Common Myths About Sin City

 

Last Frontier, 1945

   Everyone thinks they know Las Vegas. But over the years, the city has been the subject of many myths—some created by the city’s own publicists. The following are just a few of the more common misconceptions or downright falsehoods that have been spread over the years about the city:

   • Las Vegas was founded by the Mob—Anyone who has watched any gangster movie or TV crime show about Las Vegas, might get the impression this is a fact. The reality, however, is that Las Vegas was founded by Mormon missionaries.

   Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints established Sin City. In 1855, Mormon leader Brigham Young sent 30 men to establish a small fort and settlement in the Las Vegas Valley. Due to its isolated location and hot, dry climate, the colony struggled for two years before it was finally abandoned.

   A few years later, the fort became a ranch and trading post, which eventually grew into the city of Las Vegas. The fort, now a state park, is located just north of downtown on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and East Washington Avenue.

   • Bugsy Siegel created the Las Vegas Strip—If you watch the 1992 film Bugsy, starring Warren Beatty, you saw Las Vegas portrayed as a backwater town that owed its existence to gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.

   In the movie Siegel, in Vegas to check on mob interests, pulls off the highway, walks into a desolate patch of sagebrush and sand, and announces that he will build a hotel there. 

   The reality is that the first resort built on the Las Vegas Strip was El Rancho Vegas, which opened in 1941, followed by the Last Frontier a year later. Siegel’s Flamingo Hotel did not open until New Year’s Eve 1946. Siegel wasn’t even the father of the Flamingo—Los Angeles publisher and restaurateur Billy Wilkerson was the original owner. Wilkerson, however, ran out of money and partnered with Siegel and his mob pals to complete the hotel (although he was quickly squeezed out of the picture).

   Siegel also is not responsible for naming the Las Vegas Strip. That honor goes to Guy McAfee, a Las Vegas casino owner and former corrupt vice-squad captain with the Los Angeles police. In the 1940s, McAfee named Las Vegas Boulevard “the Strip” because it reminded him of Los Angeles’ famed Sunset Strip.

   • Elvis was always a big star in Las Vegas—It turns out that Elvis Presley was a flop in his first Las Vegas appearance, at the New Frontier showroom, in April 1956. His fans, largely teen girls, were too young to get into the casino to see the show, and the gambling crowd didn’t much care for rock-n-roll and thought he was too loud.

   However, when Elvis returned 13 years later, he began a long string of sold-out shows.

   • Big-name hotel entertainment was invented in Las Vegas—While Las Vegas resorts no doubt made popular the casino showroom and lounge, the first big-name entertainer to play a Nevada hotel was bandleader Ted Lewis, who performed with his orchestra at the Commercial Hotel in Elko on April 26, 1941.

   The first big-name entertainer to appear in Las Vegas is believed to have been singer Sophie Tucker, who performed at the Last Frontier in January 1944. The first star-studded entertainment event in Las Vegas history was the grand opening of the Flamingo in 1946, which featured George Jessel, Jimmy Durante, Baby Rose Marie, Eddie Jackson, and Xavier Cugat’s orchestra. Their appearance sparked competition between the city’s resorts, which continues to this day.

   • Las Vegas is the hottest spot in Nevada—It may seem that way sometimes, but the place with the hottest recorded temperature in the state is Laughlin, which reached a scorching 125 degrees on June 29, 1994. The hottest recorded temperature in Las Vegas was 117 degrees, which has happened several times including on July 10, 2023, July 10, 2021, and July 24, 1942.

Nevada Researcher Joyce M. Cox's Last Book Tells How Reno Put Itself on the Map

 

   Reno author Joyce M. Cox, who died in May at the age of 75, was once described as “a human version of Google decades before the internet existed.”

   Her agility in finding and recalling information was much appreciated by all who came in contact with her during her many years as a research librarian in California, Washington, and Nevada.

   That special ability is what also makes her last book, “Behind the Arch: The Story of Reno, Nevada’s Unique Chamber of Commerce and the Making of ‘The Biggest Little City in the World’” such a treat.

   Cox, who retired in 2009 after serving as the head reference librarian at the Nevada State Library and Archives, has taken a deep dive into the story of how the city of Reno has successfully marketed and publicized itself over the decades.

   The book, published by Eric Moody’s Nevada in the West Publishing of Reno earlier this year, begins with a short chapter describing how the then-fledgling community of Reno took its first steps to market itself by forming various promotional committees that eventually evolved into the first Reno Chamber of Commerce.

   Cox tells the background behind the creation of the city’s famous slogan, “Reno: The Biggest Little City in the World,” and the way the community utilized promotional booklets and magazine articles to spread the word about the community and its many attributes.

   Along the way, readers discover the various themes used in the city’s promotions, including its quality of life and recreational assets (“Reno Land of Charm”) as well as the tax advantages of living in Nevada (“One Sound State”). 

   Later chapters are devoted to the plethora of gambling-related promotional efforts, both private and public. These ranged from the iconic “Harolds Club or Bust!” signs to the Reno Chamber’s “In Reno It’s Fun Time All the Time,” promotions of the mid-1960s.

   The book is lavishly illustrated with historic photos and images of various promotional campaigns including posters, pamphlets, maps and brochures.

   Of course, part of the fun in reading the book is seeing how Reno’s promotional efforts evolved over time. In the beginning, the aim was largely focused on encouraging people from out of state to visit Reno to see that the city wasn’t some remote uncivilized community.

   Later, the efforts pass through a phase of promoting the city as a tax haven, then as the “quickie” divorce capital, and then as a skiing, special event, rodeo hub. In the 1960s, Reno’s promotors wrapped its identity around the gaming industry and then, starting in the late 1970s, pushed economic diversification.

   Cox’s book, in fact, proves to be more than just simply an account of the city’s promotional campaigns through the decades, but also is a good, solid history of the city’s evolution as a community.

   Copies of Joyce M. Cox’s book, “Behind the Arch: The Story of Reno, Nevada’s Unique Chamber of Commerce and the Making of ‘The Biggest Little City in the World,’” are available at the Nevada Historic Society gift shop at 1650 North Virginia Street, Reno.

Reno's Turn of the Century Scandal: the Sad Story of Alice Hartley

 

Murray D. Foley

  In late July 1894, Reno citizens were shocked when the local newspapers reported that a married Nevada State Senator and prominent banker, Murray D. Foley, had been shot to death by a woman who was not his wife, in her studio apartment.

  Beneath an understated headline that simply said, “An Awful Tragedy,” the July 27, 1894 edition of the Reno Evening Gazette wrote, “Shortly after the Gazette’s press hour last evening the town was startled by a report that State Senator MD Foley had been shot and mortally wounded, and was in the Drs. Phillips’ office, on the second floor of the Bank of Nevada building, in a dying condition.”

  The story noted that a Gazette reporter had learned of the shooting and gone to the scene of the crime only to find a big crowd standing in front of the bank building and little information. However, after hearing someone in the crowd say that a “Mrs. Hartley” had shot the Senator, he went to her third-floor apartment in the building, where she was standing with Sheriff William H. Caughlin.

  “The Gazette man asked Mrs. Hartley if she desired to talk with the reporter, or if she desired to wait until after she had overcome some of her excitement,” the paper said. “Mrs. Hartley replied ‘Oh, I am not excited. I have thought over this too much to get excited now. I have shot Senator Foley and hope he will die. He has ruined my life, and I am willing to stand the consequences. I only regret not having done it publicly.’”

  She added that the shooting had occurred in that room and that the sheriff now had the murder weapon. At that point, Sheriff Caughlin took the 38-caliber pistol from his pocket and showed the reporter that two shots had been fired.

  So, who were Senator MD Foley and Mrs. Alice Hartley? According to records, Foley was born in 1849 in New Brunswick, Canada. At the age of 19, he traveled to the mining camp of Hamilton, Nevada, to seek his fortune. There, he prospected and worked for a stage company.

  A year later, he relocated to Eureka, where he embarked on a successful career in real estate while continuing to be involved in mining. By the mid-1880s, he was a partner in thriving hardware stores in Eureka and Salt Lake City and then, in 1885, began investing in a Eureka bank. Within two years, he became president of the bank.

  In 1887, he helped establish the Bank of Nevada in Reno, and starting in 1882, was elected to several terms as a state senator from Eureka. In 1890, he relocated to Reno to serve as the Bank of Nevada’s president and was elected a Washoe County state senator.

  In 1883, he had married Minnie Griffen, a member of a pioneer Nevada family.

  As for Hartley, she was born in England in 1864 and apparently studied art. She traveled to Northern California sometime in the mid-1880s, where she met and married a prospector named Henry Hartley.

  The marriage was short-lived, with Alice Hartley separating from her husband in about 1890 (he returned to his mining in Meadow Lake and she relocated to Virginia City to paint portraits for money).

  Henry Hartley, who was considerably older than his wife, died unexpectedly in November 1891. Upon his death, Alice Hartley discovered that, contrary to what she believed, he had few assets and was virtually penniless.

  In September 1893, Alice Hartley had rented a studio in the Bank of Nevada’s new building in Reno and began offering art lessons and painting portraits. Shortly after, she was introduced to Senator Foley, who was immediately taken with her.

  According to Lake Tahoe historian Mark McLaughlin, Foley offered to help Hartley dispose of her late husband’s mining claims. On January 13, 1894, Foley showed up at her studio unannounced and insisted she join him for a late dinner.

  Hartley said she refused but agreed to share a drink with him. She claimed the Senator drugged her and she woke up the next day in bed with him.

  From that point, Hartley said she refused to see Foley again and even changed her locks. However, on February 26, she came home and found him inside her studio. She said he forced himself on her before leaving.

  At that point, she purchased a pistol and told the Senator she would shoot him if he ever came near her again.

  In late March, Hartley discovered she was pregnant and informed Foley. He demanded she get an abortion but Hartley wanted to have the child and move to Utah. She hired an attorney to draw up legal papers establishing Foley’s financial responsibility, which he said he would sign.

  On the evening of July 27, Foley admitted to Hartley that the legal papers had never been filed and the two began to argue. According to McLaughlin, Foley then picked up a heavy chair and swung it at Hartley, who grabbed her pistol and fired two shots at him, killing him.

  Services for Foley were held at Reno’s Trinity Episcopal Church and attracted a large crowd that included Governor R.K. Colcord and a host of other state and local officials. His casket was escorted to its final resting place by a full military escort.

  The trial lasted a few days and in spite of newspaper reports about Foley’s womanizing behavior, Hartley was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 11 years in the Nevada State Prison. She gave birth to a son two months later (in prison) and, after serving only 18 months of her sentence, the Nevada Supreme Court granted her request for a pardon.

  Sadly, seven weeks later her son, named Vernon Harrison Hartley, died in Reno of scarlet fever. She had earlier sought money from Foley’s estate to support the child, but, following his death, she lost her claim.

  Records indicate that after that, the distraught Hartley moved to San Francisco and, in 1899, remarried. She later appeared to suffer a nervous breakdown and died in Denver in 1908.

  It was a quiet and sad end to a tumultuous life.