The Railroad Pass Casino on the outskirts of Henderson, Nv., opened up a safe on Dec. 29. That’s after it was locked for more than 40 years and its contents unknown.
Owner Joe DeSimone inherited the safe after getting the historic gambling casino inward Apr 2015. DeSimone purchased the hotel and casino from MGM Resorts, which took moderate of Railroad Pass through and through its $7.9 1000000000000 takeover of Mandalay Resort Group in 2005.
DeSimone said he debated over the years what to make out with the safe. Its contents were placed interior inward 1980 and locked. Only DeSimone knew the combining since buying the cassino to a greater extent than septenary years ago.
DeSimone, who also owns the Railroad Pass Travel Center and The Pass Casino in downtown Henderson, eventually settled on gap the bank vault over the holidays. The safe was opened on Dec. 29 inward commemoration of the 91st anniversary of the property’s opening night in 1931.
The cassino held a special case utmost week to unresolved the safe. The spectacle was opened to the public.
Opening the burial vault wasn’t easy. The Boulder City Review reported that Jill Rowland-Lagan, CEO of the Boulder City Chamber of Commerce who was granted the pureness of opening night the safe, couldn’t deal to undetermined the door despite trying the compounding several times. group A casino faculty fellow member was eventually able to help her unlock the door.
Contents Humdrum
The most striking component of the Railroad Pass safe unlocking mightiness have been the unlocking itself, as the vault’s contents didn’t exactly “wow” onlookers.
DeSimone found a pocketbook full of 1870s-era silvern dollar bill coins, chips from several Las Vegas casinos, and craps markers. The coins are to each one worth around $30.
Railroad Pass officials placed a new clip capsulate inwards the safe and locked it rearward up. The ringlet isn’t to follow opened over again until 2048.
But the event inward a quarter-century won’t live with often suspense. DeSimone told the media that the capsulize he placed dorsum in the safe contained Railroad Pass memorabilia, a volume most the history of Boulder City, aerial photographs of Railroad Pass, and a DeSimone household portrait.
It’s DeSimone’s bid that his children are the ones who next open the bank vault in 25 years.
Nevada’s Oldest Running Casino
Railroad Pass was one of the first off casinos licensed inwards the tell of Nevada. The cassino was established to cater to workers employed at the J. Edgar Hoover Dam grammatical construction land site nigh 12 miles northeast.
The Railroad Pass safe was used past the federal authorities to put in employee paychecks for the workers to pick upwardly when visiting the casino.
Boulder City prohibited gambling at the time, prompting local developers to establish the gambling casino virtually two miles exterior of the city’s limits in Henderson. Named after a proposed, but never built railroad, the cassino today has the distinction of existence the oldest continually operating gambling casino inwards Nevada.
Railroad Pass features near 300 expansion slot machines and a small allocation of tabularise games. The casino also comes with a William Benny Hill Sportsbook. The hotel counts 120 guestrooms, and on-site eating options set out from amercement dining at DeSimone’s Steakhouse to a 24-hour coffee shop and Sbarro pizza joint.
Railroad Pass attracts many Hoover Dam visitors, but is also closemouthed to Lake Mead’s recreational center, the Viscount Nelson Ghost Town, and numerous hiking trails.