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The Harvey's Resort Hotel bombing took place on August 26–27, 1980, when three men planted an elaborately booby trappedbomb containing 1,000 pounds (450 kg) of dynamite at Harvey's Resort Hotel (now 'Harveys') in Stateline, Nevada, United States. After an attempt to disarm the bomb, it exploded causing extensive damage to the hotel but no injuries or deaths. John Birges Sr. was convicted of having made the bomb, and wanted to extort money from the casino after having lost $750,000 there. He later died in prison in 1996, at the age of 74.

Background[edit]

John Birges, Sr., was a Hungarian immigrant from Clovis, California. He flew for the German Luftwaffe during World War II. He was captured and sentenced to 25 years of hard labor in a Sovietgulag. Eight years into his sentence in the gulag, he was released during a period of mass repatriation of Soviet Union POWs to their home countries, and returned to Hungary. From there, he emigrated to the U.S. and built a successful landscaping business, but his addiction to gambling led to his losing a large amount of money and prompted the bomb plot.^[1] His gambling debt and experience with explosives were primary pieces of evidence linking him to the bombing.^[2]

Bombing[edit]

The mastermind behind the bomb, former millionaire John Birges, was attempting to extort $3 million ($9.3 million today) from the casino, claiming he had lost $750,000 ($2.3 million today) gambling there.

The FBI went to the spot that they believed to be the ransom drop, but due to vague directions, Birges was waiting at a different location. No money was paid to Birges.^[3]

The bomb was cleverly built and virtually tamper-proof. The ransom note stated that the bomb could not be disarmed even by the bomb builder, but if paid $3 million he would give instructions on which combination of switches would allow the bomb to be moved and remotely detonated.^[3] The FBI determined that it would take four men to move it and there was no way to know if the bomb was truly disarmed or safe to move. The FBI decided that the bomb would have to be disarmed in the hotel. All guests and their belongings were evacuated from the hotel and the gas main was shut off.^[3]

After studying the bomb for more than a day through x-rays, bomb technicians decided that, although there were warnings from the bomb maker that a shock would trigger the device, the best hope of disarming it was by separating the detonators from the dynamite. The technicians thought this could be accomplished using a shaped charge of C-4. The attempt to disarm the bomb failed as the technicians did not know that dynamite had also been placed in the top box containing the detonation circuit; the shaped charge detonated the top box explosives, which caused the rest of the bomb to detonate. The bomb destroyed much of the casino, although no one was injured. Harrah's Casino (which was connected to Harvey's Resort via a tunnel) was also damaged by the explosion, which broke many of the casino's windows.^[4][5]

The bomb, one of the largest the FBI had ever seen, was loaded with an estimated 1,000 lb (450 kg) of dynamite stolen from a construction site in Fresno, California. According to FBI experts, the Harvey's bomb remains the most complex improvised explosive device they have examined, and a replica of 'the machine', as the extortionists called it, was still used in FBI training as of 2009.^[6]

Investigation[edit]

Birges was investigated as a possible suspect due to his white van being identified as being in South Tahoe at the time of the bombing.^[3] Birges was eventually arrested based on a tip.^[7][8] One of his sons had revealed to his then-girlfriend that his father had placed a bomb in Harvey's. After the two broke up, she was on a date with another man when they heard about a reward for information, and she informed her new boyfriend about Birges. This man then called the FBI.^[4]

Birges was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.^[9] In 1996, at the age of 74, he died of liver cancer at the Southern Nevada Correctional Center, sixteen years and a day after the bombing.

References[edit]

1. ^'Federal Grand Jury Indicts 6 in Bombing of Casino at Tahoe'. The New York Times. Associated Press. 19 August 1981. Archived from the original on 14 September 2017. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
2. ^Esposito, Richard; Gerstein, Ted (March 6, 2007). Bomb Squad: a year inside the nation's most exclusive police unit. Hyperion. p. 178. ISBN978-1-4013-0152-1. Archived from the original on June 26, 2014. Retrieved August 25, 2011.
3. ^ ^abcdHigginbotham, Adam (2014). 'A Thousand Pounds of Dynamite'. The Atavist Magazine. Archived from the original on October 9, 2015. Retrieved May 26, 2015.
4. ^ ^abVogel, Ed (August 27, 2005). 'Casino explosion nearly forgotten'. Las Vegas Review-Journal. Archived from the original on October 28, 2012. Retrieved August 25, 2011.
5. ^Fabio, Adam. 'This is What A Real Bomb Looks Like'. Archived from the original on February 19, 2016. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
6. ^'A Byte Out of History: The Case of the Harvey's Casino Bomb FBI'. U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. August 26, 2009. Archived from the original on August 9, 2016. Retrieved July 27, 2016.
7. ^King, Wayne (18 August 1981). 'F.B.I. Says Casino Bombing Figure Considered Coast Bank Extortion'. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 24 May 2015. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
8. ^Special to the New York Times (17 August 1981). 'Arrests Reported in Casino Bombing'. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 14 September 2017. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
9. ^'Conviction in Casino Bombing'. The New York Times. 23 October 1982. Archived from the original on 14 September 2017. Retrieved 19 December 2017.

Further reading[edit]

• Birges Jr, John; Arnold, Nina J. (2010). Bombing Harvey. New York: Vantage Press. ISBN978-0533163809. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2020-01-10.
• Sloan, Jim (2011). Render Safe: The Untold Story of the Harvey's Bombing.^{[ISBN missing]}

Coordinates: 38°57′37″N119°56′33″W / 38.9603°N 119.9424°W

Harveys Lake Tahoe is a hotel and casino located in Stateline, Nevada. It has 740 rooms and suites as well as six restaurants and a casino with 87,500 square feet (8,130 m²) of space. It also has a video arcade, wedding chapel, pool, convention center and a full-service health club. It is owned by Vici Properties and operated by Caesars Entertainment Corporation (merger with Eldorado Resorts pending).

History[edit]

Harvey's was originally opened in 1944 and operated by Sacramento meat wholesaler Harvey Gross and his wife Llewellyn. They opened the first high rise tower and an 11-story, 197-room hotel in Nevada just across the state line from Lake Tahoe, California in 1963.^[1]

The hotel suffered an explosion from a 1,000-pound bomb on August 27, 1980, that left a crater three stories deep when it was detonated by the FBI. (The area around the hotel had been cleared and no one was injured.) The bomb was placed by John Birges, a heavily in-debt Fresno landscaper who had lost at least $1 million at casinos in Stateline and was hoping to extort $3 million from the bomb threat. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, where he died from liver cancer in 1996.^[2]

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In 1983, Harvey Gross died at the age of 78; however, the company continued to operate under family management. In 1985, Harveys sold Harvey's Inn, northeast of Stateline, which reopened as the Lakeside Inn. The 18-story, $74 million, glass 'Lake Tower' opened in 1986,^[3] the same year the trademark 'Wagon Wheel' was replaced on the 11-story tower with the current Harveys brand.

In early 1992, Harveys entered a bidding war with Hilton Hotels Corporation over the right to buy Bally’s Reno, which opened on May 3, 1978, as MGM Grand Reno (now Grand Sierra Resort). Harveys announced an agreement on a $71 million deal, only to see Hilton up the ante to $73 million and assumption of Bally's debt. Several weeks later, after considering even higher bids, a federal bankruptcy court settled the matter by approving Hilton’s final $83 million offer.

After going public on February 15, 1994, Harveys began new projects including a joint venture with Hard Rock America for an $80 million casino in Las Vegas, which it later sold its interest in 1997 and then a casino resort in Central City, Colorado. A riverboat casino-convention center in Council Bluffs, Iowa followed in early 1996.

In the late '90s, Bill Cosby was signed on as the spokesman for Harveys.^[4] This include putting the actor on several of the casino chips^[5] and recording several specials at the casino.^[6]

In 1999, Colony Capital bought a controlling interest in Harveys Casino Resorts. Harveys announced on April 24, 2001, that it would be acquired by Harrah's Entertainment (now Caesars Entertainment) for $625 million.

In October 2017, ownership of the property was transferred to Vici Properties as part of a corporate spin-off, and it was leased back to Caesars Entertainment.^[7][8]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^'Harvey's hotel now open to the public,' Lake Tahoe News, April 5, 1963
2. ^'John Birges, Sr.,' The Associated Press, September 6, 1996
3. ^'Celebration set for new tower,' Tahoe Daily Tribune, June 26, 1986
4. ^http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/harveys-casino-resorts-history/
5. ^http://www.marlowcasinochips.com/nevada/TahoeStateline/Harveys/Harveys.htm
6. ^http://www.laketahoenews.net/2014/01/now-stateline-casino-ownership/
7. ^'Vici Properties Inc., completes spin-off from Caesars Entertainment Operating Company' (Press release). Vici Properties. October 6, 2017 – via NewsBank.
8. ^Form 424B4: Prospectus (Report). Vici Properties. February 2, 2018. pp. F-54 – via EDGAR.

• Ferchland, William (August 22, 2005). 'Harvey's bombing changed casinos forever'. Tahoe Daily Tribune.
• '25th anniversary of Harveys bombing'. Reno Gazette-Journal. August 2005.

External links[edit]

• Official website
• Media related to Harveys Lake Tahoe Resort and Casino at Wikimedia Commons