Question of the Day - 10 August 2023

Second question first. Yes, both Arizona Charlie's and the STRAT are owned by Golden Entertainment, which also owns Gold Town, Lakeside, and the Nugget in Pahrump, the PT's Pub and Sierra Gold chains, and slot routes with 10,500 machines in Nevada and Montana (Pennsylvania is on deck). Golden recently sold Rocky Gap Casino in Maryland to Vici Properties and Century Casinos for $260 million, which pumps up its balance sheet significantly.

As for Arizona Charlie, he was (not is) a Wild West kinda guy who made his name and a lot of money during the Klondike gold rush in the late 1800s.

He was born Abram Henson Meadows in March 1859 in Visalia, California (the sixth of 12 kids), but when Abraham Lincoln was elected president later that year, his Confederate-sympathizing father changed his name to Charles. When Charlie was around 10, the Meadows family moved to Diamond Valley, Arizona, near present-day Payson (in the mountains northeast of Phoenix). Growing up on a remote ranch, Charlie naturally became good at riding and shooting and began competing in rodeo competitions, winning his first title at the age of 26. 

It also gave him his first taste of show biz. 

A Wild West show promoter saw and hired Charlie, who by then was a strapping specimen with the long hair and full mustache of his idol, Buffalo Bill Cody. With the western circus, Charlie toured New Zealand and Australia, where one newspaper wrote about him, “Never was a finer picture of American manhood presented.” On that tour, he married an Aussie trick rider, Marion Murray, and together with several different shows traveled all over Asia, India, and China. Establishing a name for themselves, they attracted the attention of Buffalo Bill, who hired them and they sailed to Vancouver, where a pregnant Marion wanted to settle and raise their family, but Charlie had other ideas.

Alone, he sailed on to London to meet with Buffalo Bill and appeared in his show for a while before returning to the U.S. where he was involved in a failed bullfighting venture in Colorado, having to beat a hasty retreat back to Arizona. There, he met a showgirl named Ida McKamish, who was billed as Mae Melbourne, and in July 1897, word of gold discovered on the Klondike reached Charlie's ears, propelling him and Mae northward in August. Arriving in Skagway, the start of the trail to the gold, Charlie took a look around and realized he could make more money as an outfitter than as a panner.  

Charlie and Mae had a few adventures between Skagway (in the Alaska Territory) and Dawson City (in the Yukon Territory), including setting up a portable hostel and saloon, selling mining provisions, and running for their lives from a collapsed glacier. But they finally made it to Dawson City in the rugged winter of 1898. There, he and Mae staked a few claims, invested in others, printed the town's first newspaper, and opened a number of saloons before paying $50,000 to build the opulent three-story Palace Grand bar and 500-seat theater, with Charlie and Mae's apartment on the third floor. The Palace featured western melodramas, variety acts, and concerts. Charlie and Mae also took the stage on occasion, after which the house band played showtunes (the few girls in town made $1 a dance), Mae hustled drinks, and Charlie ran a faro bank. 

Well, all good things must come to an end and when gold was discovered in Nome, the rush was on again. Dawson pretty much emptied out, leaving Charlie and Mae high and dry. Charlie briefly considered floating his five-ton building nearly 2,000 miles down the Yukon River to Nome, but Mae, apparently, managed to talk him out of it.

The two returned Arizona, settling in Yuma and living out their lives in the early 20th century. We couldn't find anything further about Mae, but Charlie died in December 1932 in Yuma at the age of 73. He was survived by the one daughter he had by Marion.