Why this history matters
Its story follows the changing rules around pleasure in early Reno: licensed gaming moved upstairs, university officials protested access by a minor, statewide prohibition changed the business, and later poker and liquor raids punctuated its final years. The building survived the Oberon name for decades.
The Reception becomes the Oberon
The site’s one-story brick building dated to 1877. Alex Dromiack opened the Reception there in 1898; Charles Dreyer acquired that business in January 1902 and renamed it the Oberon. The remodeled establishment held its grand opening on March 1.
Dreyer’s renovation emphasized a modern, polished appearance. Plate glass replaced the earlier frontage, an English-oak and mahogany back bar provided an elaborate interior focal point, and rear sporting rooms created additional social and gambling space. A flashing electric sign was a conspicuous part of the new identity. Local history describes it as Nevada’s first, but that superlative rests on the retrospective account.
The setting helped give those improvements an audience. Commercial Row lay opposite the passenger station, within a district remembered as Gambler’s Row. Arriving travelers encountered saloons, restaurants, hotels, and gambling houses close together. The Oberon’s appearance competed for attention within that shared environment.
Why the gambling room went upstairs
An upstairs gaming room was not simply a decorative preference. Nevada’s March 13, 1903 statute restricted licensed games to second-story rooms above street grade in counties meeting its voting-population threshold, including Washoe. The Oberon’s second-story addition and connection to the adjacent Louvre Lacey building belong to this regulatory moment.
The upper rooms offered electric keno and table games. The statewide law listed a much broader range of permitted games, but that legal list is not an inventory of the Oberon. The property-specific evidence supports the upstairs arrangement and those general activities; it does not supply a complete table count or set of betting limits.
The rule was short-lived. In March 1905 Nevada again allowed licensed games on the first, second, or third floors. The original upstairs expansion can therefore be explained precisely without assuming that all gambling stayed above the street for the remainder of the business’s life.
Milk punches, sporting rooms, and university scrutiny
A 1903 University of Nevada yearbook advertisement names Charles Dreyer as proprietor of The Oberon Sporting Parlors and promotes Schlitz beer and milk punches. Together with local descriptions of cigar service, a lunch counter, and wine rooms, it gives a concrete picture of a saloon offering several forms of refreshment and social space.
The university connection also exposed a conflict. In September 1905, the Board of Regents sought action against the Oberon’s license after an allegation that a minor had gambled there. The minutes document institutional concern about access to gambling; they are not a census of the establishment’s customers.
By then the management arrangement had changed. In July 1905 Dreyer sold the operating business to William Wacker and P. J. Campbell while retaining the property. The landlord and the people running the saloon were no longer necessarily the same, an important distinction when following complaints or business decisions.
Poker and liquor after the rules changed
The 1910 statewide prohibition ended the Oberon’s openly legal gambling-house era. The building continued to have uses beyond that original business model: its upper floor was leased to the Danish Society in 1911 and became Dania Hall, a setting for meetings and social events.
Gambling nevertheless remained part of the later record. Frank Mitchell was arrested in a 1915 raid involving percentage poker. A poker-related dispute in 1921 led to the shooting of bartender Charles V. Schmidt; W. K. Johnson was later convicted of second-degree murder. These specific incidents show a continuing poker culture without establishing that all activity at the premises was illegal or violent.
A liquor raid in 1922 was followed by the sale of the bar and back bar. The named Oberon operation ended, but the physical building did not. Its later life must be treated as a sequence of successor businesses rather than an uninterrupted Oberon casino.
What remained after the name disappeared
Later tenants included tailoring and food businesses, the Tivoli Bar, Cherokee Club and Cafe, and Montana Club. Fires damaged parts of the old commercial block in the mid-twentieth century. In 1977 demolition associated with Harolds Club’s Commercial Row expansion removed the older buildings, ending the physical setting of the Oberon story.
Trade tokens preserve another possible trace. A specialist catalog records Oberon-named pieces good for a drink or for small amounts in trade, including a King & Justi / Reno / Oberon token. Their exact dates and continuity with Dreyer’s operation are not established. They are service or trade tokens, not automatically casino chips.
The Oberon’s gambling history does not depend on finding a familiar rack of denomination chips. Its advertisements, statutes, university minutes, and building history already document an important early gaming establishment. Together they reveal a Reno in which modern lighting and polished interiors existed beside changing laws, reform pressure, and the everyday trade of a railroad district.
The story in time
- 1877–1898
The brick building is constructed and later houses the Reception.
- March 1, 1902
Dreyer’s remodeled Oberon opens.
- 1903
Second-floor gaming space is added during Nevada’s upstairs-only licensing rule.
- 1905
The floor restriction is reversed; Dreyer sells the operating business and regents raise an underage-gambling complaint.
- 1910–1911
Legal gambling is prohibited statewide; the upstairs becomes Dania Hall.
- 1915–1922
Poker and liquor enforcement episodes precede the end of the named Oberon business.
- 1977
Commercial Row demolition removes the former Oberon building during casino expansion.
Sources & further reading
The numbered links in each chapter point to the supporting material below. The wider bibliography also includes archival collections and specialist references. Historical uncertainty is explained where it affects the story; a source link does not grant permission to reproduce its images.
- Research sourceReno Historical — Historic Gambling Clubs and Casinos
- Research sourceReno — Here…this is you: Commercial Row / Oberon history
- Research sourceNevada Historical Quarterly, 1985
- Research sourceNevada State University Board of Regents minutes, September 30, 1905
- Research sourceUniversity of Nevada Artemisia yearbook, 1903
- Research source1903 Nevada Statutes, Chapter 70
- Research source1905 Nevada Statutes, Chapter 50
- Research source1879 Nevada Statutes, Chapter 110
- Research sourceDoresa Banning — “Who is Johnny Ox?”
- Research sourceCharles Dreyer, Louvre Saloon, and the Fight of the Century
- Research sourceNevada Trade Tokens catalog
- Research sourceUniversity of Nevada, Reno Commercial Row photograph collection lead
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