I can't answer your original question about Tristate, but the Bank Club had a good story. It kept nagging at me, then I found it in the Hank Boss auction catalog, published by Chip Chat/Doug Saito...Nevada historian and story-teller extraordinaire .

Lou Gammell, a former Reno police-chief, had put up a wooden frame building in Searchlight and it became the Bank Club in the early 1940s...before Davis Dam was constructed.

The Davis Dam project was ready to get started...and construction workers would be in the area. Sheriff Glenn Jones of Las Vegas, and a partner named Clesse Turner, bought up 160 acres of riverfront property. The property was near where the Riverside Resort in Laughlin is currently located. Jones and Turner subleased the property to several bars and businesses...including Gammell's Bank Club. Gammell moved the entire Bank Club building to the Davis Dam site!!!

First issue chips were ordered in 1946 (large crown). Clark County records show that the Bank Club only had one blackjack table, one craps table and one poker table.

By 1950 the Dam was finished and Eddie Middleton was the owner of the Bank Club. Construction workers were gone and, with the majority of their customers gone, the Bank Club was being readied to move back to Searchlight. But the Bank Club burned down one night, under mysterious circumstances. There's speculation, of course, that Searchlight casino owners might not have wanted the Bank Club returning to town for a slice of the pie...

Told ya' it was a good story!!!

And this is the reason that I'm I've never been to one of Doug's seminars at the conventions...and it's a reason I've bought several auction catalogs though I usually don't bid...and it's the main reason that I subscribe to Chip Chat.