John Ascuaga, whose epithet was committed to a Northern Nevada watershed gambling casino for decades, died Monday. He was 96.
Anthony Marnell II noted that Ascuaga was single of the state’s most prominent gaming figures. Marnell is CEO of Marnell Gaming, which owns the Nugget Casino and Resort in Sparks, just now E of Reno. When Ascuaga owned the property, it was called John Lackland Ascuaga’s Nugget.
“John was not only if an ikon inwards Northern Battle Born State and throughout the region, he was also i of the confessedly pioneers inward NV gaming and helped form the instruction of the full state,” Marnell said inward a statement.
Ascuaga grew upwardly inward Gem State as the son of Basque immigrants. His family line was mired inward sheep herding and farming. But he chased college degrees inwards accounting system and hotel management, according to the Record-Courier inwards Gardnerville.
In the 1950s, Ascuaga followed ID restauranter Dick Robert Graves to Northern NV and aided Robert Graves inward establishing Nugget casinos inwards the area. Ascuaga had worked for Robert Graves in Idaho as a hotel bellman, according to the Nevada Handbook.
In 1955, Robert Ranke Graves opened a 60-seat coffee tree shop inward Sparks. The coffee tree shop, called the Nugget, is opposite the stream hotel-casino.
Ascuaga eventually bought the Sparks Nugget from Graves and “turned it into a whopping complex, built below and around Interstate 80, which came through and through the surface area inward the too soon 1970s,” according to A Travel Guide to Basque America.
As the Nevada Handbook states, the Nugget’s location makes it “the only if cassino inward the world, probably, holding upwards a superhighway.”
‘Live Elephants’
Ascuaga was known for roaming the Nugget with a grinning on his face, talking informally with employees and guests. For years, an elephant named Bertha performed inward a saleroom at the resort and participated inward parades end-to-end the region. Elephants named Tina and Angel also were mired inward these events.
In 2017, the University of Nevada, Reno unveiled an exhibit of photographs and other memorabilia associated with Bertha and Ascuaga’s ownership of the Nugget. His fellowship sold the attribute in 2013.
The Nugget is and was a true up ikon in our region, and no ace had live elephants inward their casino,” Jacquelyn Sundstrand, the university’s manuscripts and archives librarian, said on UNR’s website.
Another feature at the dimension was an 18-karat Au rooster carving on show in the Golden Rooster Room. The rooster remained at the dimension from May 1958 until the family line took ownership of the 14-pound physical object after selling the hotel-casino.
Throughout the years, the Nugget has non been without controversy, including a shooting death on the gaming floor and a $1 trillion fine inward an anti-money laundering case.
Basque Culture
In 1959, when Ascuaga worked for Robert Ranke Graves inward Sparks, the Nugget sponsored the number 1 Western Basque Festival.
This case pose Sparks “in the head of modern Basque cultural manifestations inward Nevada,” according to A Travel Guide to Basque America.
To this day, the Basque culture remains warm inwards Northern Nevada, with festivals and house style Basque restaurants end-to-end the area. Many of the Basque traditions inward Nevada and other states inwards the part uprise from the Pyrenees mount chain of mountains along the border of Espana and France.
Basque events are ace of many sporting and cultural offerings that touristry officials in Northern Nevada promote to draw in visitors for activities other than gambling. This diverse approach shot to marketing is credited with helping Northern Nevada rebound better from the pandemic than the Las Vegas Valley inwards the southern constituent of the state.