Mapes Hotel
   HOME
*





Mapes Hotel
Mapes Hotel was a hotel and casino located in Downtown Reno, Nevada, next to the Truckee River on Virginia Street. It was built in 1947 and opened on December 17 of that year. It was the first skyscraper built in the Western United States since the start of World War II. Built in a distinctive Art Deco style, the hotel was a unique high-rise built to combine a hotel and casino, providing the prototype for modern hotel/casinos. History When it opened in 1947, the 12-story Mapes Hotel was the tallest building in Nevada until the 1956 opening of the Fremont Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Owned by the Mapes family, the hotel quickly became, for most of the 1950s and 1960s, the premier hotel in Reno. Many celebrities of that era stayed there, including Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift and Clark Gable during the filming of '' The Misfits''; U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who over a drink in the Lamplighter bar at the bottom floor of the hotel, admitted to a reporter that he did not have ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Reno, Nevada
Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the county seat and largest city of Washoe County and sits in the High Eastern Sierra foothills, in the Truckee River valley, on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. The Reno metro area (along with the neighboring city Sparks) occupies a valley colloquially known as the Truckee Meadows which because of large-scale investments from Greater Seattle and San Francisco Bay Area companies such as Amazon, Tesla, Panasonic, Microsoft, Apple, and Google has become a new major technology center in the United States. The city is named after Civil War Union Major General Jesse L. Reno, who was killed in action during the American Civil War at the Battle of South Mountain, on Fox's Gap. Reno is part of the Reno–Sparks metropolitan area, the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Venona Project
The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until October 1, 1980. It was intended to decrypt messages transmitted by the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union (e.g. the NKVD, the KGB, and the GRU). Initiated when the Soviet Union was an ally of the US, the program continued during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was considered an enemy. During the 37-year duration of the Venona project, the Signal Intelligence Service decrypted and translated approximately 3,000 messages. The signals intelligence yield included discovery of the Cambridge Five espionage ring in the United Kingdom and Soviet espionage of the Manhattan Project in the U.S. (known as Project Enormous). Some of the espionage was undertaken to support the Soviet atomic bomb project. The Venona project remained secret for m ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


California Split
''California Split'' is a 1974 American comedy-drama film directed by Robert Altman and starring Elliott Gould and George Segal as a pair of gamblers and was the first non-Cinerama film to use eight-track stereo sound. Plot In Los Angeles, a friendship develops between Bill Denny and Charlie Waters over their mutual love of gambling after they are beaten up and robbed by a card player whose money they have won. Charlie, a wisecracking joker who lives with two prostitutes, is an experienced gambler who is constantly looking for the next score. He bets on poker, horse racing, boxing, and anything else that offers odds. Initially, Bill is not as committed a gambler (during the day he does a little work at a magazine while avoiding his boss), but he is well on his way to a full-blown gaming addiction. As the two men hang out at Charlie's house, Bill's office, seedy bars, card rooms, and various sports venues, Bill becomes hooked on the gambling lifestyle. He goes into debt to Spark ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Mustang Ranch
The Mustang Ranch is a brothel in Storey County, Nevada, about east of Reno. It is currently located at 1011 Wild Horse Canyon Drive, Sparks, Nevada, 89434. Under past owner Joe Conforte, Mustang Ranch Brothel, the precursor to Mustang Ranch, became Nevada's first licensed brothel in 1971. This eventually lead to the legalization of brothels in 10 of 17 counties in the state. Mustang Ranch opened to the public in 1971 and was America's largest brothel with , and the most profitable. The Mustang Ranch was forfeited to the federal government in 1999 following Conforte's convictions for tax fraud, racketeering and other crimes. The Mustang Ranch was auctioned off by the Federal Government on eBay and Lance Gilman’s bid was the last bid for $145,100 and reopened the Mustang Ranch 5 miles East at the Patrick exit 28. Operation The courtesans lived on the ranch during their entire shift, which lasted from several days to several weeks. In the early 1970s, the women were lingerie c ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Joe Conforte
Joseph Conforte (December 10, 1925 – March 4, 2019) was a legal brothel owner from Sparks, Nevada, spokesperson for the legal prostitution movement, a professional boxing promoter, restaurateur, philanthropist, and Nevada statesman. He owned the Mustang Ranch brothel, impacted federal law and the laws of Nevada, and was a fixture of pop culture, affecting people's attitudes and opinions about prostitutes and prostitution. He was married to Sally Conforte (née Burgess). Conforte was also reportedly connected with organized crime, and was sometimes called the Godfather of legal prostitution. Early years Conforte was born Giuseppe Christophe Conforte in Augusta, Sicily, December 10, 1925, the youngest of one brother and three sisters. His birth date is often mistaken as January 6, 1926. His mother died when he was five. Giuseppe traveled to Ellis Island on the ''Rex'' steamship in December 1937. Giuseppe was given the name Joseph by immigration services. Conforte's father Ag ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau (; born Walter John Matthow; October 1, 1920 – July 1, 2000) was an American actor, comedian and film director. He is best known for his film roles in '' A Face in the Crowd'' (1957), ''King Creole'' (1958) and as a coach of a hapless little league team in the baseball comedy ''The Bad News Bears'' (1976). He also starred in 10 films alongside Jack Lemmon, including ''The Odd Couple'' (1968), ''The Front Page'' (1974) and '' Grumpy Old Men'' (1993). Matthau won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the Billy Wilder film ''The Fortune Cookie'' (1966). Matthau is also known for his performances in Stanley Donen's romance ''Charade'' (1963), Gene Kelly's musical '' Hello, Dolly!'' (1969), Elaine May's screwball comedy '' A New Leaf'' (1971) and Herbert Ross' ensemble comedy ''California Suite'' (1978). He also starred in ''Plaza Suite'', ''Kotch'' (both 1971), ''Charley Varrick'' (1973), ''The Sunshine Boys'' (1975), and ''Hopscotch'' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Jack Carson
John Elmer Carson (October 27, 1910 – January 2, 1963) was a Canadian-born American film actor. Carson often played the role of comedic friend in films of the 1940s and 1950s, including ''The Strawberry Blonde'' (1941) with James Cagney and '' Arsenic and Old Lace'' (1944) with Cary Grant. He also acted in dramas such as ''Mildred Pierce'' (1945), ''A Star is Born'' (1954), and ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' (1958). He worked for RKO and MGM (where he was cast opposite Myrna Loy and William Powell in '' Love Crazy'', 1941), but most of his notable work was for Warner Bros. Early years John Elmer Carson was born on October 27, 1910 in Carman, Manitoba to Elmer and Elsa Carson (née Brunke). He was the younger brother of actor Robert Carson (1909–1979). His father was an executive with an insurance company. In 1914, the family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which he always thought of as his home town. He attended high school at Hartford School, Milwaukee, and St. John's Militar ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Bonanza
''Bonanza'' is an American Western television series that ran on NBC from September 13, 1959, to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 432 episodes, ''Bonanza'' is NBC's longest-running western, the second-longest-running western series on U.S. network television (behind CBS's '' Gunsmoke''), and within the top 10 longest-running, live-action American series. The show continues to air in syndication. The show is set in the 1860s and centers on the wealthy Cartwright family, who live in the vicinity of Virginia City, Nevada, bordering Lake Tahoe. The series initially starred Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker and Michael Landon and later featured (at various times) Guy Williams, David Canary, Mitch Vogel and Tim Matheson. The show is known for presenting pressing moral dilemmas. The title "Bonanza" is a term used by miners in regard to a large vein or deposit of silver ore, from Spanish ''bonanza'' (prosperity) and commonly refers to the 1859 revelation of the Comst ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Racial Segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against humanity, crime against humanity under the Statute of the International Criminal Court. Segregation can involve the wikt:spatial, spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, such as schools and hospitals by people of different races. Specifically, it may be applied to activities such as eating in restaurants, drinking from water fountains, using public toilets, attending schools, going to films, riding buses, renting or purchasing homes or renting hotel rooms. In addition, segregation often allows close contact between members of different racial or ethnic groups in social hierarchy, hierarchical situations, such as allowing a person of one race to work as a servant for a member of another race. Segregation i ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sammy Davis, Jr
Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, dancer, actor, comedian, film producer and television director. At age three, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the Will Mastin Trio, which toured nationally, and his film career began in 1933. After military service, Davis returned to the trio and became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro's (in West Hollywood) after the 1951 Academy Awards. With the trio, he became a recording artist. In 1954, at the age of 29, he lost his left eye in a car accident. Several years later, he converted to Judaism, finding commonalities between the oppression experienced by African-American and Jewish communities.Sammy Davis Jr. Biography
Biography.com. Retrieved June 6, 2013.< ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Milton Berle
Milton Berle (born Mendel Berlinger; ; July 12, 1908 – March 27, 2002) was an American actor and comedian. His career as an entertainer spanned over 80 years, first in silent films and on stage as a child actor, then in radio, movies and television. As the host of NBC's ''Texaco Star Theatre'' (1948–1953), he was the first major American television star and was known to millions of viewers as "Uncle Miltie" and "Mr. Television" during the first Golden Age of Television. He was honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in both radio and TV. Early life Milton Berle was born into a Jewish family in a five-story walkup at 68 W. 118th Street in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan. His given name was Mendel Berlinger, but he chose Milton Berle as his professional name when he was 16. His father, Moses Berlinger (1872–1938), was a paint and varnish salesman. His mother, Sarah (Sadie) Glantz Berlinger (1877–1954), changed her name to Sandra Berle when ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Jimmy Durante
James Francis Durante ( , ; February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American comedian, actor, singer, vaudevillian, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and prominent nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s. He often referred to his nose as ''the schnozzola'' ( Italianization of the American Yiddish slang word ''schnoz'', meaning "big nose"), and the word became his nickname. Early life Childhood Durante was born on the Lower East Side of New York City. He was the youngest of four children born to Rosa (Lentino) and Bartolomeo Durante, both immigrants from Salerno, Campania, Italy. Bartolomeo was a barber. Young Jimmy served as an altar boy at St. Malachy Roman Catholic Church, known as the Actor's Chapel. Early career Durante dropped out of school in seventh grade to become a full-time ragtime pianist. He first pl ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]