Mapes Hotel was a

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

and

casino A casino is a facility for certain types of gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos are also known for hosting live entertai ...

located in Downtown

Reno 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 c ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

, next to the

Truckee River The Truckee River is a river in the U.S. states of California and Nevada. The river flows northeasterly and is long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 20, 2012 The ...

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 The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

since the start of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Built in a distinctive

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

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 The Fremont Hotel & Casino is located in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, on the Fremont Street Experience. The casino is operated by the Boyd Gaming Corporation. History The Fremont Hotel is located on 200 Fremont Street. It was designed by archit ...

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the 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 Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...

Montgomery Clift Edward Montgomery Clift (; October 17, 1920 – July 23, 1966) was an American actor. A four-time Academy Award nominee, he was known for his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men", according to ''The New York Times''. He is best remembered ...

and

Clark Gable William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901November 16, 1960) was an American film actor, often referred to as "The King of Hollywood". He had roles in more than 60 motion pictures in multiple genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades ...

during the filming of '' The Misfits''; U.S. Senator

Joseph McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...

, who over a drink in the Lamplighter bar at the bottom floor of the hotel, admitted to a reporter that he did not have a list of communists in America (see

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 Octob ...

);

U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

Harry Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...

and many others. The Sky Room at the top of the Mapes was a famous nightclub and stage where many of the biggest singers and entertainers of the time such as

Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...

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 song ...

and

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 tel ...

performed; at one point, Sammy Davis, Jr. performed there but was prohibited from staying in the hotel due to

segregation Segregation may refer to: Separation of people * Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space * School segregation * Housing segregation * Racial segregation, separation of humans ...

. During location shooting for the television series,

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 ...

, many guest stars would reside at the Mapes. In 1959,

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 ...

appeared on Bonanza, while doing shows in the Sky Room. It was memorably showcased in a 1961 episode of Route 66, guest starring

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 ...

. During the 1970s, brothel owner

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 o ...

paid a percentage to the Mapes Hotel bell men as they directed clients to his

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, ...

. It features prominently in the film

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 fr ...

. The Mapes thrived throughout the 1960s and mid 1970s but began to face problems competing with more modern casino/hotels in Reno in the late 1970's and early 1980's. The Mapes casino closed on December 17, 1982, because of financial difficulties the Mapes family faced after the recession of 1981, and the failure of their other family owned casino in Reno, the Money Tree. The building was allowed to decay as many different owners took possession of the building with plans to revive the casino/hotel, all of which failed. Finally, the Reno Redevelopment Agency took possession of the Mapes hotel building in 1996. Despite being listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

as a "Most Endangered Site", the National Historic Trust would not offer any help to the City of Reno in their preservation efforts. The City brought in many groups and engineers to make an attempt to save the building, even asking Artspace Projects, Inc to do an analysis of the building. This company eventually refurbished the Riverside Hotel across the street from the Mapes. Every engineering report came to the conclusion that the Mapes was actually poorly constructed and there was no hope in restoring the building. In light of all the evidence, and in the face of much local protest, the City of Reno contracted for the demolition of the Mapes on Super Bowl Sunday, January 30, 2000. Nothing was done with the Mapes lot until the winter of 2001, when an winter

ice rink An ice rink (or ice skating rink) is a frozen body of water and/or an artificial sheet of ice created using hardened chemicals where people can ice skate or play winter sports. Ice rinks are also used for exhibitions, contests and ice shows. The ...

was put in at the site. The ice rink was set up at the site each winter until 2004, when a park was temporarily put on the lot. Currently, the former Mapes site has been made into a permanent outdoor skating rink, along with a park, and elaborate art displays from

Burning Man Burning Man is an event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance held annually in the western United States. The name of the event comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred ...

References

External links

Listing of the Mapes in the National Register of Historic Places

Online Nevada.org

Reno Historical Society

A Guide to the Mapes Hotel Architectural Drawings, NAA12
Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Reno. {{Reno Casinos 1947 establishments in Nevada 1982 disestablishments in Nevada Art Deco architecture in Nevada Buildings and structures demolished by controlled implosion Buildings and structures demolished in 2000 Casino hotels Casinos in Reno, Nevada Defunct casinos in Nevada Former skyscrapers Defunct hotels in Nevada Demolished buildings and structures in Nevada Demolished hotels in the United States History of Storey County, Nevada History of Washoe County, Nevada Hotel buildings completed in 1947 Hotels in Reno, Nevada Landmarks in Nevada Resorts in Nevada Skyscraper hotels in Nevada