Can't help a bit on the Western Club chips

Taking a quick look through the guides, the earliest sm crown chips that I spotted were 1950, from Tahoe Village and Riverside (Reno). Betcha' Michael or Allan could find the info pretty quickly in the TCR data base... maybe you could email one of them?

(I got my plaque a couple of days ago...it SHINES so much that I can't get a picture of it ...so I had to steal Brian's scan! )