The first legal Las Vegas gambling halls opened in April 1931, a few weeks after Governor Fred Balzar signed Assembly Bill 98, which legalized commercial gaming in Nevada.

Four Downtown clubs received the first licenses: the Boulder Club, at 118 Fremont; the Las Vegas Club, at 21 and 23 Fremont (across the street from its present location); the Exchange Club, at 123 S. First St.; and the Northern Club, at 15 Fremont St.

The Northern Club, on the site of today’s La Bayou slot house, was notable because its license was held by a woman, something not common in the 1930s West.

Mayme Stocker, who was the owner of record for the club, applied for and received a license for the Northern Club, though manager Joe Morgan was also noted as a principal. Stocker, however, was the first person granted a gaming license in Nevada. The Northern Club wasn’t a new business: card rooms, where players enjoyed low stakes poker games, had been legal in Nevada for years, and the Northern Club was one of the most prominent on Fremont Street.

In those years the Union Pacific Railroad was the biggest game in town, and Stocker’s husband and sons worked for the railroad in addition to keeping an active interest in the Northern Club. Since they were prohibited, as railroad employees, from owning the club, Mrs. Stocker was the owner of record.

By 1934 Stocker and Morgan had sold the Northern Club, which subsequently operated under several names. But Morgan’s connection with women in the gambling business wasn’t over: he went on to open the Silver Club with his wife Helen, who also dealt cards and ran the roulette wheel. In an age when female dealers were practically unheard of, this was something different.

The photo shows the Northern Club packed with customers, none of whom seem particularly excited by the role they are playing in Nevada gaming history.

While Stocker wasn’t always active in the activities of her businesses, she lived in Las Vegas for her entire life until passing at the age of 92 in 1984.

SOURCE: Castaways Collection, UNLV Special Collections.

By David Schwartz

David G. Schwartz an Atlantic City native and the director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. He is the author of Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling. His web site can be viewed at www.dieiscast.com.

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