A brief history of the Mapes Hotel, 1172-2000


January 25, 2000

On Sunday, the Reno City Council ("Jeff Griffin and the secret-meeting six") will blow up the venerable Mapes Hotel. Actually, that's only partly true. A construction company will actually blow up the hotel; if the City Council blew it up themselves, it could lead to some interesting consequences.

Tom Herndon: Are all the explosives in place?

Pierre Hascheff: It looks like it.

Sherrie Doyle: I think we're ready to blow her sky-high.

Dave Aiazzi: Hey... what happens when you cross these two wires?

Mapes: BOOM.

Anyway, many people are upset about the impending destruction of the Mapes, because it is venerable and stuff. They are also upset because the Mapes has a long, historic history.

As far as historians can tell, the Mapes was actually built in the late 12th century by Native Americans who lived in the area. A Washoe Indian chief built the casino along the banks of the river, hoping to capitalize on the Indian casino gaming boom. Unfortunately, he did not realize the boom would not start for about another 800 years.

Seeing as the casino was a miserable failure, it sat mostly empty for the next 500 years so (although the Rolling Stones occasionally played the Skyroom), until the white men entered what is now known as the Truckee Meadows. The first white men who visited the Mapes were the famous explorers, Lewis and Clark. Most history books do not record this fact, apparently because Lewis lost a significant amount of money at the craps table and was so embarrassed that he demanded the history books leave that part out. There are also historical rumors about an ugly incident at Mustang Ranch, involving a cucumber, when Clark visited there; however, that rumor is widely believed to be untrue, seeing as Mustang Ranch had not yet been built.

The Mapes also played a crucial role in the birth of our country. Not only did George Washington meet his wife, Martha, during a toga party in the Skyroom, but several drafts of the Declaration of Independence, including the final version, were penned in the Mapes Bar. Apparently, John Hancock signed his name so big on the Declaration because he drank too much booze at the Mapes Bar. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, "Ye olde Hancock really tied one on and got blitzed, and almost felle in the Truckee Rivere."

While the Mapes enjoyed a huge heyday (because lots of hay was growing in the fields surrounding the casino) in the late 1700s and early 1800s, the hotel-casino saw business fall off significantly in the late 1800s, when the Industrial Revolution reached its peak. The casino almost closed in the early 1900s, but gained a reprieve when prohibition became the law of the land and--showing the Nevada spirit that has made the state home to high divorce rates and legalized prostitution--people flocked to the casino to drink anyway.

The "modern era" of the Mapes started in 1947 when a man named Moritmer L. Hoofenpicker bought the Mapes. He changed his name to Charlie Mapes, and made up a story that he had just built the hotel-casino. Seeing as everyone in Reno was drunk, they believed him.

The history of the Mapes since then is well-known. These stories include Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable filming "The Misfits"; Sammy Davis Jr. rocking the Skyroom; Charlie Mapes closing the casino just before Christmas in 1982; Jeff Griffin using the casino to shave his back hair in solitude.

And this Sunday, when the Mapes (which, let's face it, couldn't be saved at this point anyway) is blown up, it will close a chapter in the history of Reno. That chapter will star a City Council which has apparently decided that Reno's real history, jokes aside, isn't important. As someone who has deep roots in this community, I can't help but think that this chapter is a very, very sad one.

Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who hopes his old history professors don't get their hands on this column. Jimmy's column appears here Tuesdays, and he can be reached via e-mail at jiboegle@stanfordalumni.org. 1