The Cotton club Las Vegas

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The Cotton Club was a club at 500 Jackson Avenue in the West Side of Las Vegas, Nevada, which was an exclusive club for African Americans.
Established in late 1944 as a small bar by Moe Taub, it was one of the earliest Black clubs to legally operate away from Downtown Las Vegas. Sarann Knight-Preddy become a keno writer for the club, and in 1950 she became the first black woman to hold a gaming license in Nevada.

In July 1947 the Cotton Club was sold to Jodie Cannon, who resold it less than 6 months later to Uvalde Caperton, though Cannon stayed on as a manager.[2] The original club was destroyed by an explosion and fire in May 1948. Caperton owned the club until 1957, when it closed.

In 1969, Preddy put in a club with Margie Elliot called the Playhouse Lounge at the location. They were unable to obtain a gaming license and after a year, sold the business.[6] It reopened from 1970 to 1985 as "Love's Cocktail Lounge"
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Contributed by Steven Cutler;

Thanks Steve!


THE COTTON CLUB
When people think about the Cotton Club it is usually associated with the original nightclub located in Harlem, a predominately black neighborhood in New York City. This story is about one of the first black owned and operated casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Las Vegas was known as “The Mississippi of the West” and was highly segregated back in the 40’s. The West Side of Las Vegas was the home to the entire black population at the time, about 3,000 residents, which represented about twenty percent of the total population. Black entertainers who performed in Las Vegas at the time could not sleep, eat or gamble in the hotels they worked in. In fact they had to enter and exit from the rear of the building as to never walk through the casino area, or have contact with any of the white patrons. At the time Sammy Davis Jr. was a regular, performing with his father and uncle as The Will Mastin Trio, at The Last Frontier. Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Dorothy Dandridge and Lena Horne were some of the other well known black entertainers. All of these headliners were forced to stay in West Las Vegas, rather than the hotels they actually performed at. If they wanted to gamble, they did it at one of the many all black casinos located in West Las Vegas.

In 1944 Moe Taub opened the Cotton Club, the second casino to open, it had a small bar with a few slot machines. Shortly after opening, blackjack, craps, keno and poker were added. The address was 500 Jackson Avenue, the surrounding area would soon become a hub for gaming in the black community. The first casino to open was Smokey Joe’s Club Alabama. Some of the other casinos to open after the Cotton Club were The Green Lantern, The Harlem Club, Club Ebony, The Town Hall Round-up, The Carver House, The Cove Hotel, Maverick Club, The El Morocco Club, The Brown Derby and The Moulin Rouge. None of these casinos lasted long and most had a history of ownership changes. The Cotton Club closed in 1957 and had three different owners during this time period.
Recently a very good friend of mine, Danny Madrigrano, found a couple of chips from the Cotton Club and he was kind enough to give me one. These are extremely rare and not often seen. Danny is highly respected in the chip collecting community and is the owner of Poker Chipper.com. This sight was developed to connect collectors from all over the world who share a common interest in casino collectables, specifically chips.
 
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