On 8/26/10 I posted a lot of research on the WMK chip. Larry Hollibaugh and I spent a lot of time at the Reno library searching the criss cross directories. Dennis at TR King sent me this info from the record card back in 1998-99.
William Kriter, 315 No 2nd St, Reno, NV, 1954
You can read that research at this link.
http://www.thechipboard.com/archives/archives.pl/bid/320/page/19/md/read/id/1048201/sbj/illegal-of-the-day-nevada/
Basically we found zilch! Mainly because I had bad info from TRK. 315 No 2nd St was actually in Las Vegas not Reno. A chip ID request posted on the BB 3/7/15 started the team on another research project.
Another search of the actual info on the TR King record gave Ed Hertel and our "Friend Of The Hobby" the ammo needed.
Dennis must have made a typo. The $1’s were delivered to Las Vegas, not Reno.
800- $5’s & 200-$25’s to Express Office, Reno in 1952
1,000-$1’s to 315 No 2nd, LV in 1954
Both orders to William Kriter.
Ed Hertel found this:
From "Nevada State Journal", May 8, 1951. Percentage interest in the Frontier Club.
Kriter's name is in third column.
Reno Evening Gazette 1952 license for Circus Room, Lake Tahoe.
Friend:
Saw the thread on TheChipBoard.
The delivery address to William Kriter—315 North Second—is in Las Vegas not Reno (apparently Kriter’s residential address).
1954 Las Vegas directory:
(Myrtle F.) = Myrtle Florence, his wife.
1957 Las Vegas directory:
Not sure what he was doing with the chips. He seems to have been involved with a lot of places over the years, including some illegals in California.
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In October 1953 he took over management of the 7th One Club in Pittman (Henderson), NV but appears to have relinquished that role in Dec 1953, before the chip order in 1954. The 1954 city directory says he was a boxman at the California Club.
October 1953:
pic from 1964 while bingo manager at the El Dorado (his wife Myrtle was a bingo cashier at the El Dorado at the time):
Kriter died in Las Vegas in 1973 (born St Louis 1901).
My note: We have Kriter tracked to working in NV casinos from 1951-1964. Chips delivered in 1952 and 54. Could he have used them in a NV casino?
Input from David Spragg:
"To me that looks like he had a concession for a Pan game in Tahoe and then another for a Big 6 wheel in Vegas".
I tend to agree with David. Back in those years, Pan, Big 6, Faro, and poker were leased out in many casinos. Kriter was licensed in several casinos. In many cases where games were leased out, the chips used did have the persons initials on them, so it is not unusual at all. The WMK chips could have been used in a casino but at this time, I see no way to prove it.
I am including the following on Kriter. Everything below is before the WMK chips were made.
Kriter and Illegal activity in CA.
Don’t have much about Kriter’s activities in California. Appears to have moved from East St. Louis to Los Angeles in the late 1930’s. In 1940 he’s in San Francisco residing at the New Continental Hotel and is employed as a “crap dealer” although I don’t know where. He’s back in LA in the early 1940’s. In 1947 he’s arrested in Camarillo, north of Los Angeles, for operating an illegal crap game. He was said to have been “of Las Vegas” at the time he was arrested. (when arrested police searched his car and found a gun).
Arrested with him at Camarillo was a guy from nearby Oxnard named Charlie King. In 1946 King was reported to have had an interest in Tony Cornero’s gambling ship Lux; in 1949 King was indicted and convicted of attempted bribery when he tried to buy protection for gambling and pro$titution operations in Oxnard.
That’s all I found on Kriter’s gambling activities in California. The fact that in 1947 he was living in Las Vegas and going back to California and operating illegally suggests the possibility that he "MAY" have been doing the same thing when the WMK chips were ordered in the 1952 and 1954.
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