Thanks to both of the readers who wrote in regarding yesterday's answer. We confess that this was a re-run of an answer we first ran back in 2006, in response to a more recent inquiry, and since the original was penned by a veteran writer of Nevada guide books, we trusted the content to be good. Wrong! (Note to self: Trust no one.)
So, to put the record straight, Panaca is indeed both gambling- and alcohol-free, which is interesting news to us. To quote the Wikipedia article to which we were referred: "Panaca was southern Nevada's first permanent settlement, founded as a Mormon colony in 1864. It was originally part of Washington County, Utah, but the congressional redrawing of boundaries in 1866 shifted Panaca into Nevada. It is the only municipality in Nevada to be 'dry' (forbidding the sale of alcoholic beverages), and the only community in Nevada besides Boulder City that prohibits gambling." No doubt these restrictions are due to Panaca's Mormon roots, which it has evidently held on to (the Mormons abandoned Las Vegas in 1857, during the Utah War, hence this city's future development along somewhat different lines...)
Cal-Nev-Ari, on the other hand, is a creation of the mid-1960s that owes its name to its location, which is on former Bureau of Land Management property approximately 70 miles south of Las Vegas, and not too far from where California, Nevada, and Arizona meet. It was founded in 1965 by a couple named Nancy and Slim Kidwell and has since grown to boast a population of approximately 250, an airport, RV park, motel ... and casino! While the casino, which was added in 1968, currently has no table games (we think that at one time it had a poker and a blackjack table), it's got around 20 slot and video poker machines and a coffee shop and is open 24/7, so we agree that this does qualify as a "bona fide casino" and not just a "bar with some bartop video poker and slot machines," as yesterday's answer unfairly claimed.
An interesting fact we learned in the course of this research is that back in July 2010, the widowed Nancy decided to offer the entire town (minus its residents) up for sale, for the princely sum of $17 million. At time of writing, we've been unable to ascertain whether or not a buyer was found, but if we can get to the bottom of that, we'll post an update.
