Harveys Casino Lake Tahoe Bombing

Tahoe's Big Bang In the summer of 1980, Harvey's Resort Hotel and Casino, along the California border in Stateline, Nevada, became the site of the largest domestic bombing in U.S. It would continue to hold that distinction for more than a decade, until the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Harvey's Casino Bombing 1980. 26, 1980, 3 men delivered large box was delivered to the 2nd floor of Harvey’s Wagon Wheel Casino in Stateline Nevada, located at the at the south shore of Lake Tahoe. Inside the box was A 3 million dollar ransom note, and a 1000 pound bomb.The Harvey’s Casino Bombing of 1980 on Ghost Town. Here is a video snippet of a bomb that was detonated in Harvey's Casino in Stateline, Nevada - next to South Lake Tahoe, California. The bomb consisted of ov. Days after Birges Sr. And his two cronies, Willis Brown and Terry Hall, wheeled the bomb into Harvey’s second story executive offices, other casinos at Lake Tahoe and the surrounding area received bomb threats from copycats. Harvey Gross’s hotel/casino is still in operation in Lake Tahoe, though after his death in 1983 it was gobbled up by an entertainment conglomerate. Today it is known as simply “Harveys”, its wagon wheel allusion⁠⁠—and its apostrophe⁠⁠—long ago amputated.

Harveys Lake Tahoe is a hotel and casino located in Stateline, Nevada. It has 742 rooms and suites as well as six restaurants and a casino with 87,500 square feet (8,130 m²) of space. It also has a video arcade, wedding chapel, pool, convention center and a full-service health club. It is owned by Vici Properties and operated by Caesars Entertainment.

History[edit]

Harvey's was originally opened in 1944 and operated by Sacramento meat wholesaler Harvey Gross and his wife Llewellyn. They opened the first high rise tower and an 11-story, 197-room hotel in Nevada just across the state line from Lake Tahoe, California in 1963.^[1]

The hotel suffered an explosion from a 1,000-pound bomb on August 27, 1980, that left a crater three stories deep when it was detonated by the FBI. (The area around the hotel had been cleared and no one was injured.) The bomb was placed by John Birges, a heavily in-debt Fresno landscaper who had lost at least $1 million at casinos in Stateline and was hoping to extort $3 million from the bomb threat. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, where he died from liver cancer in 1996.^[2]

In 1983, Harvey Gross died at the age of 78; however, the company continued to operate under family management. In 1985, Harveys sold Harvey's Inn, northeast of Stateline, which reopened as the Lakeside Inn. The 18-story, $74 million, glass 'Lake Tower' opened in 1986,^[3] the same year the trademark 'Wagon Wheel' was replaced on the 11-story tower with the current Harveys brand.

In early 1992, Harveys entered a bidding war with Hilton Hotels Corporation over the right to buy Bally's Reno, which opened on May 3, 1978, as MGM Grand Reno (now Grand Sierra Resort). Harveys announced an agreement on a $71 million deal, only to see Hilton up the ante to $73 million and assumption of Bally's debt. Several weeks later, after considering even higher bids, a federal bankruptcy court settled the matter by approving Hilton's final $83 million offer.

After going public on February 15, 1994, Harveys began new projects including a joint venture with Hard Rock America for an $80 million casino in Las Vegas, which it later sold its interest in 1997 and then a casino resort in Central City, Colorado. A riverboat casino-convention center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, followed in early 1996.

In the late 1990s, Bill Cosby was signed on as the spokesman for Harveys.^[4] This included putting the actor's likeness on several of the casino chips^[5] and recording several specials at the casino.^[6]

In 1999, Colony Capital bought a controlling interest in Harveys Casino Resorts. Harveys announced on April 24, 2001, that it would be acquired by Harrah's Entertainment (later Caesars Entertainment) for $625 million.

On October 6, 2017, ownership of the property was transferred to Vici Properties as part of a corporate spin-off, and it was leased back to Caesars Entertainment.^[7][8]

References[edit]

1. ^'Harvey's hotel now open to the public,' Lake Tahoe News, April 5, 1963
2. ^'John Birges, Sr.,' The Associated Press, September 6, 1996
3. ^'Celebration set for new tower,' Tahoe Daily Tribune, June 26, 1986
4. ^http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/harveys-casino-resorts-history/
5. ^http://www.marlowcasinochips.com/nevada/TahoeStateline/Harveys/Harveys.htm
6. ^http://www.laketahoenews.net/2014/01/now-stateline-casino-ownership/
7. ^'Vici Properties Inc., completes spin-off from Caesars Entertainment Operating Company' (Press release). Vici Properties. October 6, 2017 – via NewsBank.
8. ^Form 424B4: Prospectus (Report). Vici Properties. February 2, 2018. pp. F-54 – via EDGAR.

• Ferchland, William (August 22, 2005). 'Harvey's bombing changed casinos forever'. Tahoe Daily Tribune.
• '25th anniversary of Harveys bombing'. Reno Gazette-Journal. August 2005.

External links[edit]

• Official website
• Media related to Harveys Lake Tahoe Resort and Casino at Wikimedia Commons

The Harvey's Resort Hotel bombing took place on August 26–27, 1980, when three men planted a bomb containing 1,000 pounds (500 kg) of dynamite at Harvey's Resort Hotel (now 'Harveys') in Stateline, Nevada, United States. The mastermind behind the bomb, millionaire John Birges, was attempting to extort $3 million from the casino, claiming he had lost $750,000 gambling there.The bomb was cleverly built and virtually tamper-proof. After studying the bomb for more than a day through x-rays, bomb technicians decided that, although there were warnings from the bomb maker that a shock would trigger the device, the best hope of disarming it was by separating the detonators from the dynamite. They thought they could do this using a shaped charge of C-4. The attempt to disarm the bomb failed and it exploded, destroying much of the casino, although no one was injured. Harrah's Casino (which was connected to Harvey's Casino via a tunnel) was also damaged by the explosion, which broke many of the windows in Harrah's.^[1]

Harveys Casino Lake Tahoe Bombing Victims

John Birges[edit edit source]

John Birges, Sr. (1922–1996), was a Hungarian immigrant from Clovis, California. He flew for the German Luftwaffe during World War II. He was captured and sentenced to 25 years of hard labor in a Russian gulag. Eight years into his sentence in the gulag, he escaped by blowing it up. He emigrated to the U.S. and built a successful landscaping business, but his addiction to gambling led to his losing a large amount of money and prompted the bomb plot. This bombing was a primary piece of evidence linking him to the Lake Tahoe bombing.^[2]

Birges was eventually arrested based on a tip. One of his sons had revealed to his then-girlfriend that his father had placed a bomb in Harvey's. After the two broke up, she was on a date with another man when they heard about a reward for information, and she informed her new boyfriend about Birges. This man then called the FBI.^[1]

Birges built one of the largest bombs the FBI had ever seen from dynamite he had stolen in Fresno. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole. In 1996, at the age of 74, he died of liver cancer at the Southern Nevada Correctional Center, exactly sixteen years and a day after the bombing. According to FBI experts, the Harvey's bomb remains the most complex improvised explosive device ever created and a replica of 'the machine', as the extortionists called it, is still used in FBI training.^[3]

References[edit edit source]

1. ↑ ^1.01.1Vogel, Ed (August 27, 2005). 'Casino explosion nearly forgotten'. Las Vegas Review-Journal. Archived from the original on October 28, 2012. http://web.archive.org/web/20121028034758/http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Aug-27-Sat-2005/news/27105542.html. Retrieved 25 August 2011.
2. ↑Esposito, Richard; Gerstein, Ted (2007-03-06). Bomb Squad: a year inside the nation's most exclusive police unit. Hyperion. p. 178. ISBN 978-1-4013-0152-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=uVywJ6vSMzgC&pg=PA178. Retrieved 25 August 2011.
3. ↑FBI - A Byte Out of History - The Case of the Harvey's Casino Bomb

External links[edit edit source]

Harvey's Casino Lake Tahoe History

• Render Safe: The Untold Story of the Harvey's Bombing, written by journalist Jim Sloan uses court records, trial transcripts and dozens of personal interviews to piece together the story of the extortion attempt and the desperate efforts to disarm the bomb.
• Bombing Harvey, written by John Birges, Jr.