Question of the Day - 15 October 2024

This question came in a comment on a Question of the Day about the Tahoe Biltmore, a small casino up at north Lake Tahoe that was sold at a foreclosure auction earlier this month. At one point in the 1970s and '80s, the Biltmore was owned by Lincoln Fitzgerald, whose personal story is one of the more fascinating among the old-time casino owners.

Lincoln Fitzgerald was born in 1892 in Illinois, though at some point his family moved to Detroit. After returning to Motor City after serving in the Army in World War 1, where he learned he had an affinity for gambling games, he became involved in illegal gambling during Prohibition. Specifically, he operated several backroom casinos, one of which was called the Detroit Gambling Club. Of necessity, Fitzgerald established connections with organized crime, notably the Purple Gang. Mostly Jewish gangsters, the Purple Gang started as teenagers, committing petty theft, selling extortionate protection to local businesses, and hijacking trucks. They later graduated to running a number of rackets in Detroit and Michigan, including bootlegging, prostitution, and kidnapping (mostly other gangsters for ransom). Moe Dalitz, the brains behind the Desert Inn, was associated with the Purples.

Anyway, Fitzgerald got into trouble in Michigan. Officially, he was arrested for running illegal gambling dens in Macomb County, the northern suburbs of Detroit, along with corruption charges for bribing government officials. We strongly suspect that he also ran afoul of a mobster or two, known for having very long memories. After paying $50,000 in fines and court costs, he and his business partner fled Michigan, driving to Nevada with a truck full of gambling equipment, right after World War II. 

It didn't take long for Fitzgerald and company to set up in Reno, where they opened the Nevada Club on Virginia Street. 

Three years later in November 1949, Fitzgerald was returning home around midnight when he was blasted point blank with a 12-gauge shotgun by an unknown assailant. He was shot with more than 100 pellets, most to his mid-section; some lodged against his spine, while others tore out part of his liver. Apparently, he stood up for a moment, facing the shooter, then slumped to the ground just as the second shot, aimed at his head, went off. Collapsing at that moment saved his life; the second shot hit his garage wall instead. 

Fitzgerald was rushed to the hospital, where a team of doctors patched him back up as best they could, giving him not long to live and if he did, paralysis. But he beat the odds and five full months later walked out of the hospital.

The shooter was never identified and Fitzgerald never breathed a word about whether he knew him or not. Investigators suspected that the attempted hit was ordered by the Purple Gang for transgressions from the past. 

However, Fitzgerald never went back to his house, moving instead into a steel-walled apartment on the second floor of the Nevada Club and becoming something of a recluse. 

Still, in the mid-1970s, he built a 16-story hotel-casino next to the Nevada Club and called it Fitzgeralds. He also picked up the Tahoe Biltmore around the same time. 

Fitzgerald died in 1981 at the age of 88 from an infection. His wife Meta ran Fitzgeralds Gaming up until 1986, when she sold it for $26 million to Lincoln Management, a group of casino executives who'd worked for Summa Corporation at Harold's Club in Reno and the Sands in Las Vegas. Lincoln also bought the Nevada Club, along with the Sundance Hotel-Casino in downtown Las Vegas, owned by none other than Moe Dalitz. They renamed it Fitzgeralds in 1988. 

Derek and Greg Stevens bought Fitzgeralds in 2011 and renamed it the D.