The middle chapter at 501 Jackson
Green Lantern operated at the address in 1945-47. Round-Up followed in 1947-48, and Club Ebony opened in 1948. These dates are best understood as a sequence of operating identities, not proof of continuous ownership.
The 1947 Las Vegas Classified Directory anchors Round-Up in a contemporary public record. That matters for a club whose owners and internal records remain obscure: the address is not simply a name inferred from later collectibles.
A broader gaming room
The surviving account lists slots, blackjack, craps and poker. Green Lantern had been described as offering only slots and craps, so Round-Up represented a noticeable change in what customers could play at the same location.
There is no reliable count of tables or machines, no verified limit schedule and no surviving complete floor plan in the assembled evidence. Club Ebony's later player-backed round-table game description should not be assigned backward to Round-Up without its own evidence.
Customers in a segregated resort city
Jackson Avenue's clubs served a market created in part by exclusion. Black residents, workers, military personnel and visiting entertainers needed places to socialize outside establishments that restricted their access. The corridor offered gambling alongside food, drink, music and nearby lodging.
This context explains why a modest room could matter, but it does not prove every activity occurred inside Round-Up. A specific menu, band, celebrity appearance or restaurant operation remains unconfirmed. The defensible visitor picture is a neighborhood gaming stop within a larger social district.
What the ownership record does not reveal
No verified Round-Up licensee has emerged from the existing material. Clarence Ray's later recollection of Black-owned gambling houses names several neighboring clubs but omits Round-Up. That omission cannot establish its ownership: he may have remembered a different moment or only businesses he knew.
A specialist account also recalls city officials gathering there for lunch. Without a contemporary corroborating record, that remains a recollection rather than proof of a regular political dining institution. These limits matter because otherwise an obscure club can acquire a much more elaborate identity than its evidence supports.
Turnover and neighborhood memory
By 1948 the address became Club Ebony. The exact mechanism, whether a new license, ownership transfer or simple rebranding, is not established. General interpretations link repeated Westside openings and closures to unequal access to capital, but they do not demonstrate Round-Up's individual financial cause of closure.
Round-Up's surviving history is therefore brief but useful. It shows that the Westside was not a static collection of clubs: operators changed offerings and identities while serving a neighborhood whose role in Las Vegas hospitality was much larger than its buildings' size.
The story in time
- 1947
Round-Up is listed at 501 Jackson.
- 1947-48
Reported operation with slots, blackjack, craps and poker.
- 1948
Club Ebony succeeds the Round-Up identity.
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.
Start with these sources
1947 Las Vegas Classified DirectoryClaytee D. White’s Jackson Avenue historyCasino Collectibles Association Westside chronologyClarence Ray oral history, UNLV- Research source1947 Las Vegas Classified Directory
- Research sourceClaytee D. White’s Jackson Avenue history
- Research sourceCasino Collectibles Association Westside chronology
- Research sourceCity of Las Vegas Historic Westside timeline
- Research sourceUNLV Jackson Street Five oral-history project
- Research sourceClarence Ray oral history, UNLV
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