In 1931, when Nevada legalized gambling, they also lowered the residency requirement to get a "quickie divorce" to six weeks. At the time divorce laws were very stringent across the United States. So Reno became the divorce capital. There were about 30,000 divorces there in the 1930's alone-which represented about 5% of American divorces at the time.
Apartment owners didn't rent by the month but rather by "six weeks." The El Cortez Hotel on West Main Street was built specifically to handle the divorcee's.
Legend has it that some lady in the 1930's, having just received her divorce papers, walked out onto the Virginia Street bridge over the Truckee River and cast her wedding ring into the stream. It caught on with other divorcee's and became a tradition. In the 1961 movie, The Misfits, one of the scenes has Marily Monroe and Thelma Ritter standing on the bridge over the Truckee. Monroe has her wedding band in hand and Thelma says something like "Go ahead honey. Throw it!"
And legend also has it that it was the infamous Tuna Lund who came up with a brainstorm of an idea. He waded out into the Truckee River, when it was at it's lowest, with a geiger counter or some such contraption, and came up with a coffe can or two of wedding rings.
A telephone conversation I had with my mother about ten years ago went something like this:
"Where are you at, son?'
"I'm in Reno, Mom."
"What are you doing?"
"Gamblin'"
"Where are you staying?"
"The El Cortez."
"Oh, really? That's where I stayed when I divorced your father in 1959."
···
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "vpFREE Administrator" <vpfreeadmin@...> wrote:
LVA Question of the Day - 16 OCT 2010
Q: In the 1960s, I was under the impression that Las Vegas
and Reno were more or less equal in number of casinos and
popularity with gamblers. Obviously, Las Vegas is way ahead
in both categories now. Any idea what happened that caused
Reno's gambling economy to swoon while Vegas's was booming?
Read the answer here:
http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/qod.cfm
<a href="http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/qod.cfm">
http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/qod.cfm</a>