NEVADA'S GAMBLING FRONTIER · PART ONE
Long before the neon towers of Las Vegas lit up the desert, Nevada had already developed a healthy appetite for gambling. There were no sprawling resorts, no celebrity chefs, and certainly no air-conditioned casinos offering complimentary cocktails to thousands of tourists. Instead, there were saloons with warped wooden floors, poker tables illuminated by oil lamps, and men who had traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles in search of a fortune they might never find. The money came from the ground. At least, that was the plan. Some men dug for gold and silver. Others discovered that it was considerably easier to take the miners' money across a green felt table. And a few particularly ambitious gentlemen managed to do both.
The great mining discoveries around Tonopah and Goldfield at the beginning of the twentieth century brought thousands of hopeful prospectors into central Nevada. They also attracted gamblers, bankers, stock promoters, saloonkeepers, prizefighters, prostitutes, politicians, and enough confidence men to populate a respectable-sized penitentiary. Among the arrivals were men whose names would eventually become familiar throughout Nevada: George Wingfield, George S. Nixon, Tasker Oddie, Tex Rickard, and Nick Abelman. Others, including Jim McKay and Bill Graham, would follow. Their paths crossed in dusty mining camps, gambling houses, banks, and boxing arenas. Friendships were formed, partnerships dissolved, fortunes won and lost. Some of these men became millionaires. Others departed with considerably less than they had brought.
And when the mining booms faded, the gambling did not disappear. It followed the money to Reno, Lake Tahoe, and eventually the towns and highways that carried Nevada into the modern casino era. To understand how that happened, we have to return to the desert at the beginning of the century, when a wandering burro, a handful of promising rocks, and a good poker game could change a man's life.
Tonopah: Where a Mining Claim Was the Biggest Gamble of All
The story of Tonopah's remarkable rise begins in May 1900, when prospector Jim Butler was traveling through the San Antonio Mountains of central Nevada, southwest of his home near Belmont. The country was rugged, dry, and unforgiving, a succession of volcanic hills, rocky slopes, and broad desert valleys where a man could travel for miles without seeing another soul. Butler stopped near Tonopah Springs, a watering place long known to Native Americans and travelers crossing the region. According to the familiar story, one of his burros wandered away, and while retrieving the animal, Butler noticed an outcropping of rock that appeared to contain valuable silver ore.
Whether the burro deserves credit for the discovery is open to debate. The silver, however, was real. Butler gathered samples and continued his travels. When the first man he approached about assaying the rock showed little interest, Butler might have abandoned the discovery. Instead, he eventually brought additional samples home, where Tasker Oddie, a young attorney in Belmont, arranged to have them tested. The results were encouraging enough to send Butler back into the mountains. In late August 1900, Jim and his wife, Belle, returned to the discovery area and began staking mining claims. Among them were the Desert Queen, Burro, Valley View, Silver Top, Buckboard, and Mizpah. Belle located the Mizpah, which would become one of the district's great producing mines.
The claims occupied the mineralized hillsides above the small basin where Tonopah would soon take shape. Mount Oddie rose on one side of the developing settlement, while Brougher Mountain stood opposite. The richest mining ground was not on some conveniently level desert floor. It lay in the rocky slopes surrounding the future town, where miners would carve roads, sink shafts, and construct buildings wherever the terrain allowed. In October 1900, work began on the Mizpah mine. A little settlement called Butler appeared below the workings, with a handful of shelters scattered among the hills. By Christmas Day, fourteen men were living in the camp.
There were no grand hotels, paved streets, or established commercial districts. Just miners, prospectors, their equipment, and the growing conviction that the surrounding mountains contained a fortune. But news traveled quickly in Nevada. By January 1901, the population had reached about forty. On March 24, the first stagecoach arrived from Sodaville, carrying seven passengers after a two-day journey. The little camp had roughly sixty residents, but within weeks that number had grown to approximately 250. The mining boom was underway. And wherever miners gathered with money in their pockets, the gamblers were seldom far behind, and the saloons prospered.
For a miner who had spent the day underground or laboring over a claim that might never produce a dollar, the saloon offered warmth, companionship, a drink, and the possibility of turning a few dollars into a small fortune. Poker, faro, roulette, and other games offered their own versions of prospecting. The difference was that a man could discover whether he had struck it rich without swinging a pickaxe. One of the men who understood that distinction better than most was George Wingfield.
George Wingfield: The Gambler Who Became Nevada's King
George Wingfield was not born into wealth, nor did he arrive in Nevada with an impressive education or powerful family connections. Born in Arkansas in 1876, Wingfield grew up largely in Oregon, where he learned to ride horses, handle cattle, and live the rugged life of a western ranch hand. He also discovered poker. By his late teens, Wingfield had developed a taste for gambling and the independence it promised. He eventually found his way to Winnemucca, Nevada, where his skill at the card table began to improve along with his bankroll. For a time, he operated saloons in Golconda, a nearby mining town. Business was good while the copper mines prospered, but when the boom collapsed, Wingfield discovered a lesson that would be repeated throughout his career: owning a business in a mining town was profitable only as long as the mines continued to produce.
He returned to Winnemucca, short of money and searching for another opportunity. His friend George S. Nixon, a banker who would later become a United States senator, advanced him a $1,000 loan. Wingfield took the money to Reno, where he resumed playing poker. There he encountered jeweler Frank Golden, who mentioned a promising new mining discovery near Tonopah. Golden was heading south. Wingfield decided to accompany him. When the two reached the developing camp, Wingfield found precisely what he was looking for: miners with money, gambling tables with plenty of action, and a town that seemed destined to grow.
He began playing poker and dealing games at the Tonopah Club, an establishment associated with Tom Kendall and Jack Carey. At first, Wingfield was simply another gambler trying to build a bankroll. But he soon recognized that owning a piece of the gambling operation was considerably more profitable than relying exclusively on his ability to beat other players. He became involved in the club's gaming business and began investing his winnings in mining claims. That was the beginning of an extraordinary transformation. Wingfield was willing to take chances, but he was also shrewd enough to recognize the value of partnerships. He joined forces with other gamblers and investors, including John P. Hennessy, and acquired interests in claims that eventually became part of the Boston-Tonopah Mining Company.
As the mining interests grew, his relationship with Nixon became increasingly valuable. Nixon understood banking, finance, and the political world. Wingfield understood gambling, mining speculation, and the men who operated in Nevada's roughest business districts. Together, they were formidable. Wingfield joined the Tonopah Stock Exchange, invested in banks and real estate, and helped organize companies whose shares could be sold to investors eager for a piece of Nevada's mineral wealth. The same man who had once struggled to maintain a poker bankroll was becoming one of the richest men in the state. And the biggest opportunity was still ahead.
Twenty-six miles south of Tonopah, another mining camp was beginning to attract attention. Its name was Goldfield.
Goldfield: Where the Money Got Bigger and the Stakes Got Higher
Twenty-six miles south of Tonopah, another mining town was preparing to make history. It would produce staggering fortunes, attract some of the most notorious characters in the American West, and briefly become one of the most talked-about places in the country. Its name was Goldfield, and for a few extraordinary years, it seemed that almost everybody in Nevada wanted a piece of it. The story began in December 1902, when prospectors Harry Stimler and William Marsh discovered promising gold-bearing rock in the hills of what would become the Goldfield mining district. Their discovery lay in the rugged country of the Montezuma Hills, west of the broad basin that would eventually accommodate the growing town.
The surrounding landscape was not particularly welcoming. Goldfield stood at an elevation of roughly 5,700 feet, high enough for bitter winter nights and occasional snow, but exposed to the fierce summer sun. Sagebrush covered the lower slopes, and the surrounding mountains offered little protection from the wind. There was no river running through town, no nearby forest to provide timber, and no convenient agricultural valley to feed thousands of hungry miners. There was gold, however, and that was enough. At first, the settlement was known as Grandpa, a name that hardly suggested the riches beneath the hills. In 1903, it became Goldfield, a considerably more appealing name for a town hoping to attract investors.
The mining claims spread across the surrounding hillsides, particularly the rich ground associated with Columbia Mountain and the early discoveries. Unlike Tonopah, where silver was the principal attraction, Goldfield promised gold in quantities sufficient to make men wealthy almost overnight. News of the discoveries spread through Nevada and California. Prospectors arrived on foot, horseback, and by wagon. Others came by stagecoach from Tonopah, where transportation connections were already developing. Before long, tents and wooden buildings began covering the basin below the mines. There were miners who hoped to strike it rich, businessmen who hoped to sell them supplies, and gamblers who were perfectly willing to relieve either group of whatever money they possessed.
And then George Wingfield arrived.
George Wingfield Finds Another Fortune
Wingfield had already done well in Tonopah. His gambling operations, mining investments, and association with banker George S. Nixon had provided him with the means to participate in something much larger than a saloon or a few promising claims. Goldfield offered precisely that opportunity. Wingfield understood that mining fortunes could be made in several ways. A man could discover a rich claim and work it himself. He could purchase promising ground before its value became widely known. Or he could acquire interests in several mines, consolidate their ownership, and sell shares to investors who believed the price of gold would make everybody rich.
The third approach had considerable advantages. With Nixon's financial connections and Wingfield's knowledge of the mining business, the two men began assembling interests in Goldfield properties. Their partnership eventually helped create the Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company, which brought several important mining operations under common control. The enterprise became one of Nevada's great mining concerns. For Wingfield, it was an astonishing rise. Only a few years earlier, he had been gambling in Winnemucca and borrowing money from Nixon. Now he was involved in banks, mines, real estate, and businesses whose combined value ran into millions of dollars.
Goldfield was making him rich, but it was also making him powerful. Mining companies needed financing. Merchants needed credit. Prospectors needed investors. Saloonkeepers needed buildings, and politicians needed influential supporters. Wingfield and Nixon could provide much of what they required. Their interests increasingly extended beyond the mines themselves, and their influence became difficult to escape. For the ambitious businessman, an association with the pair could open doors. For anyone who crossed them, it could make life considerably more difficult. Wingfield also maintained close relationships with the gambling fraternity, including Nick Abelman, whose career was beginning to follow the same path from mining camps to saloons and casino ownership.
Abelman had arrived in the Goldfield region in 1904, after operating saloons and gambling devices in Michigan. According to the family history and research assembled for The Roots of Reno, he traveled west in an automobile, an unusual sight on Nevada's rough roads at the time. He was twenty-eight years old, approximately Wingfield's age, and possessed the sort of restless entrepreneurial spirit that suited the mining camps. The two men had much in common. Both enjoyed gambling, both invested in mining properties, and both understood that a saloon could provide a dependable income while a mining claim might produce nothing at all.
Abelman became involved in several enterprises around Goldfield, including the Bon Ton saloon, while developing relationships that would influence his business career for decades. But Goldfield had attracted another gambler whose ambitions extended far beyond the gaming tables. His name was Tex Rickard.
Tex Rickard: A Prizefight in the Middle of Nowhere
George Lewis “Tex” Rickard was a gambler, saloonkeeper, former cowboy, and sometime gold prospector who understood publicity almost as well as he understood the odds. He had followed mining excitement from Alaska to Nevada, operating gambling establishments wherever miners gathered with money to spend. By the time he reached Goldfield, Rickard had acquired enough experience to recognize that a prosperous mining town could support far more than a few poker tables. His Northern Saloon became one of the town's best-known gambling establishments. Goldfield had plenty of saloons, but Rickard wanted something bigger. He wanted to bring people into town who had no particular interest in digging for gold.
The opportunity came in 1906, when Goldfield businessmen began discussing a major championship boxing match. At the time, professional prize fighting was frequently restricted or prohibited in other parts of the country. Nevada, however, had a history of accommodating the sport, and the mining towns were particularly enthusiastic about contests involving well-known fighters. Rickard proposed bringing lightweight champion Joe Gans and the formidable Oscar “Battling” Nelson to Goldfield. Gans, a Black fighter from Baltimore, was widely regarded as one of the finest scientific boxers in the world. Nelson, born in Denmark and raised in the United States, was a relentless, hard-punching opponent whose style emphasized endurance and aggression.
The match promised to be a sensation. There was just one problem. Goldfield was an isolated mining town in the Nevada desert, hardly the obvious location for a world championship contest. Rickard considered that an advantage. If he could persuade the fighters to come, the publicity would bring Goldfield to the attention of sportswriters, businessmen, and potential mining investors throughout the country. The proposed purse was $30,000, an extraordinary sum for a boxing match in 1906. Rickard helped assemble the money, and the fighters' representatives were shown the funds at the John S. Cook Bank.
The match was scheduled for Labor Day, September 3, 1906. A temporary outdoor arena was constructed near the town's cemetery. Railroad and stage connections carried spectators into Goldfield, while hotels, boardinghouses, and saloons prepared for an influx of visitors. Newspaper correspondents arrived from across the country. Gamblers came to wager on the outcome, and mining promoters undoubtedly appreciated having so many prospective investors in town. For a few days, Goldfield became the center of the American sporting world. The fight began beneath the Nevada sun. Gans relied on his superior boxing skill, avoiding many of Nelson's charges while delivering accurate punches. Nelson pressed forward relentlessly, absorbing punishment and trying to wear down the champion.
The rounds accumulated. Ten became twenty. Twenty became thirty. The spectators, many of whom had paid substantial sums for their seats, watched two exhausted men continue a contest that seemed determined to outlast the afternoon. In the thirty-third round, Gans reportedly injured his right hand, leaving him increasingly dependent on his left. Still, he continued to outbox Nelson. Finally, in the forty-second round, Nelson struck Gans below the belt. Referee George Siler disqualified Nelson, awarding the victory to Gans. The contest lasted nearly three hours. The gate receipts reached approximately $69,715, a remarkable figure for the time. Rickard made a substantial profit, and Goldfield received publicity that no ordinary advertising campaign could have purchased.
Rickard had demonstrated something that Nevada casino promoters would understand for generations afterward: a spectacular event could draw visitors to a gambling town, and those visitors would spend money on much more than the main attraction. Decades before Las Vegas began advertising championship fights as major tourist attractions, Tex Rickard had successfully used the same principle in Goldfield.
A Town That Seemed to Have Everything
By 1906, Goldfield had become Nevada's largest city, with estimates of its population reaching approximately 20,000. It was an extraordinary achievement for a settlement that had barely existed four years earlier. Businesses filled the streets. Banks financed mining companies, merchants sold everything from mining equipment to expensive clothing, and restaurants competed for the patronage of men who sometimes carried more money in their pockets than they had earned in years of ordinary employment. The town acquired substantial brick and stone buildings, newspaper offices, theaters, hotels, and an increasingly elaborate commercial district. Yet the contrast between wealth and hardship remained striking.
A mine owner might spend an evening enjoying an expensive meal and a bottle of imported liquor while a few blocks away, a prospector slept in a canvas tent, hoping the next day's digging would reveal something worth selling. Gambling establishments occupied a place somewhere between those two worlds. A miner could walk into a saloon with his wages and sit beside a mining promoter whose fortune existed largely on paper. Both might wager on the same roulette wheel. And neither was guaranteed to leave with his money. Goldfield's saloons were more than drinking establishments. They served as informal meeting places, business offices, and occasionally repositories for money. Some miners trusted a familiar saloonkeeper more than a banker.
Rickard's Northern Saloon was among the best-known establishments, but the town supported many others. There was no shortage of competition, and operators continually searched for ways to attract customers. For men such as Nick Abelman, who had already learned the saloon business in Michigan and the Nevada mining camps, Goldfield represented a particularly attractive opportunity. A saloon could produce revenue every day. A mining claim might require years of investment before returning a profit, assuming it ever produced anything at all. Abelman pursued both. His mining interests and gambling businesses brought him into regular contact with Wingfield and other entrepreneurs whose investments extended across central Nevada.
These relationships were important. Nevada's mining towns were relatively small communities despite their sudden growth, and the men who controlled the banks, mining companies, and gambling establishments frequently knew one another. They borrowed money from one another, entered partnerships, purchased property together, and occasionally became bitter enemies. The gambling tables were only one place where fortunes changed hands.
Goldfield's Other Famous Visitors
Among the more recognizable characters to reach Goldfield were members of the Earp family, whose reputation had been established decades earlier in Arizona. Wyatt Earp had traveled through several western mining districts after the famous Tombstone years, pursuing business opportunities and mining ventures with his companion, Josephine. His brother Virgil arrived in Goldfield and became a deputy sheriff of Esmeralda County. Virgil's health was already failing, and he died in Goldfield on October 19, 1905. For a town barely three years old, Goldfield had already become another chapter in the history of the American frontier.
But the age of the wandering gunfighter was giving way to something different. Goldfield's most powerful men were increasingly bankers, mining executives, stock promoters, and investors. Their weapons were more likely to be contracts, bank loans, and stock certificates than six-shooters. That did not necessarily make the town more peaceful.
When Goldfield's Golden Promise Began to Tarnish
The prosperity surrounding Goldfield was genuine, but not every mining company was as valuable as its promoters claimed. Speculation had become an industry of its own. Shares in mining companies changed hands rapidly, often on the strength of rumors about newly discovered ore bodies or exceptionally promising assays. Investors hundreds of miles away purchased stock in properties they had never seen. Some companies owned valuable producing mines. Others possessed little more than a collection of claims and an optimistic prospectus. The distinction was not always obvious. Wingfield and Nixon had become major figures in the financial structure supporting the district. Their mining and banking interests provided access to capital but also exposed them to the increasingly volatile market.
The nationwide financial panic of 1907 struck at a particularly difficult moment. Banks came under pressure, mining stocks declined, and confidence evaporated. Companies that had relied on rising share prices to finance their operations suddenly found money much harder to obtain. Goldfield's labor relations were also deteriorating. The miners had organized to demand better wages and working conditions, while mine owners sought to control costs and maintain production. The dispute was not simply a disagreement over pay. It involved competing visions of who should control the mining district and how its wealth should be distributed.
The conflict became increasingly bitter during 1907. In December, Nevada Governor John Sparks requested federal assistance from President Theodore Roosevelt, arguing that serious disorder threatened the district. Federal troops arrived in Goldfield on December 6-7, 1907. The presence of soldiers provided reassurance to the mine owners, but it also raised questions about whether the federal government was being drawn into a labor dispute on behalf of private business interests. Roosevelt subsequently appointed a commission to investigate conditions in Goldfield. Its findings and the resulting controversy became part of a much larger national debate over organized labor, mining companies, and government intervention.
The mine owners ultimately succeeded in reopening operations under conditions that weakened the miners' union. Goldfield continued to produce substantial quantities of gold, but the excitement of the earliest boom years was fading. The speculative fever had cooled. Some investors had lost fortunes, and many workers and businessmen began searching for opportunities elsewhere. Wingfield was among those whose attention increasingly turned toward Reno. He had acquired enough wealth and influence to pursue banking, real estate, and other enterprises beyond the mining camps. Goldfield served him well. But the town's most enduring contribution to Nevada's gambling history may have been the extraordinary collection of entrepreneurs who learned their trades there.
Tex Rickard would become one of America's most famous boxing promoters. Wingfield would establish himself as a dominant figure in Reno's financial and gambling affairs. Nick Abelman would continue operating saloons and gambling establishments across Nevada, eventually becoming an important figure in Reno and Lake Tahoe. Others would follow. The mining camps had provided the capital, the experience, and the personal connections that would help shape Nevada's future casino industry. And just twenty-six miles north, in Tonopah, the gambling business was still producing colorful stories of its own.
The gamblers move on
The story did not end when Goldfield's speculative fever cooled. The men who had learned to finance mines, operate gambling houses, and promote spectacles in the mining camps carried those skills into new businesses and new towns. Nick Abelman, Jim McKay, Bill Graham, and a young Jack Dempsey would soon provide some of the next chapters. And in 1927, the desert near Weepah would produce one more extraordinary rush for gold.
Next in Nevada's Gambling Frontier: Nick Abelman, Jack Dempsey, and Nevada's Last Great Gold Rush.
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