Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Reno's Famous Harold's Club Brochure

The other day I found this gorgeous mid century brochure for Reno Nevada's famous, Harolds Club, highlighted by beautiful painted artwork and a neat / different sort of multiple, 2 page spread, fold-out lay-out mix of illustrations and photos. Yep, if booze, broads, and gambling was your thing, this certainly looked like the place yee ought to be-- and oooo doggy, I really would've loved to have seen that bar top made of thousands of silver dollars, and the whiskey waterfall! It wasn't just any old usual downtown money pit, Harolds also doubled as an old west museum with guns owned by Jessie James, Buffalo Bill etc., as well as covered wagons, a Fort Smith reconstruction, and other western curios on display too! Ever been there? Weave us a tale in the comments!













And if burning people at the stake was more your idea of fun, Harolds apparently had that too-- ?!

5 comments:

Mr. Cavin said...

I love the crowd art. I always found it really difficult to draw large groups of interacting people. These are some lovely examples of ink wash, too. This guy makes having to wait around at the bar look kind of attractive.

I love the covered wagon room the most (I agree that the silver dollar bar sounds pretty sweet), and any establishment with girl dealers, well....

Mr. Karswell said...

Apparently they opened way back in 1935, and finally closed down in ‘95... not a bad stretch

anthrax2525 said...

Here's a writeup courtesy of the Wayback Machine -
https://web.archive.org/web/20150426191953/http://www.oldreno.net/harolds.htm

The plot of the 1955 heist movie "5 Against The House" was (fictionalized) robbing Harold's Club.

Mr. Karswell said...

Oh thank you for this Anthrax! It's been many years since I've seen this movie but this definitely calls for a re watch! Here's the trailer for anyone else interested too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI2wv99lYhg

Mr. Cavin said...

Damn this is wonderful. That Old Reno write-up is super, Anthrax. They even have a picture of Harolds Club being blasted! And I hadn't noticed, from the brochure art, that the world-famous Silver Dollar Barstools were wagon-themed. Magical!