vegas Vic still presides over Fremont Street. He went through a few years of disrepair. But when the Fremont Street Experience was erected, Vic's famous ten galloon hat was reduced and his waving arm became immobile so that he would fit under the Experience's canopy. Today he is one of the few remaining iconic pieces of neon from Fremont Street's days as Glitter Gulch.

A Brief History of Downtown (cont.)

February 3, 2007

#15 Fremont Street - La Bayou/The Northern Club

Across the alley from the Golden Gate, today sits the La Bayou, where you can get an assortment of souvenirs and large drinks.

On the side of the wall, the paint is peeling and you can see traces of the signage that use to be there. Hopefully, the paint will continue to peel so that we can discover the business underneath it.

This is the site of the famed Northern Club. But before it became the Northern Club, in the 1900s it was the Las Vegas Coffee House. In 1920, Mayme Stocker opened the Northern Club on the property. Originally it was a soft drink emporium but Northern was code, back in the day, for miners and veterans of mining camps and they knew it was a place, despite Prohibition, where they could not only get a real drink to wet their whistle but also take a chance at Lady Luck. Mayme was the owner of record. Her husband, Oscar, worked for the Union Pacific which seriously frowned on their employees having outside interests.

Despite the anti-gambling law, their were five games of chance that could be played in Las Vegas back then: stud, draw and lowball poker, 500 and bridge, according to Mayme's son, Harold.Harold had quite a colorful childhood moving with his mother between Montana and Las Vegas and then to Los Angeles when the Grammer School burned down. One summer, Harold went down to Tijuana and got a job learning to deal. He was only 17 years old. After WWI, Harold returned to Las Vegas and got a job, like his father and brothers, working for the Railroad.

The Northern was said to be a stand up place that didn't cater in women. That was for Block 16, the red-light district, just off Fremont Street. Harold, ever the entrepreneur, however invested in a few brothels on Block 16,

In 1931, with the anti-gambling law repealed, Mayme Stocker applied for and was awarded the first gaming license in Las Vegas. Harold's older brother Lester was a professional gambler and according to Harold, was largely responsible for getting the anti-gambling law repealed. The $10,000 that the Stocker family helped raise to fight the anti-gambling law probably didn't hurt either.

After Lester and Oscar died, Mayme retired from the Northern Club, letting others handle the daily operations of the place. In 1945 she leased the place to Wilbur Clark who promptly renamed it the Monte Carlo Club. Clarence Stocker continued to run the Northern Hotel on the second floor.

Harold built and operated the Chief Autel Court, the largest apartment building in the State in its day. It was a brick building located at Fremont Street and Maryland Parkway.

Clarence died in 1952, Mayme died in 1972 at the age of 97 and Harold died in 1983 at the age of 82.

In the late 1970s, the Coin Castle with its giant King atop the building, opened on the site. The Coin Castle closed shortly after the turn of the century. The King's head and his body are in the Neon Museum boneyard.

A Brief History of Downtown (cont.)

February 2, 2007

#1 Fremont Street- The Golden Gate

Across the street from The Plaza on the south side of the street, at #1 Fremont Street, is The Golden Gate Hotel. Considered to be one of the oldest hotels in Las Vegas, the Golden Gate was originally the Hotel Nevada. During the land auction of 1905, this corner was a tent hotel. Men who had brought parcels of land and had no place to stay, stayed here bunking in shifts with other men. In 1906, the tent was replaced with the brick facade of the Hotel Nevada. The publisher of the Las Vegas Age newspaper, Charles "Pop" Squires had his office in the Hotel Nevada. When telephone service finally came to Southern Nevada in 1907. Hard to imagine that people once had houses on Fremont Street. The Hotel Nevada benefited from being across the road from the train depot.

Gambling was against the law until in 1931, when desperate to stir up some tourism trade the voters repealed the anti-gambling law.

Perhaps to celebrate, in 1931, the Hotel Nevada underwent a name change and became the Sal Sagev (Las Vegas spelled backwards).

The property, with its neon script Entrance sign in the back and its neon script blue Restaurant sign next to the Alley, remained the Sal Sagev until 1955. In 1955, a casino opened on the ground floor and became the Golden Gate Casino.

In 1964, while making Viva Las Vegas!, Elvis Presley drove down Fremont Street passing the Golden Gate Hotel. In 1974, the owners of the Golden Gate bought the hotel and it the entire property becomes the Golden Gate Casino and Hotel. In the late 1990s, the owners stripped off the faux-1960s metal awning on the building and restored it back to its original brick facade. The Golden Gate is famous for its 99 cent shrimp cocktail.