Morris Dalitz started his career in the shadows of the law, but as that career unraveled in Las Vegas, his life became one of community development and philanthropy. More than any other of the “founding fathers” of Las Vegas, Moe Dalitz converted a questionable past into an honored status as a community icon.
Morris “Moe” Barney Dalitz was born on 24 December 1899 in Boston, Massachusetts. When Moe was very young, his family moved to Michigan. There his father started Varsity Laundry near the University of Michigan campus. The laundry business expanded, and soon the Michigan Industrial Laundry in Detroit was in son Moe Dalitz’s control. The laundry had certain symbiotic relationships that opened doors for Dalitz’s new business interests. When Prohibition descended upon the nation, bootleggers needed delivery mechanisms. Dalitz had trucks. The laundry trucks served customers at hotels and could also be put onto barges that could be transported across the waters of the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair, Lake Huron, and Lake Erie from Canada. One of the favorite places of entry for liquor as it came from Canada to the bootleggers in the United States was the point where Mayfield Road near Cleveland ended at the shores of Lake Erie. Dalitz became the leader of a group called the Mayfield Road Gang operating in Cleveland, Detroit, and Ann Arbor.
Moe Dalitz continued from the earliest days of his bootlegging activities to take the profits and convert them into legitimate businesses: more laundry businesses, the Detroit Steel Company, and even a railroad. He also had his eye out for what his liquor customers wanted, especially when Prohibition ended. He concluded that gambling was a natural business for a follow-up. Dalitz became a principal owner for several illegal casinos throughout the Midwest, including several in Cleveland and northern Kentucky.
Moe Dalitz was too old to be drafted when the United States entered World War II. He had a strong sense of obligation, however, and he enlisted as a private. His business acumen landed him in the quartermaster corps, when he received a commission. He served stateside running army laundry services. His assignment allowed him to keep in touch with his private investments.
Moe Dalitz remained active in the Detroit laundry business into the 1950s. Inevitably, he came face-to-face with Jimmy Hoffa in negotiations with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (the Teamsters’ union). At first it appeared that there would be a monumental confrontation, with both sides calling out their “muscle” to make their position stronger. But their cooler heads prevailed as they found that mutual benefits could flow from friendly relationships. Later, Hoffa negotiated major loans for several Dalitz gambling projects and for other things as well. The first Teamsters’ loan to Las Vegas went to Dalitz so that he could finance Sunrise Hospital. Later loans also financed the Winterwood Golf Course, the Las Vegas Country Club, and Boulevard Mall – the largest shopping center in Nevada, even today.
Dalitz had come to Las Vegas in the aftermath of the crackdowns on illegal gambling that had been prompted by the Kefauver investigations. Dalitz himself was a witness in front of the Kefauver Committee. When asked if he had made money bootlegging, he told Senator Kefauver that he had not inherited his money, and “if you people wouldn’t have drunk it, I wouldn’t have bootlegged it”.
In the 1950s, Dalitz had had to choose between Las Vegas and Havana, and after trying Cuba, he decided to leave that territory to his friend Meyer Lansky. In actuality, Fidel Castro’s takeover of the island ended Dalitz’s thoughts about Havana casinos. If he had pursued the Havana idea, the Nevada gambling regulators would have informed him that no Nevada casino license holder could have a casino interest elsewhere.
The leaders of organized crime families in the United States had declared Las Vegas an “open city” after Benjamin Siegel finished his Flamingo in 1946. This meant that groups of entrepreneurs, such as those with whom Dalitz was associated, were welcome to come into Las Vegas and compete alongside Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, and other eastern Mob leaders. The Dalitz group found its opportunity on the Strip with Wilbur Clark’s Desert Inn Resort. Clark had gathered resources for his “dream” in 1947, but he was way short of what he needed. Dalitz and his Cleveland group made Clark an offer he “couldn’t refuse”. Clark gave up 74 percent of the ownership (that is, majority control) in return for seeing the project with his name still on it. Later the name was dropped. Dalitz added a special touch that changed marketing approaches for casinos in the future. He added a championship golf course next to the Desert Inn. Then he created a major tournament on the Professional Golf Association’s tour: the Tournament of Champions in which only winners of other tour events could compete.
In 1955 Tony Cornero died. This West Coast crime figure had made his name running casino ships off the coast of California until authorities such as Gov. Earl Warren closed down the gambling. Cornero moved to Las Vegas and started the Stardust. When he died, the remaining ownership group was very scattered and lacked the funds to complete the project. Dalitz moved in and secured a loan from Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters union and finished the job. He took control of management when the property opened in 1958. The Stardust added a golf course with another Champions Tournament. The casinos increased the glitz level of the Las Vegas Strip by having the largest and most noticeable sign. The Stardust also brought in the Lido Show from Paris, which featured a chorus line of fifty well-costumed but still topless showgirls.
Moe Dalitz’s interests also went to downtown Las Vegas, where he bought and sold the Fremont and also constructed the Sundance (now the Fitzgerald), which was the tallest building in the state for many years. His investment in a California resort called Rancho La Costa brought a lot of attention, as he again used Teamsters’ loans and his partners were people with questionable backgrounds. Dalitz sued Penthouse magazine for writing a very critical article about his participation with mobsters. He lost the suit, but the Nevada Gaming Commission began to examine the question of whether or not he should hold casino licenses. He had by this time already sold the Desert Inn, and he sold other casino interests as well, keeping the properties and leasing them to the holders of the gambling licenses. He became content to be an elder statesman for Las Vegas. Other business interests satisfied all his financial needs, and his many charities made him a leading citizen.
Moe Dalitz had organized a group of casino owners in the mid-1960s to develop a strategy to make casinos more legitimate in the eyes of the power holders in the state. The Nevada Resorts Association was established as a lobbying arm of the casinos. One of their first projects was to support the creation of a hotel school at the new University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In personal actions Dalitz gave additional contributions to the new university to furnish its first building—Maude Frazier Hall. He was also a major contributor to many charities. His money was instrumental in starting a major temple for his faith. He was named Humanitarian of the Year by the American Cancer Society and in 1982 received an award from the Anti Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. When he died on 31 August 1989, he had completed the transition from being an outlaw businessman to being the most respected citizen of his city.
Dalitz’s career had a very personal impact on my life. I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where my family patronized the Varsity Laundry started by Moe Dalitz’s father. Neighbors’ houses were sold by Dalitz Realty. I never heard that name again until I moved to Las Vegas in 1980. When my father visited me, he asked if there was a Moe Dalitz in Las Vegas, and I replied that yes, he was one of the founders of the Las Vegas Strip. My father then related that he had played cards with Moe’s father, Barney, in the 1920s and that they had lived just two blocks away from us on Granger Street. In the late 1980s I went to Ohio to study a campaign for casinos in Lorain, near Cleveland. As I drove off the interstate highway into town, I noticed the name of the road was Mayfield Road, famous from Prohibition days. I had come to another spot in Moe Dalitz’s career. Now in Las Vegas I shop at the Boulevard Mall; one year my boys went to the school at Temple Beth Shalom; I visited the emergency room at Sunrise Hospital when the kids needed a stitch or two; I walk by Frazier Hall on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, campus five days a week – all places associated with Dalitz. My office is in the building that houses the Hotel College. On occasion I have had the pleasure of dining at the Las Vegas Country Club as a guest of one “important” person or another. I feel that the shadow of Moe Dalitz has covered many of my footsteps.
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