Guide to the Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino Collection
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Guide to the Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino Collection This finding aid was created by Special Collections staff, Hana Gutierrez, and Melise Leech. This copy was published on December 05, 2019. Persistent URL for this finding aid: http://n2t.net/ark:/62930/f1ps54 © 2019 The Regents of the University of Nevada. All rights reserved. University of Nevada, Las Vegas. University Libraries. Special Collections and Archives. Box 457010 4505 S. Maryland Parkway Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-7010 [email protected] Guide to the Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino Collection Table of Contents Summary Information ..................................................................................................................................... 3 Historical Note ................................................................................................................................................. 3 Scope and Contents Note ................................................................................................................................ 5 Arrangement .................................................................................................................................................... 5 Administrative Information ............................................................................................................................. 5 Names and Subjects ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Collection Inventory ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Series I: Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino records and artifacts ....................................................... 6 Series II: Harvey J. Fuller original casino notes ........................................................................................ 15 - Page 2 - Guide to the Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino Collection Summary Information Repository: University of Nevada, Las Vegas. University Libraries. Special Collections and Archives. Creator: Harvey's Hotel and Casino Contributor: Fuller, Harvey Title: Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino Collection ID: MS-00475 Date [inclusive]: 1830 to 1995 Date [bulk]: 1950 to 1995 Physical Description: 26.52 Cubic Feet (33 boxes, 4 oversized boxes, and 2 rolls) Physical Description: 27.17 Linear Feet Language of the English Material: Abstract: Collection is comprised of materials, dating roughly 1830-1995, from Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino Resort and the associated Harvey J. Fuller notes on casinos in Nevada. The bulk of the collection consists of paper inventories, Fuller's original notes, casino marketing materials, and casino and gambling merchandise. Also included are a number of artifacts and nineteenth and early twentieth century gambling machines. Preferred Citation Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino Collection, 1830-1995. MS-00475. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. ^ Return to Table of Contents Historical Note Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino opened in 1944 as a one-room cabin on seven acres off U. S. highway 50 in Lake Tahoe, near the Nevada-California border. Built by Harvey Gross, a California businessman, and his wife Llewellyn, the Wagon Wheel Saloon & Gambling Hall featured three slot machines, two card tables, lunches cooked and served by Llewellyn, and the only 24-hour gas pump between Placerville, California and Carson City, Nevada. Because the area was snow-bound during the winter and the road considered impassable by the state, area businesses suffered until Harvey and his neighbors shoveled the road free of snow, proving it was possible. The state built a maintenance station - Page 3- Guide to the Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino Collection the following spring, opening the area to year-round trade. The influx of tourists allowed Harvey's Wagon Wheel to rapidly expand, soon covering an entire city block. In the 1960s, Gross changed the name of the casino to Harvey's Resort Hotel & Casino, and expanded again, becoming the first high-rise in the area with eleven floors and 197 rooms. This trend of expansion continued for the next two decades, briefly interrupted in 1980, when an extortionist managed to plant a large and sophisticated bomb in the telephone exchange area of the hotel. Gross rebuilt and oversaw the grand opening of the new Harvey's in 1981. Harvey Gross's interest in gambling and the casino industry spurred his collection of gambling tokens, chips, and artifacts, as well as his decision to hire Harvey J. Fuller to complete his historical index of gambling establishments in Nevada. While Gross did not live to see his gambling museum to fruition, his original Wagon Wheel Saloon, now called Harvey's Lake Tahoe, remains in operation as of 2018. Source: "Harveys Casino Resorts History," Funding Universe.com, last accessed May 15 2018, http:// www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/harveys-casino-resorts-history/ "A Byte Out of History: The Case of the Harvey's Casino Bomb," FBI.gov, last accessed May 15 2018, https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2009/august/a-byte-out-of-history-harveys-casino-bomb ^ Return to Table of Contents Biographical Note Harvey J. Fuller (1919-2004) was raised in Southern California, attending college before joining the army air corp during World War II. After the war, he joined the Los Angeles police department, serving from 1946 until 1977. An inveterate collector, Fuller took up collecting gaming tokens after seeing a display at Harvey's Resort Hotel in the late 1960s. In the process of collecting tokens, he developed a deep interest in the backgrounds of the casinos that produced them and by 1970 he had changed from just collecting tokens to uncovering information on every Nevada club and casino that featured live gambling. In his pursuit of his research, Fuller and his wife spent every summer in Nevada, based in Las Vegas and traveling across the state visiting casinos and clubs in every town they passed. Hired by Harvey's Resort Hotel curator of collections Howard Herz in the 1970s to complete his research, Fuller sought out both official and unofficial records and interviewed owners, patrons, and neighboring businesses for information. Initially writing his notes on the backs of keno slips, he eventually moved to full- size sheets of paper for storage and consistency. In 1991, Howard Herz published Harvey J. Fuller's Index of Nevada Gambling Establishments. To date, this is the only published research based on Fuller's extensive notes of over 2400 establishments. Fuller continued to collect and research gambling chips and tokens until his death in 2004. Source: - Page 4- Guide to the Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino Collection Herz, Howard W., "Harvey J. Fuller, 1919-2004," last accessed May 15 2018, http://www.ccgtcc-ccn.com/ Harvey%20Fuller.pdf ^ Return to Table of Contents Scope and Contents Note Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino Collection (1830-1995), is comprised of two discrete but related sets of materials, collected by Howard W. Herz, the hotel's curator of collections from about 1977 to 1994 as research and acquisition for a planned Nevada gambling museum and archive. The collection is arranged in two series, reflecting those materials compiled by Harvey's Lake Tahoe and the research completed for the casino by Harvey J. Fuller. The Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino Records and Artifacts series contains photo-copied inventory images of Harvey's extensive coin and token collection, casino marketing materials and photographs from a variety of Nevada casinos, newspaper clippings about Harvey's hotel-casino, and nineteenth and twentieth century gambling artifacts. The Harvey J. Fuller Original Casino Notes series contains Fuller's original notes on Nevada casinos across the state that were licensed for at least one 'table game' and the completed Harvey J. Fuller's Index of Nevada Gambling Establishments, published in 1991. These notes include county level information, Nevada Tax Commission reports, and Nevada Gaming Control Board information. ^ Return to Table of Contents Arrangement These records are organized into two series: Series I. Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino Records and Artifacts, 1830-1995; Series II. Harvey J. Fuller Original Casino Notes, 1930-1993. ^ Return to Table of Contents Administrative Information Access Note Collection is open for research. - Page 5- Guide to the Harvey's Lake Tahoe Hotel and Casino Collection Publication Rights Materials in this collection may be protected by copyrights and other rights. See Reproductions and Use on the UNLV Special Acquisition Note Materials were transferred to Special Collections in 2003 by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration; accession number 2003-20. Appraisal Note Duplicate copies of the gaming token inventory and photocopies of Fuller's notes, along with multiple duplicates of casino ephemera were removed from the University of Nevada Las Vegas Libraries Special Collections and Archives' holding. Processing Information Materials were initially inventoried in 2006 by Special Collections staff and a finding aid created. In 2014, Hana Gutierrez revised the information and entered it into ArchivesSpace. In 2018, as part of an archival backlog elimination project, Melise Leech processed, rehoused,