Wily Desperado Falls Short on Crime Execution
1943-1949 Two acquaintances were having a drink at a Reno casino bar — Miles T. Ellis, 47, a tourist, and Anthony Swiderski, 52, a local chef in the Northern Nevada town. At an opportune moment,…
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1943-1949 Two acquaintances were having a drink at a Reno casino bar — Miles T. Ellis, 47, a tourist, and Anthony Swiderski, 52, a local chef in the Northern Nevada town. At an opportune moment,…
1931-1932 Actors Clara Bow and Rex Bell gambled at the Meadows in Las Vegas in summer 1931 and racked up a $1,100 loss (about $18,000 today), for which they left an IOU. By December, the…
1934 After hiding somewhere in the building, a person robbed the Bank Club casino’s safe of $500 in silver change (about $9,000 today) between 4 and 6 p.m. on a Wednesday in early December. This…
1972-1973 Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to read is true. No names have been changed, as there were no innocents. This is the city, Stateline, Nevada. It’s the gambling mecca of Lake…
1906-1907 “They’ll never get me,” prisoner John Edwards said while being ushered into court for his trial. “They’ll never fasten anything on me” (Nevada State Journal, April 19, 1906). “Hasn’t a man a right to…
1949-1950 The Den opened its doors in spring 1949. The proprietors — Donald A. Bentley, John R. Hope and Robert M. Colahan — likely were hoping for at least as long a run as their…
1936 A thief took the trouble of entering a Los Angeles, California café through a skylight to rob the slot and marble games. But instead of getting the heck out after that was successful, he stayed…
1969-present When executives of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada hosted 12 people from Kansas City in 1969 as part of a gambling junket, it unexpectedly backfired. When their guests, after four days at the…
1956-1959 A thief absconded with $2,000 (about $17,500 today) from the Club Primadonna casino in Reno, Nevada on the first Friday of May 1956. The missing 10,000 dimes, 2,000 quarters and 1,000 half-dollars, the reserve…
1915-1935 James “Jimmy” Sidney Rogan, an active student and football player, was well liked by the principal of his high school in Tonopah, Nevada, a mining boom town halfway between Las Vegas and Reno. In…
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.…
1920 Some shady business went down between Felix Turillas, Sr., who owned Reno’s Espanol hotel and who went on to own several Northern Nevada casinos, and two men, Joe Musso and Joe Stropin. According to…