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.

A Brief History of Fremont Street

February 2, 2007

A Brief History of Fremont Street

It's hard to belief, when I look at Downtown today, how much it has changed over the years. Harvey Diederich told me "Downtown use to be much more important than it is today" and Carey Burke says "there were more changes there than anywhere else for a long time".

Today the main reason to go downtown is for the Fremont Experience, the fried twinkies, big drinks and loose slots. But it wasn't alway like that.

Downtown use to be the center of the universe in Las Vegas. The train depot, movie theaters, restaurants, shopping, cruising Fremont, gambling halls, lumber stores, homes, it was all centered around Downtown.

When I was a kid, back to school meant mom was taking me to Ronzone's to get my feet x-rayed and buy new clothes. If Ronzone's was too expensive, there was Sears and JC Penneys. Coronet and Woolworth kept us supplied in school supplies. Lil Pardners kept us dressed in Helldorado finery.

Wanted groceries, go downtown. Wanted a good meal, go downtown. The first Pizzeria was opened on Fremont Street shortly after WWII ended. The owners? Former Lt. Governor Lorraine Hunt's parents. The Beanery in the Depot, the Silver Cafe serving fine American and Chinese Food.

Needed a prescription filled, we had White Cross Drugs (before they moved to Las Vegas Blvd South and Oakey), the Las Vegas Pharmacy and a Skaggs. Needed shoes?Gallenkamp and Florsheim Shoes were on Fremont Street. Need a suit or a good pair of pants? Alan and Hanson's Mens Wear. Diamond Ring? No problem, MJ Christensen's Jewelers. Ice Cream? The Sweet Shoppe. Hardware? Von Tobel's Lumber was the first and only stop for most folks.

There were Indian Trading Posts, Smith and Chandler Western Wear, Ullom Photography Studios, a Pottery Shop and enough neon on the store fronts to keep your eyes entranced for days. And that's not even including the neon facades of the gambling halls.

It truly was Glitter Gulch.

A little history on Fremont Street and the places (many of which are no longer there) that made it the hub of commerce, socializing and tourism.

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#1 Main Street: Before the Union Plaza was built, this is where the Train Depot stood. In 1905, the Railroad offered a bargain to men and women who wanted to travel to Las Vegas for the land auction. If they bought land at the auction, they could get their train ticket reimbursed. Ed Von Tobel's father and Will Beckley took the train. By 1906, the little town of Las Vegas had a train depot.

The original train depot was done in Spanish architecture and sat at the end of Fremont Street. It was surrounded by 63 acres of prime real estate that was owned by the Union Pacific Railroad. There were various metal and welding shops for repairing the engines and a Roundhouse.

Gambling was outlawed in Las Vegas in 1909. However, this being Las Vegas, it wasn't that difficult to find a game of chance if you looked hard enough. In 1913, a new street lamp system was tested for the first time. The Las Vegas Age reported "The installation of the street lights will mark a long forward step in the life and business activity of the town and is the subject of much self-congratulation for our people". In 1919, a Fourth of July celebration includes a parade down Fremont Street welcoming home WWI servicemen, a street dance with a full orchestra and a baseball game with Ernie Cragen as the catcher. A brand new field was constructed on railroad property west of downtown. Ninety years later Mayor Goodman still believes in that concept. In 1925, Fremont Street is paved between Main Street and Fifth Street (now Las Vegas Blvd. South). "Beyond that", says George Foley, Sr "if you wanted to see pavement, you had to go to Barstow". In 1926, the highway connecting Los Angeles to Las Vegas was opened. Though officially called Highway 91, locals always referred to as the "road to Los Angeles". By 1931, the first street light was operating on Fremont Street.

Over the years, as the little town grew up around Fremont Street, stately oak trees were planted and a circular drive was put in. During the construction of Hoover Dam, men slept on the lawn of the Depot waiting for the Dam Employment Office to open.

The Beanery was one of the best places in town for a meal. The first long distance telephone call was received here. In 1940, the depot got a make-over and an Art Deco/Streamline Moderne building took its place. Wit the circular drive, it became a popular cruising spot for teenagers from Las Vegas High. They would start down on East Fremont Street at the Blue Onion Drive-In, head west on Fremont and the trick was to go all the way to the end of Fremont, go around the circular drive at the Depot, and then back down Fremont without hitting a red light. This was called "Doin' the Donut".

The City of Las Vegas train brought passengers from around the country to Las Vegas. But Las Vegas was growing. In the mid-1960s, Irwin Molasky built the Boulevard Mall and suddenly, we didn't need to go downtown to do our shopping. Over the years, the Indian Trading Posts, Western Wear stores and Pottery stores gave way to T-Shirt stores and souvenirs. As the town grew with small suburbs, we no longer had to go downtown to eat. Now, there were good restaurants in our own neighborhoods. People began to fly into McCarran International Airport or arrive via car from the new Interstate Highway. Train travel began to decline.

In 1969, they tore the Train Depot down. There was only a small outcry from long time citizens. In its place, would be the Union Plaza Hotel. As part of this Hotel/Casino, it would have a small bus and train depot for those passengers. This was also be the main switching area for the local RTD buses.

If you watch the movie "Diamonds are Forever" you can see the site under construction.

The Union Plaza opened in 1971. It's original owners were: Sam Boyd, Jackie Gaughan, Kell Houssels, Jr and other businessmen. In 1986, Jackie Gaughan bought out his partners and it became Jackie Gaughan's Union Plaza. In 2003, Jackie Gaughan sold the Union Plaza to Barrick Gaming. Today it is just called The Plaza.

Rumors continue to swirl that the Plaza has a date with the wrecking ball. The city owns the original 63 acres having bought that property from the Union Pacific Railroad. Rumors have it that Mayor Goodman wants the Plaza razed so that the whole area, including the 63 acres, can become mixed use residential and retail.

The Union Pacific Railroad still goes through Las Vegas but it is as freight only. Amtrack stopped train service to Las Vegas about 10 years ago. Rumors persist that Amtrack is considering bringing back the Desert Wind for service between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

This being Las Vegas, stay tuned.

Special thanks to UNLV Special Collections, Nevada State Museum and Historical Society, Allen Sandquist and Carey Burke for permission in using all the photos.

Update

on 2007-09-23 20:52 by LasVegasLynn

Word comes from our pals at CheapoVegas.com that Tamares has closed the Center Stage restuarant overlooking Fremont Street and turned it into a Sports Bar. This was where the swimming pool was originally located when the Union Plaza first opened.

The swimming pool gave way to the Center Stage (which has a guest appearance in the opening credits of Michael Mann's mid-1980 television show, Crime Story) .