C. W. Fuller operated a log building on this location that provided food and shelter to
gold-seekers who were passing through the area in the reverse
gold rush called the "Rush to Washoe" (meaning people were heading east from instead of west to
California), spurred by the gold, and later
silver, strikes of the
Comstock Lode. Myron Lake owned the property from 1861 into the 1880s, running consecutive hotel businesses under the name Lake's House. After Lake's death, his daughter and son-in-law operated the hotel and renamed it the Riverside. A subsequent owner, Harry Gosse, converted the small frame building into a
brick hotel, retaining the name Riverside. His daughter,
Marguerite Gosse, was a
Nevada Assemblywoman. This version of the Riverside Hotel was destroyed in a fire. Gosse intended to rebuild but was unable to finance the project and
George Wingfield, Reno's most powerful man at the time, acquired the property. Nevada's pre-eminent architect and former
mining engineer Frederic DeLongchamps designed the 1927 version of the Riverside Hotel for
George Wingfield. For the building's design, DeLongchamps employed the rich red brick, so common in Reno, with contrasting cream-colored
Gothic Revival style terra cotta detailing. Situated as it is along the
Truckee River, next to the
Washoe County Courthouse, also designed by DeLongchamps, the Riverside was Reno's most popular hotel. Following the passage of the liberal 1931
divorce law, George Wingfield installed an enormous roof sign advertising the hotel in glowing
neon that was visible all over the
Truckee Meadows. The Riverside had an international reputation and was mentioned in nearly all of the novels and films featuring Reno divorces. The Riverside Hotel was laid out to suit wealthy divorce-seekers, with 40 corner suites that included kitchen facilities and connecting rooms for children and servants. Each of the apartment suites was furnished with a specially designed cork-insulated and tile-lined refrigerator. Cold
brine was circulated through the refrigerators from the main refrigeration plant in the basement. There were 60 single rooms for shorter stays as well. Such a room was occupied by
Clare Boothe (award-winning author, editor of
Vanity Fair,
congresswoman and
ambassador) when she arrived in Reno in 1929 to divorce her husband
George Tuttle Brokaw:Her train arrived in Reno at 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday, February 6, 1929, in a fierce blizzard. Clare's mood turned bleak as the weather when she discovered that her reserved apartment at the Riverside Hotel (a red brick building between the Truckee River and the courthouse) was occupied and that she would have to settle for a 'cubby hole' of a room for the first three days. The Riverside Hotel was the spot most watched by news correspondents who had been sent to cover the national phenomenon journalist
Walter Winchell dubbed "Renovation". Reno had nearly as many reporters on hand as divorce-seekers, with news bureaus representing
Associated Press,
United Press,
International News Service,
The Sacramento Bee and the
New York Daily News, all looking for an exclusive story. ==Casino==