Hoover Dam's 'Murder Hotel' Is Celebrating Anniversary
The Boulder Dam Hotel hosted a gala to celebrate its 90th anniversary on Friday, with attendees wearing costumes celebrating the historic landmark's 1930s heyday. This two-story colonial-style guest house in Boulder, 30 miles southeast of the Hoover Dam on the Las Vegas Strip, has also housed a museum since 2005.
The Boulder Dam Hotel's storied history includes hosting heads of state and celebrities, as well as one of the most enduring "alleged" murder mysteries in Nevada history.
The Boulder Dam Hotel opened in 1933, three years before the Hoover Dam was completed, and is the most elegant building in Boulder City. The Boulder Dam Hotel began as a celebrity playground.
Bette Davis stayed here in 1934 after filming "Of Human Bondage" nearby. The guest list the following year included Will Rogers, who was performing at the Boulder Theater, and Cornelius Vanderbilt IV and his wife on their honeymoon. In 1938, Shirley Temple spent the night here while driving from Los Angeles to New York with her parents. In 1943, Howard Hughes was recovering at the hotel from a plane crash in nearby Lake Mead.
Dark Side
In 1945, however, the Boulder Dam Hotel became associated with a dark history that it could never fully escape.
When hotel owner Raymond Spilsbury drowned in the nearby Colorado River, medical examiners concluded it was suicide. But most historians who have delved into the event have "serious" problems with the discovery.
According to Dennis McBride's 1993 book "Midnight on Arizona Street: The Secret Life of the Boulder Dam Hotel," Spilsbury's widow Warner told the author, "We were all up to something bad."
She has a solid case.
Tangled Weber
Paul Webb, a developer best known for building luxury homes in Beverly Hills in the 1920s, tried to do the same in Boulder City, starting with the Boulder Dam Hotel. But he lacked financial resources. So he turned to Spilsbury, with whom he worked for the Cerrod Pasco Copper Company during World War I.
They agreed to form a hotel company with Austin Clark, another copper miner.
By 1943, the effects of thirty years living and working in the high altitudes of the Peruvian Andes had already taken their toll on Spilsbury. He suffered a mild stroke and developed angina and leg pain.
The next year, he moved to a Boulder City hotel with Vona and her son to retire. Spilsbury had planned to help his brother Chauncey, who managed the estate, revive the estate during his recovery.
suspicious story
On January 19, 1945, Spilsbury, 56, drove to Emery's Landing, a small fishing town on Lake Mead about 20 miles south of Boulder City. His alleged purpose was to go fishing with Moore Emery, according to the entrepreneur who started a fishing resort with money he earned transporting Hoover Dam workers to construction sites.
But Spilsbury didn't arrive at Emery's resort until 1:30 or 2 p.m., unusually late for a fishing trip. The two never met, at least according to Emery. Instead, Emery's father told him that Emery wouldn't be back until that night. So Spilsbury decided to kill time by walking along a path along the river.
According to Emery, at 3 a.m. the next day, he noticed Spilsbury's blue Pontiac parked in his parking spot and began looking for it. His wife found Spilsbury's hat and coat on a river path and they placed them under a rock to prevent them from blowing away.
In the coat pocket was a wallet containing a check for $12,352.40 made out to Spilsbury, along with $1,100 in travelers checks and $53 in cash.
If, as Warna Spilsbury suspected, a crime was involved, then robbery was not the motive.
As search crews combed the area, Werner allegedly told McBride that Emery was "trying to extort a sum of money from me if he could find Ray's body." If true, this suggests he may have been searching for Ray's body. The location of the corpse had been known before.
Five weeks later, on February 26, three Los Angeles fishermen discovered a human hand in some brush on the riverbank about 8 miles downstream from Emery Landing.
When Spilsbury's body was pulled from the river by the Sheriff and Emery who rushed to the scene, his ankles were bound by Spilsbury's own belt and his clothing. The bag was filled with heavy stones.
Not everyone likes Raymond
An inquest was held in Boulder City on March 1, and several of Spilsbury's friends testified before a three-coroner's jury.
Despite the suspicious manner in which Spilsbury's body was found, the jury concluded that Spilsbury had "inflicted death with his own hands," and the case was closed.
In 1936, Webb apparently formed a partnership with a local tour company called Grand Canyon-Boulder Dam Tours (GCBDT) without Spilsbury's knowledge. Weber and his boss, Glover Ruckstell, signed a 20-year contract with the National Park Service to build, own and operate all tourism businesses in Lake Mead. The joint venture also includes the Boulder Dam Hotel and Emory's boating operations. In 1942, when Lake Mead ceased to be the recreational gold mine that investors had hoped for at the time, GCBDT went bankrupt. Everyone, including Spilsbury and Emery, suffered heavy losses. When Weber and Spilsbury dissolved their partnership, Spilsbury acquired majority ownership of the Boulder Dam Hotel.
The story takes a ridiculous turn here...
Three members of the coroner's jury included Murl Emery - a man who lost a large fortune investing with Spilsbury, who was said to have planned went fishing after 2pm, along with a man who seemed to have known in advance where Spilsbury's bound body would be found. be found.
Emery, who died at his home in Boulder in March 1981, was never charged with a crime in connection with Spilsbury's death because, to this day, Nevada authorities do not believe his death was a crime. of.
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