Frank Cornero. (Image: Newspapers.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThough they leased the property to other people, Frank and Louis owned it until they decided not to in 1941.<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cThe place was, by that time, a white elephant,\u201d Gaffey said. \u201cThey were just trying to get rid of it.”<\/p>\n
Louis sold it to local businessmen Nate Mack and R.J. Kaltenborn. Frank had traveled from California to Vegas to participate in the sale. During the trip, he had also planned to marry Miss Gladys Thompson of Elko, Nev. the following week.<\/p>\n
But tragically, his car plunged off the road coming down from a cabin on Mt. Charleston, flipping over and ejecting him into a pile of limestone. The back of his skull was smashed to bits. He was 43.<\/p>\n
News of Frank’s death barely made the newspapers. The Los Angeles Daily News’<\/em> headline read: “Frank Cornero, Tony’s Brother, Killed in Nevada.” The<\/em> Reno Gazzette-Journal<\/em> sandwiched the news of Frank’s death between two other Las Vegas traffic fatalities, and took the trouble to explain that the Meadows Club was “once-famous.”<\/p>\n\n
The new owners of the Meadows Club leased it to an enigmatic local character named Eddie Clippinger, who immediately converted it into a brothel. Because of its proximity to the Las Vegas Army Airfield (now Nellis Air Force Base), the Army pressured Clark County Sheriff Gene Ward into shuttering it in July 1942.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nPart of the site of the former Meadows Club, which was on the southeast parcel of present-day East Charleston Boulevard and South Mojave Road in Sunrise Manor, Nev., is now a dirt lot. (Image: Google Earth)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nSo Clippinger reopened his house of ill repute in a more remote part of Clark County, nicknamed “Formyle” because it was four full miles out of the city’s jurisdiction on Boulder Highway. He opened it with — and named it after — his wife. The couple ran Roxie’s from 1946 until 1954 when they each received three years in prison and a $5,000 fine for violations of the Mann Act.<\/p>\n
The building that housed the Meadows Club was repurposed for WWII military use but was destroyed by another fire the following year. Most recently, some of its former 20 acres hosted the Charleston\/Mojave Project Apartments at 2950 E. Charleston Blvd., which were constructed in 1954 and demolished in October 2022.<\/p>\n
Tony Cornero\u2019s Disputed Fate<\/strong><\/h2>\nTony Cornero returned to Vegas by the early ’50s, hoping to open the world\u2019s largest casino hotel, with 1,000 rooms and 16K square feet of gaming. By July 31, 1955, he had spent $3 million constructing what he initially intended to call the Starlight.<\/p>\nTony Cornero as a sailor in 1920, photographed for his Seaman\u2019s Protective Papers. (Image: National Archives)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThat was the day he died. He was shooting craps at the Desert Inn when he clutched his chest and dropped to the floor. He was 55.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think, and like other people think, he was murdered,\u201d Ernest Marquez, author of the 2011 book \u201cNoir Afloat: Tony Cornero and the Notorious Ships of Southern California,\u201d told the Los Angeles Times<\/em> in 2021.<\/p>\nPoisoning is the most popular theory.<\/p>\n
Gaffey dismisses this as a myth, too, since a coroner\u2019s jury in LA determined that Cornero died of a heart attack and was known to have suffered from a heart ailment.<\/p>\n
Tony\u2019s heart was so terrible that wherever he went, he had his doctor with him,\u201d Gaffey said. \u201cWhen he appeared before the Gambling Commission, he had his doctor with him. And when he gambled at the DI, his doctor was right there and was able to pronounce him dead.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
If it is<\/em> a myth, though, it’s not a simple one to bust. That\u2019s because a would-be assassin had already shot and seriously wounded Cornero on Feb. 9, 1948. He was at home in Beverly Hills at the time, a mile and a half from where Bugsy Siegel — with whom he was known to associate — had been shot dead eight months earlier.<\/p>\nAdditionally, Cornero’s body was removed from the Desert Inn’s floor before anyone contacted the Clark County Coroner or Clark County Sheriff\u2019s Department — at least according to \u201cNoir Afloat,\u201d which also claimed that Cornero’s drinking glass was taken and washed before sheriff’s deputies had the chance to examine it.<\/p>\n
And just who stepped in for Cornero to open the Stardust three years after his death?<\/p>\nTony Cornero’s Stardust, pictured during construction before its founder’s 1955 death, was never to be. (Image: vintagelasvegas.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWe know the answer to that one for certain. It was Moe Dalitz, the Cleveland mob operative who ran the casino that allegedly washed Cornero\u2019s drinking glass.<\/p>\n
Look for \u201cVegas Myths Busted\u201d every Monday on\u00a0 <\/strong>Casino.org. <\/strong><\/em>Click here<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On May 2, 1931, only five weeks after Nevada lawmakers legalized casino gambling, the first newly built casino opened lawfully in Las Vegas. Named after the English translation for the city\u2019s Spanish name, the Meadows Club debuted less than half a mile outside city limits near Boulder Highway, the newly paved main road into Las […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":329731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,88702,81886],"tags":[92210,92211,23,92212,92208,92207,92209,91517,84796,92206],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Lies the Internet Tells About Tony Cornero's Meadows Club - Casino.org<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n