My Agua Caliente web pages:
¶ http://www.antiquegamblingchips.com/AguaCalienteChips.htm
¶ http://www.antiquegamblingchips.com/AguaaaaaaaTest.htm
BRIEF HISTORY OF AGUA CALIENTE: "From 1919 to 1933, alcohol, casinos, prost_itution, narcotics and horse race betting were all forbidden or tightly restricted in California, and all were easily available in Tijuana, Mexico. The Agua Caliente casino-hotel resort was opened in Tijuana in 1928. It lay only six miles south of the border, less than 20 miles from San Diego, accessible by train, a one hour plane ride from Los Angeles. It covered 655 acres and cost about $10 million at the time. It became the most lavish and popular resort in the Western Hemisphere, a vacation destination for the Hollywood elite, other celebrities and ordinary Americans. The place had everything, and everything was first-rate: 500-room hotel, extensive casino, the richest golf and horse-racing prizes in the world, health spa, hot springs, an "olympic size" swimming pool, health clinics, golf putting course, horseback riding, deep sea fishing, wild game hunting, horse racing and greyhound race tracks, gardens and tropical aviary, bungalows, private radio station, airport facility and railroad link. All this came to an end with the legalization of casino gambling in Nevada in 1931; the repeal in 1933 of Prohibition's 18th Amendment in the U.S.; the legalization of pari-mutuel wagering at California racetracks in 1933 and the building of the lavish Santa Anita racetrack in 1934; and, finally and most important, the criminalization of gambling in Mexico in 1935."
Robert
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