When did GUY MCAFEE Open club 91?

Answer 1

MY ANSWER:

My research suggests that he broke ground for Club 91 in January of 1939, so my Best Guess Answer is: Shortly after New Years in January of 1939.

While McAfee was still in his twenties, he rose in the ranks of the LAPD to become a Captain in charge of the Vice Squad, where he filled his pockets weekly with graft from every unlawful venue his officers could come across. When he had amounted enough cash, he was able to opened his own speakeasies with hookers and gambling. His second wife, Annabelle Forrester, one of Hollywood's most talked-about madams, took care of the girls, but when Judge Fletcher Bowron was elected mayor of Los Angeles, McAfee was forced to resign his post after nearly two decades of lucratively working both sides of the street.

Bowron was dead set on clearing out LA of all of its corrupt officials. And, Guy had to go due to all the attention that he had generated. For example: In 1931, McAfee drew headlines in Southern California and LasVegas when he was briefly detained in Los Angeles following the murder of two rival businessmen who had been shot by a candidate, David Clark, for office whom McAfee had supported. It has also been said that McAfee got his fellow gangster friend Mickey Cohen to send his men, as well as many of his own men, to kill Mark Bishop after he discovers that he raped his niece, Jessica Hamilton, and then attempted to kill her and his wife. McAfee denied any involvement and was never charged.

McAfee's Clover Club, was a private, illicit casino on the Sunset Strip, and very popular with the movie crowd, and wealthy patrons in the 1930s. His club was fitted with illegal gambling tables that could be flipped over and hidden during raids. However it was targeted by LA law enforcement for prohibition and vice raids, and was closed and reopened a number of times. Good fortune followed as McAfee was allowed to leave the city without an indictment, and arrived in Las Vegas in 1938 with his third wife, the former film actress June Brewster, to set up a new, more legal, gaming operations.

In 1929, a former Detroit businessman began building a nightclub on the new highway from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. He borrowed money from Frank Detra. But before the club was opened, the man had backed out of the loan and Detra finished the club in 1930, naming it Pair O' Dice. This club is believed to be the first nightclub on the three miles of the desert LA highway in Las Vegas. It was only opened at night, and offered fine Italian meals, dance bands, and jazz performers, along with the standard gaming tables. And due to Prohibition of the 1920s, it was a private club (a knock knock - what's the password? type speakeasy) and also gambling didn't become legalized in Nevada until 1931. The Pair O' Dice then opened as a public nightclub with a history of closing, and re-opening for expansion, as well as being served abatement papers for selling alcohol during Prohibition.

On this site was also a house that the Detra family lived in, with a second smaller building furnished as a bedroom for an occasional visitor. The truth is that the "occasional" visitor was usually one of Al Capone's men and other mob members such as Guy.

In 1936, Detra renamed the Pair O' Dice Nightclub, the Ambassador. After McAfee was able to persuaded Detra to sell the nightclub in late 1938 for about $20,000, he scheduled the club's reopening, under the name 91-Club, to exploit the burst of publicity generated by the Las Vegas divorce of movie star Clark Gable and his wife, Carole Lombard, on March 7, 1939. By then, Guy reportedly held $1 million in assets from California.

Online References:

http://www.onlinenevada.org/articles/guy-mcafee#sthash.g80KlSBq.dpuf

mirage-resorts

http://derangedlacrimes.com/?tag=guy-mcafee

http://lanoire.wikia.com/wiki/Guy_McAfee

http://www.reviewjournal.com/life/las-vegas-history/guy-mcafee-credited-branding-strip

http://books.google.com/books?id=VD0e59nXb6MC&pg=PA103&lpg=PA103&dq=guy+mcafee+club+1939&source=bl&ots=JJiDrufTI0&sig=tcixWfd9qf4wrs3Ha85NHsIjEVk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nruLUqXNF-aaiAK9vYDgAw&ved=0CEUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=guy%20mcafee%20club%201939&f=false

http://classiclasvegas.squarespace.com/a-brief-history-of-the-strip/2007/6/3/the-pair-o-dice-club.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=YalWxsoWEIkC&pg=PA197&lpg=PA197&dq=Frank+Detra&source=bl&ots=N82o26 taV&sig=zZ4e ED3peiOlh2BCJv HztIFwE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jbSLUquTJYiwjAKpt4HgCA&ved=0CFUQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Frank%20Detra&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=IfKkR0eOE5oC&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq=guy+mcafee+club+1939&source=bl&ots=bLTnP0MQTz&sig=NlqsWqOrpCnyCIW0QQx4q-hsJhg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nruLUqXNF-aaiAK9vYDgAw&ved=0CHEQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=guy%20mcafee%20club%201939&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=xGwmlvtaKIYC&pg=PT117&lpg=PT117&dq=guy+mcafee+Annabelle+Forrester&source=bl&ots=KcefYX3BPJ&sig=wg8gmLDTDJX0ZFfwy4Ykf7feYTc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3_GLUpLwJIqtigLsh4DQAg&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=guy%20mcafee%20Annabelle%20Forrester&f=false

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/11/local/la-me-harnisch-20120411

http://www.playgroundtothestars.com/2013/03/ad-for-the-clover-club/

http://www.playgroundtothestars.com/to-review/key-players/guy-mcafee

http://www.clarkcountynv.gov/Depts/parks/Documents/centennial/history/history-rjweekly-historyphotos.pdf

http://forums.govteen.com/sunset-strip/370821-history-las-vegas-2.html

http://www.inoldlasvegas.com/last_frontier.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carole_Lombard

View a photo of Guy breaking ground for the 91 Club is here in a UCLA collection: http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz00179dq9

--Mark A Spilmon, Las Vegas History Buff and former Vegas Cabbie (A full decade of being up close and personal with Las Vegas Streets)