Silvio Petricciani - University of Nevada, Reno

Life in Reno, 1930-1943
29
on the corner of Liberty and Virginia Street.
It was on the northeast corner of Liberty and
Virginia where Security National Bank is now.
Used to be a big garage there. As a matter of
fact my dad used to keep his car there; and
for thirty dollars a month, when he’d come
home at night, the attendant would bring
him home, bring the car back, put it in the
garage, and in the morning he’d call for his
car and they’d bring it to him. As a matter of
fact, Myron Frank, his son, just died recently.
They had the old Grand Central Garage and
then they had the old Reno Garage here now
where the telephone company is now. And
then his sons, his stepsons, now own the First
National Bank Parking Garage there; one is
a lawyer (I went to school with him), George
Folsom. They were Myron Frank’s stepsons.
The sane publication mentioned Frank Cochran
and Buzz Morrison, commercial pilots and
instructors.
Buzz Morrison, Frank Cochran—I just
remember the names. They were commercial
pilots, and I think Cochran had something to
do with the old Air Service Company, if I’m
not mistaken.
How were slot machines in the thirties different
than the ones we have today?
Oh, the slot machines in the thirties were
very much different than the ones we have
today. Of course you must remember that slot
machines in those days were not regulated.
And before gaming was legalized, why as I
told you before slot machines were put on
location, and of course the operator furnished
the slot machine, the proprietor furnished the
place, and they split the take fifty-fifty. And
the slot machines in those days were, first
they had the old Caille slot machines, the big
round dial in the middle; you’d put a coin in
at the top and pull the coin down, then push a
handle and the wheel would go around and it
would stop on certain pays. And they weren’t
as liberal, of course, as they are today, a little
tighter on the payoff, around seventy percent
payoff and thirty percent for the house.
And then as time went on they came
into the smaller slot machines. There was
Caille and Mills—what’s the other one? But
the Cailles and the Mills were the two most
prominent slot machines. And Bally was
unknown of or unheard of in those days. Of
course everything was mechanical; nothing
was electronic in those days. The advent of
electronic slot machines was with the old
pinball games, and actually they didn’t know
in those days the electronics that they had
in pinball games could be applied to a slot
machine. The technology wasn’t there because
there was no payoffs with the pinball games,
you know. They’d just click and make lights go
on, so on and so forth. And of course it was
all hard-wired as opposed to transistors and
diodes and all that kind of stuff now.
But they were really very simple
mechanically. And not up until I’d say 1934
or so, did they have say a fifty-cent machine;
people didn’t have money to play dollar slot
machines in those days. Of course even on
the gaming tables you could play “21” for a
quarter. Oh, yes. People didn’t have the money
in those days to gamble big.
Jennings was the other big manufacturer
of slot machines, but Mills was the most
prominent slot machine and the most
trouble free. And all of their payoffs were
made mechanically, of course, through
slides which—I still have some machines up
here. And along came Pace; they built a slot
machine which was a very good slot machine.
Wasn’t a good slot machine mechanically, but
it got a lot of play. That’s where Harold [Smith]