Whatever Happened to Harrah's Auto World?

Harrah's Auto Collection in the 1970s

   Most customers in the Home Depot on Summit Ridge Court on the west side of Reno have no idea that if things had gone a little bit differently, they might be standing inside a giant pyramid structure housing one of the world’s largest and most impressive vintage automobile collections.

   That site on the edge of the Biggest Little City was once earmarked to be home of a multi-million-dollar auto museum/hotel-casino complex/amusement park that was to be known as Harrah’s Auto World.

   The project was the brainchild of the legendary Northern Nevada casino-hotel boss, William “Bill” Harrah, who, in addition to owning large resorts at Reno and Lake Tahoe, had an extraordinary collection of vintage automobiles that, at its peak, numbered some 1,400 cars (the number varies according to the source).

   Harrah was born in 1911 in South Pasadena, California. His father, John Harrah, was a politically-connected attorney, who, after losing nearly all his money in the stock market crash in 1929, opened a small gambling parlor that offered a type of Bingo known as “the Reno game.”

   After learning the ins and outs of the game, Bill Harrah purchased the rights to the business from his father. He continued operating the game in spite of regular harassment from local law enforcement.

   In 1937, Harrah decided to relocate to Reno, where he could operate his Bingo franchise openly and without fear of being shut down by police. Within a few years, he had moved into table games and slots, and, by the late 1940s he was one of the city’s most successful casino operators.

   Starting in 1948, Harrah began collecting vintage automobiles (as well as to indulge his love of airplanes and hydroplanes). His first acquisition was a 1911 Maxwell, which Harrah originally believed was a 1907 edition. In the process of restoring the Maxwell, he discovered it had been cobbled together with parts from several autos, which only made him more determined to become an expert on antique car restoration.

   Between 1948 and 1978, Harrah acquired some 1,400 cars and had a staff of more than 70 to maintain and restore his collection of vehicles. By some estimates, he spent more than $40 million into his cars.

   By the early 1960s, Harrah began leasing a complex of former ice storage buildings in the industrial area of Sparks, and displaying his car collection. A visit to the collection at that time was an almost mind-numbing experience, with hundreds of cars lined up inside the massive buildings.

   Harrah was a completist, often acquiring every year’s model of a particular automobile brand, including Franklins (a now defunct car company that operated from 1902-1934), Fords, and others.

   In the early 1970s, Harrah purchased 360 acres on the southwest and southeast corners of McCarran Boulevard and I-80, to serve as the site of a massive museum-hotel-casino complex that could house his auto collection. He hired famed hotel architect Martin Stern Jr., who had designed the International Hotel (now called Resorts World Las Vegas/Las Vegas Hilton) in Las Vegas, to draft plans for his homage to his cars.

   Stern’s designs, which can be viewed on the University of Nevada Las Vegas’ Special Collections website (https://www.library.unlv.edu/whats_new_in_special_collections/2017/03/collection-highlight-martin-stern-jrs-architectural-vision), depict a sprawling compound with a giant replica of an old hot air balloon, a high-rise hotel-casino, and a large, modern museum structure with a giant geodesic dome in the center.

   A description on the website notes that the museum would consist of several “galleries of numerous time pockets” that would be filled with cars, naval ships, various types of aircraft, and even a dirigible. The concept was to show the evolution of transportation in America.

   The designs even evolved over time, with early schematics showing a sort of 1960s version of modernism and later ones showing a massive pyramid structure housing all the galleries. Running around the buildings would be a vintage steam train.

   In his book, Playing the Cards that are Dealt, former Harrah Corporation chairperson Meade Dixon said that at one point in the mid-1970s the company’s board of directors authorized spending $45 million (more than $181 million in today’s dollars) to construct the project.

   But Harrah’s Auto World was not to be.

   In June 1978, Harrah entered the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to have surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm (he’d has a similar operation in 1972 without complications). This time, however, he died during the operation.

   In the aftermath, Harrah’s wife and heirs decided to sell the company and the massive auto collection, which had been purchased through the corporation. During the next few years, the new owner, Holiday Inns, is said to have recouped its entire investment by auctioning and selling the cars.

   Fortunately, about 175 vehicles, including the 1911 Maxwell and many one-of-a-kind models, were donated by Holiday Inns to the William F. Harrah Foundation, which had been formed to build a museum in Reno to house the remaining cars.

   The group was able to raise funds for the museum, which opened in 1989. Today, it displays about 200 cars (those from the Harrah’s collection and others that have been donated) and is one of the premier automobile history facilities in the country.

   As for the Auto World site, Holiday Inns sold the land, which was developed for other commercial reasons (such as a Home Depot). The $45 million set aside to build the museum was redirected to finance a major expansion of Harrah’s Reno resort in 1977.

   In March 2020, Harrah’s Reno closed its doors for good. The property was sold and is currently being renovated into a mixed-use property, known as Reno City Center, with retail shops, office space and about 530 apartments.