Las Vegas Myths Busted: Whiskey Pete’s Final Resting Place
Editor's Note: Vegas Mythbusters releases new entries every Monday, plus a bonus Friday flashback edition. Today’s entry in our ongoing series originally appeared on December 16, 2022.
On February 2, 1994, construction workers bulldozed the site of the light rail that now connects two casinos on Interstate 15 in Primm, Nevada - Whiskey Pete's Casino and Buffalo Bill's Casino. One of their tractors struck a rickety plywood coffin, knocking it open. What they find inside should bring closure to one of Nevada's biggest tall tales. Instead, the story only gets bigger.
Casino legend Peter "Whiskey Pete" McIntyre was reportedly buried with his prized 10-gallon hat on his head and six pistols by his side. And a bottle of his own moonshine whiskey. His casket was also reportedly buried facing what was then the Arrowhead Trail Highway to fulfill McIntyre's request to "watch all these bastards go by."
Sorry, the entire internet. Every single one of your Whiskey Pete stories is inaccurate. Bruce Sedlacek, the head of the construction team that discovered McIntyre's coffin, said it contained his bones, a tuft of hair from his skull, a shirt with several buttons missing, false teeth and more. No guns, no bottles of whiskey. And the coffin is not buried standing up. It doesn't even have a slight slope. It is completely flush with the ground on which it sits.
"I don't know how these fakes got out," Sedlacek said.
Who is Whiskey Pete?
That's the question everyone stuck in holiday traffic between Las Vegas and California on the 15th has been asking for 46 years. (Whiskey Pitt's Castle is a ridiculously tall 16-story castle in the middle of nowhere that demands attention.)
Pete McIntyre was a former miner who served two months in prison for running an illegal speakeasy and six months for smuggling whiskey at the start of Prohibition. In the late 1920s, he opened State Line Station, a two-pump gas station on the Nevada side of the California state line.
If McIntyre was planning to start a new chapter in gasoline, it wasn't a particularly good plan at Nevada State Line (renamed Primm in 1996 to avoid confusion with another Nevada state line) because there were so few cars at the time Stop and refuel.
So McIntyre fell back into his old illegal habits. He distilled whiskey and sold it at the station downstairs.
Men, myths, legends
The first misconception most people have about Whiskey Pete's comes from the smiling cartoon mascot that appears at the top of the casino's sign.
McIntyre is not a man who laughs. In fact, according to a 1928 Las Vegas Review newspaper report, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce said it had received several complaints from tourists about McIntyre's violent antisocial behavior. He even shot them as they were leaving a gas station, according to one report.
An article about McIntyre in the March 28, 1931 Las Vegas Times newspaper stated: "Pete resented the bad reputation given to him by some members of the public and the press and claimed that he was nothing, "nothing." He's that bad. ” This article was prompted by McIntyre’s release on bail following the fatal shooting of Elgin, Nevada postmaster Rube Bradshaw.
According to Bradshaw, he and his two sons stopped at the State Line station to buy gas and coffee. He said when he went inside to ask for a cup, McIntyre called him a "mean name" and shot him in the shoulder. A charge of assault with a deadly weapon was dismissed after Bradshaw missed court three times.
Crazy in love
In early 1932, McIntyre married Lauretta Frances Enders. In October of that year, she tried to have him committed to Stillwell Nursing Home in Banning, California, citing unprovoked tantrums. McIntyre responded that the outrage was an appropriate response to her walking naked in the mountains with other men. The judge rejected Enders' request.
Regardless of McIntyre's mental state, he's not in good physical shape. He had miner's lung and needed treatment, at least that was thought at the time. Enders reportedly lived with her husband in a nursing home until he showed signs of recovery. At this point she left.
Within a year, on November 11, 1933, McIntyre died of illness in Stillwell.
Enders operated the State Line station for several years before selling it. Since then, it changed hands several times and expanded into the State Line Bar-Slots before being purchased by Ernest J. Primm, the city's eventual namesake. In 1977, Prim renamed the station Whiskey Pete's and opened his casino-hotel at the site in honor of McIntyre.
Where is Whiskey Pete now?
According to Wikipedia, McIntyre's exhumed body "was repatriated and is now believed to be buried in a cave where McIntyre cooked moonshine."
This is just more fake news. When we found him, I went and told the owner," Sedlacek recalled."Then we were told to put him back in the ground, so we made him a new box and reburied him in our Where he was found. "
While the casino at Whiskey Pete's remains open, the 777-room hotel never reopened after closing due to the pandemic. The hotel is currently only used as an overbooked property at Prim Valley Resort. A spokesman for hotel owner Primm Valley Resorts could not say how long the hotel will be closed.
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Source: www.casino.org
