Tahoe's Dark Underbelly
by Sue D. Nym
Running the "family" business from his Lake Tahoe estate, Mafia boss Michael Corleone discovers that his brother Fredo has betrayed him and orders him offed aboard a fishing boat and consigned to the deep blue. While this penultimate scene from Godfather II—surely the most famous cinematic moment at The Lake—may seem more Hollywood than High Sierra, Lake Tahoe has in fact seen its share of mob-related violence over the years. While some of it has been spill-over from the bright lights and casinos of the Biggest Little City in the World, Tahoe developed early on its own gambling culture and lore (Crystal Bay's CalNeva is the oldest gaming establishment in the country), and accompanying stories of gangster goings-on.
Lesser known—and sometimes undocumented altogether—are the Tahoe tales of double-crossing and deceit that have led to deadly outcomes. There are persistent stories of bodies dumped in The Lake's water, which is so cold, it is said, it will never give up its dead. And some individuals with more than passing knowledge of unsavory area events still won't even speak on record. A few neighborhood mob hits however, are well recorded in the archives of local newspapers and in the memories of area old timers.
Harry Sherwood and "Russian" Louie Strauss ran the Tahoe Village Casino on South Shore, acquired in 1946 in a trade for a Reno entertainment establishment called Bar of Music. Neither of the men were strangers to the mob: A one-time partner of Tony Stralla—an infamous West Coast bootlegger and gaming figure—Sherwood did a stint in federal prison for holding up a gambling ship off Long Beach, California, in 1936.
On the morning of September 13, 1947, in an apparent dispute over money, Strauss shot Sherwood at the casino. When he was arrested later in Carson City, there was a .38 pistol in the glove compartment of his car. Sherwood underwent a successful surgery to remove a slug lodged near his spine but died of a blood clot a couple of weeks later. Strauss, free on $25,000 bail, was arrested in Auburn and then returned to Douglas County Jail where he was charged with murder. Cohorts Abie "The Trigger" Chapman and George "The Professor" Kosloff, believed to be on hand when Strauss pulled the trigger, were also arrested in connection with the case, but charges against them were dropped.
A preliminary hearing for the Sherwood shooting was held in the dining room of the Glenbrook Inn, the only location large enough for the crowds that came to testify and gawk. According to Joe Snyder Jr., a Tahoe Village Casino employee whose father, Joe Sr., also worked at the casino and attended the hearing, the shooting was chalked up to "justifiable homicide," self-defense. Other accounts proffer that none of the witnesses could—or would—swear they saw Strauss commit the crime. In any case, the authorities had to let him go. (Interestingly, several searches by Douglas County clerks cannot come up with any records of Strauss or the case.) In 1953, Strauss met his own end at the hands of the mob after an apparent attempt to blackmail Benny Binion, then-owner of the Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas. Lore has it his body is buried somewhere in the Southern California desert.
Lincoln Fitzgerald moved from Michigan to Northern Nevada in 1945 and bought into Reno's Nevada Club the following year. Reputedly an accountant for Detroit's Purple Gang, "Fitz," along with partner Danny Sullivan, was extradited to Michigan in 1948 where they were tried on charges of illegal gambling, fined and released. They returned to Reno shortly thereafter to tend to the club. Whether or not it was because Fitzgerald fell out with his old bosses in Detroit, as one source claims, there is no doubt that on the night of November 18, 1949, he was gunned down in his driveway as he opened his garage door. The gunman fled; some have speculated that that hit man was none other than the famous gangster "Baby Face" Nelson, who was living in Reno at the time.
Remarkably, Fitz survived the attack. Hospitalized for six months and left with a limp and permanent fear for his life, Fitzgerald hired bodyguards and moved with his wife into the Nevada Club. He reportedly requested that the investigation into his shooting be closed.
Fitzgerald bought the Tahoe Biltmore in Crystal Bay in 1957, renaming it the Nevada Lodge, and opened Fitzgerald's in Reno in 1976. When he did travel to The Lake, his wife Meta took the wheel and two bodyguards sat in back, according to Jim Brockelsby, who worked for Fitz for 30 years. Though Brockelsby and others are unfamiliar with this story, there's a rumor that on one of those trips Fitzgerald's car was ambushed at Tahoe Meadows—perhaps in an effort to finish the job—but he managed to escape. Though the story can't be substantiated, one knowledgeable source (who chooses to remain anonymous) defends it as true.
During the 1940s and '50s, Crystal Bay's CalNeva passed through the hands of several shady characters, including Elmer "Bones" Remmer—a prominent San Francisco gang member—and alleged hood Bert "Wingy" Grober, whose East Coast establishments Joe Kennedy helped supply during Prohibition. When Frank Sinatra and his partners, including Paul "Skinny" D'Amato—owner of the infamous 500 Club in Atlantic City—bought the CalNeva in 1961, the place continued to simmer with stories of underworld activity, which was underscored when the singer had underground tunnels built so he—and his paramours and pals—could move undetected between the showroom and the bungalows. Though Sinatra had been spotted elsewhere with Sam Giancana on several occasions, when they found the blacklisted Chicago mob boss at the CalNeva in 1963, the Nevada Gaming Control Board yanked Old Blue Eyes' gaming license.
An alleged tale that took place during Sinatra's CalNeva tenure still circulates: In June 1962, Deputy Sheriff Richard Anderson arrived at the lodge to pick up his newlywed wife, who worked there and had briefly dated Sinatra. Several leers and comments later, Anderson warned Sinatra to stay away from his bride, but an altercation ensued during which the off-duty cop punched Sinatra so hard the singer couldn't perform for a week. Several weeks later, Anderson and his wife were driving down Highway 28, not far from the CalNeva, when they were run off the road by a late model maroon convertible with California plates. Anderson lost control of the car, hit a tree and was instantly killed; his wife was thrown from the car and suffered several broken bones and fractures.
In 1964, gaming operator Richard Chartrand moved to the South Shore from Fresno and bought into a couple of casinos. He eventually owned controlling interests in Barney's Club and the South Tahoe Nugget, both in Stateline. On the morning of August 27, 1968, Chartrand got into his Cadillac at his Skyland development home on South Shore, pulled out of his driveway and was blown to bits by a bomb planted under the floorboards of the car. Ironically, Chartrand lived across the street from Frank Johnson, then-chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, the investigative arm of the state's gambling oversight system. According to newspaper accounts, Johnson, who was at the time in bed recovering from a cold, said the blast tore off his bedroom curtain.
"They never did find out who killed him," says Dwayne Kling, who recounts the area's gaming industry in his book, The Rise of the Biggest Little City.
Some film fans continue to seek out the West Shore's old Kaiser Estate (now Fleur du Lac), where the Tahoe scenes of Godfather II were filmed, to picture Fredo meeting his maker in a tiny rowboat, or the Don narrowly surviving an attempted hit in a hail of bullets through his bedroom window. But as for the real world, it's been over four decades since any underworld figure met his or her fate in or around The Big Blue. And if that's not the case, no one's talking.