Question of the Day - 23 April 2021

Yesterday, we posted the question that this series is based on: Who, in our opinion, were the most influential Las Vegans? We also wrote thumbnail bios of the first two, chronologically speaking: Helen Stewart and C.P. "Pop" Squires.

Today, we continue with three more. 

Tony Cornero

Born Antonio Stralla in Italy in 1899, Tony Cornero had quite a career even before reaching Sin City. In his 20s, he owned a shrimping fleet that doubled as a bootlegging operation, smuggling Canadian whiskey into southern California, a gig that landed him two years in the pen. After that stint, Cornero turned his eye toward gambling cruise ships anchored off Long Beach, just out of the reach of the law. In 1931, Cornero moved in earnest to Las Vegas, having long been dominant in the young town's bootleg-liquor business.

He purchased the The Meadows, a resort at what's now the intersection of Fremont Street and East Charleston Boulevard, hoping to lure gamblers. While gambling wasn’t yet legal, no officials interfered, but The Meadows burned down four months after opening. The Las Vegas Fire Department wouldn’t go outside city limits and Cornero was left with a pile of ashes.

In the mid-1950s, land was available next to the Last Frontier Hotel-Casino and there, Cornero started building the Stardust, with a legitimate front man and several loans engineered by Moe Dalitz. Cornero's prescient vision was Vegas for the mass market: $5 rooms, $5 free play, and slots in the hotel lobby. Had he lived to fulfill his vision, the building would have included an all-air-conditioned hotel, a retail mall, and the Strip’s biggest showroom. In other words, he was very much ahead of his time. Unfortunately, while playing at a crap table at the Desert Inn, Cornero fell over and died. It's widely believed he was poisoned, but the death was ruled a heart attack. The Stardust, which was immediately taken over by Moe Dalitz and his crew, opened posthumously.

Speaking of whom ... 

Moe Dalitz

Born in Boston in 1899, Morris "Moe" Dalitz got started as a launderer (of clothes, not money), but when Prohibition came along, the Dalitz family’s laundry trucks doubled as delivery vehicles for bootleg booze. Thanks to his connections to the Maceo crime family, Dalitz also operated illegal casinos in Ohio and Kentucky. During World War II, he did a three-year tour of duty, rising to the rank of lieutenant.

After demobilization, Las Vegas beckoned. Desert Inn founder Wilbur Clark needed money and Dalitz had it. Clark remained to front the Desert Inn, but it was Dalitz’s joint, along with partners Morris Kleinman and Ruby Kolod. After Tony Cornero died on Dalitz’s premises, Moe took over the Stardust, finishing it with money borrowed from the Teamster’s Union. The Showboat was another Dalitz front. 

After selling the Desert Inn to Howard Hughes in 1967 (and the Stardust to Mob pals two years later), Dalitz concentrated most of his energies on non-casino real estate, helping to develop the Las Vegas Country Club, Sunrise Hospital, Boulevard Mall, and his crowning achievement, the Las Vegas Convention Center. He donated $1,000 to help start the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, kicking in another 100 grand toward its football stadium. He also moved downtown to develop the Sundance (later Fitzgeralds and now The D). However, he was denied a gaming license due to his prolific Mob ties.

He died at home in Palm Springs in 1989 from a combination of illnesses, having been on the decline since 1987. But he could take consolation in his waning years that his legacy of civic accomplishments was secure, even if only one of his casinos survives him.

Howard Hughes

An encyclopedic biography could be devoted to this polymath — aviator, engineer, movie director, casino owner, and in the end reclusive tycoon. Son of an inventor, Hughes followed in his father’s path, making fortunes in several industries (and spending much of them) before coming to Las Vegas. 

His prevalence in Sin City was largely a matter of chance. He'd been acquainted with the area, having tested his Sikorsky S-43 seaplane on Lake Mead in 1943. In later years, he tried to put a stop to atom-bomb detonations at the Nevada Test Site, fearing the detonations would damage his property. He even went to the extent of ordering aides to offer $1 million bribes to presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

While staying at the Desert Inn in 1967 (having moved in the previous Thanksgiving), Hughes was asked to vacate his suite and responded by purchasing the resort from Moe Dalitz. He wanted to change the image of Sin City to something more upscale, writing, "I like to think of Las Vegas in terms of a well-dressed man in a dinner jacket and a beautifully jeweled woman getting out of an expensive car.” With a combination of wealth ($300 million) and federal and local pressure on hotels with Mafia connections, Hughes leveraged a controlling presence on the Las Vegas Strip, though he only stuck around personally for a few years.

The single largest employer in Nevada at that time, Hughes’ casino holdings also numbered the Sands, Frontier, Silver Slipper, Castaways, Landmark, and Reno’s Harold’s Club. Not one of Hughes’ casino properties survives him. His greatest legacy to the area, the master-planned community of Summerlin, wasn't founded until 1988, long after his death in 1976. Hughes’ corporations and real estate holdings are still a major presence in the Las Vegas Valley, even if his casino years are a distant memory and his influence therein ephemeral.