The First Years by Stephen Fischer Septemver 13, 1945 Greg was representing his client, The working number that Benny Billy Wilkerson in the transaction. had in his head was going to be one Folsom’s Guest Cottages on US Wilkerson owned two successful million dollars for the project. One Highway 91, six miles south of Las Hollywood nightclubs, Ciro’s and the million dollars would be needed to Vegas, had been closed since 1941. Trocadero, and was sole owner of the build Ben Siegel’s Flamingo Club. Harold Folsom had died and his Hollywood Reporter, the movie (The earliest references to the widow, Maggie, just couldn’t run the industry newspaper. Flamingo Hotel, in the newspaper place. On September 13, Maggie articles of 1944 and 1945, referred to received a long distance phone call Now, again following the owner- it as the Club - It became the from an attorney named Greg ship of the property, Billy Wilkerson Flamingo Hotel for licensing purpos- Bautser, who lived in Los Angeles. held the Folsom Cottage property for es in late 1945.) Mr. Bautser told Maggie that he had a less than a day. client who wanted to buy the Folsom The meeting was the normaliza- Cottages including the dilapidated November 24, 1945 tion of the Nevada Projects buildings and 30 acres of property. Corporation. It was funded and the Bautser’s client would pay all the George Raft’s home on Coldwater Flamingo Hotel was about to come back taxes due on the property and Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills. off the drawing board. would put $500 in Maggie’s pocket. There was a dinner at George’s house. After dinner, Benny Siegel That afternoon, Mr. Bautser flew asked Raft to leave, his house was to Las Vegas with his client and the being used to lay out the building of $500, met with the Folsom widow the Flamingo Club in Las Vegas. The and, over lemonade, a deal was Flamingo Club was going to be fund- signed. The client was Morris ed and owned by a new California Sedway, who was employed by Ben Corporation to be known as the Siegel.. Nevada Projects Corporation. The company that would build the Little Moey, as he was called, held Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. onto the Folsom property for less than two months. Following the Benny Siegel had already met with ownership trail on this piece of prop- his general contractor, Del Webb, and erty - Moe sold the land and cottages his architect and builder, George to his attorney, Greg Bautser. Russell and Dick Stadleman. Ben Siegel and George Raft 46 CASINO CHIP AND TOKEN NEWS | Summer 2005 A list of the shareholders in the legal gambling, instant weddings and building material seemed to be going Nevada Projects Corporation - and quick divorces, and legal prostitu- to that “Gangster ‘Bugsy’ Siegel’s their holdings: tion). It was an amicable settlement. joint, the Flamingo!” The two daughters would stay with Ben Siegel Esta and Ben would pay for their While the Flamingo Hotel was 195 shares schooling and expenses until they being built, Ben and his girlfriend, Charlie Ross, Phoenix banker were married, $350 per week plus Virginia Hill, were living down the 100 shares school tuition. Esta would get the road at the Last Frontier. They had house that Ben purchased at 200 rented Suite 401 on a yearly basis. Allen Block Delfern Drive in Hollywood, their Each morning Ben would drive down 10 shares New York apartment, Ben’s Cadillac to the Flamingo worksite and sign for Billy Wilkerson, Ben’s working partner and would also receive $600 per the morning deliveries. He wanted to 125 shares week for the rest of her life. be totally involved in the Flamingo “Solly” Solloway, Married to Ben’s construction, but he didn’t know sister This was 1945, postwar 1945, and about business, especially, the con- 20 shares building materials were very hard struction business. During the day come by. Apparently, however, this many of those deliveries would disap- Hy Abrams was not the case for the Nevada pear out the back gate. The next day 22.5 shares Projects Corporation. With the help of the same items would be resold to Joe Ross, Ben’s Beverly Hills attorney his partner, Billy Wilkerson, Siegel Ben and the Flamingo. One truckload 45 shares obtained lumber and pipe right from of lumber looks pretty much the same Sam and Harry Rothberg, brothers the movie studios. Wilkerson applied as every other truckload of lumber, and owners of American Distillers, pressure to his friends in the studios, right? Ben’s lack of business acumen one of the largest liquor distributors and before long, trucks from Culver mixed with his volatile personality in the country City and Hollywood were crossing ultimately contributed to the fact that 244 combined shares the desert loaded with lumber and Flamingo Hotel really wasn’t going to pipe heading for the Flamingo Hotel’s be ready by Christmas, 1946 … Allen Smiley, a friend of Ben’s building site. Ben imported expensive (Smiley was sitting on the couch next marble and decorative woods for the Regarding his quick-trigger tem- to Ben when he was killed) Flamingo’s lobby through the perament, most people gave Siegel a 15 shares Mexican black market. (Conveniently, very wide berth. (Apparently his Louis Pokross, fronting for 15 people he was involved in the drug trade in craziness was based on real-life in the New York mobs Mexico and his Mexican partners insanity.) He was a powder keg and, unknown number of shares paved the way for him). once he exploded, there wasn’t much Morris Rosen – also from New York that could be done to calm him down. and fronting for Frank Costello in most Siegel had truck loads of celebrity Abe Schiller was the central figure in of his business deals in the 1940’s and political friends. One of his best a public episode of Siegel’s volatile 100 shares friends was Pat McCarren, (US personality. (I’ve read in a number of Senator from the great State of places that Schiller was entertainment Meyer Lansky Nevada). McCarren reprioritized the director at the Flamingo Hotel, but no 100 shares building needs list for projects going one probably mentioned that to on in southern Nevada so that Ben Chuck Gaskill, the general manager The same day the ground was bro- and the Nevada Projects Corporation and entertainment director for the 65- ken for the Flamingo, Ben Siegel’s could receive the copper, fixtures and day life of the Flamingo. Nor did any- wife, Esta, established residency at a tiling they needed to get the Flamingo one tell Jake Katleman, Bernie Van guest ranch just outside Reno, up and running by Christmas 1946. Der Steen or the Hall brothers, Joe Nevada. She had to be a Nevada resi- and Vic, the owners of the El Rancho dent for six weeks before she could There were protest meetings held Vegas, who at the time were giving file for uncontested divorce. (As an in Las Vegas and Boulder City by the Abe Schiller a paycheck every week aside, in 1931 the Nevada legislature VFW and the Elks. (Their members to be the promotional director over passed a series of measures that were finding that they couldn’t get there! There are many different ver- helped insulate the state from effects any of the fixtures and building mate- sions of the incident described below, of the Depression, (these included rials needed for their projects.) All the but I believe this is the way it happened. CASINO CHIP AND TOKEN NEWS | Summer 2005 47 On March 1, 1947 the Flamingo and kids plus 200 or so Flamingo though 1946 wasn’t a great year for Hotel reopened as the Fabulous guests, Ben made Schiller crawl Ben Siegel, James Regan was cut in Flamingo. The grand re-opening was around the entire Flamingo pool. Ben half with shotgun blasts in Chicago held on a Saturday morning. was walking alongside him, kicking during the grand opening week of the him and shooting over his head into Flamingo. There was no fanfare, but the the pool. hotel’s front doors were opened by Ben’s chief lieutenants were Little the Andrews Sisters, Patty, Laverne Hooky Rothman pulled out his Moey Sedway, who controlled many and Maxine. All three gals mingled piece and made damn sure no one of Ben’s Las Vegas ventures plus his with the guests, as did Joan Crawford stood up, or did anything else. The warehouse business is Los Angeles, and the Ritz Brothers. guests and the Schiller family and Gus Greenbaum, who was living watched in horror as Abe, bleeding in Phoenix and running the gambling There was free food and free from his pistol-whipping, continued business for Ben in Arizona. drinks plus hot dogs and hamburgers to crawl around the pool. Only then out by the pool. People were encour- did Ben let another of his bodyguards, In 1944 Ben bought a warehouse aged to “bring the kiddies.” One of “Fat Irish” Green, take him inside. in Cerritos, California, along with his the families showing up at the grand But that all happened on March 1, 1947. friend Alan Smiley. They called it the re-opening was the Schillers, Abe, California Metals Company, and were Doris and their three kids. Although Let’s go back to December 26, buying millions of dollars worth of Abe worked over at the El Rancho, he 1946 at the first grand opening… stolen iron and other metals at very wanted to see what was so fabulous reasonable prices, and then reselling about the Fabulous Flamingo.