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Vegas Retold
Illustrated historic Fremont Street looking east, with Northern Club’s blue sign beneath HOTEL beside Las Vegas Bar, period cars and the Overland Hotel.

Image & source

Northern Club

Opened 1920

Historic property · Closure date unknown

Northern Club began as Mayme Stocker’s card room at 15 East Fremont Street in 1920. The Stocker family had settled in Las Vegas in 1911 after following railroad work west. Their business connected the early railroad town to the licensed gambling industry that emerged in the following decade.

Start with its history

Editorial illustration based on a historic Fremont Street postcard, with Northern Club beneath the HOTEL sign right of center. Exact depicted date uncertain.

The history of Northern Club.

A brief history of Northern Club

La Bayou’s neon sign and narrow entrance in 2011, illustrating the later Fremont Street site associated with Northern Club rather than the earlier club itself.

Image & source

Later site context: La Bayou at the associated Fremont Street address on February 18, 2011. This is not a photograph of Northern Club or its original building.

Northern Club began as Mayme Stocker’s card room at 15 East Fremont Street in 1920. The Stocker family had settled in Las Vegas in 1911 after following railroad work west. Their business connected the early railroad town to the licensed gambling industry that emerged in the following decade.

A railroad family’s business

Mayme’s position as owner was shaped by the railway’s rules. Railroad employees could not own saloons or gambling clubs, so her husband Oscar’s name could not appear on the licence. Their son Harold became the club’s chief operator after losing railroad work. Northern Club was a family enterprise, with Mayme holding a role that her husband’s employment prevented him from taking.

Mayme Stocker and the 1931 licence

In 1931, after Nevada legalized commercial gambling, Stocker and partner Joe H. Morgan secured a gaming licence for Northern Club. Clark County recognizes Stocker as the first woman to receive a casino gaming licence that year. The surviving 1931 licence is among the Stocker Family Papers preserved at UNLV.

Closure and a continuing hotel

Northern Club’s later history has gaps. UNLV’s archival guide says the Depression forced the family’s club to close, while they continued operating the hotel and leased the ground floor. It does not supply a closing year. The end of that family operation, later uses of the premises and the survival of the hotel should not be treated as the same event.

Later casinos at the address

Monte Carlo Club opened at 15 Fremont in 1945. The much later Coin Castle, followed by La Bayou, brought different names and businesses to the address. La Bayou closed in 2016, and Golden Gate incorporated its land into a casino expansion completed in 2017.

What the site can tell us

This sequence explains why Northern Club matters beyond a licensing milestone: it reveals how a small family business became one chapter in a repeatedly reused Downtown site. Northern Club is a historic property; neither its exact closing date nor a surveyed original footprint is established here. The later La Bayou photograph shows the address in 2011, not Northern Club’s building or appearance in the 1920s.

Read the full history
Sources and context

  1. UNLV: Stocker Family Papers

    Biographical note, pages 3–4 (PDF indices 2–3): family settled in Las Vegas in 1911; Northern Club opened in 1920 at 15 E Fremont; 1931 licence and railroad employment restriction. Depression closure is undated; hotel continued and ground floor was leased. The collection contains the 1931 licence.

  2. David Schwartz: Mayme Stocker and women in gaming

    June 3, 2014, Mayme Stocker section: railroad family, Harold as chief operator after a strike, Mayme and Joe H. Morgan securing the 1931 licence. The article’s simplified account of continuous operation through La Bayou conflicts with the archival closure account and is not adopted.

  3. Clark County: Mayme Stocker

    County cultural profile recognizes Stocker as the first woman to receive a casino gaming licence in 1931, and describes her 1920 Northern Club and family. Attribution retained; no broader claim of the first gambling licence ever issued in Nevada.

  4. UNLV: Monte Carlo Club records

    Historical note: incorporated in 1944, opened at 15 Fremont in 1945, Wilbur Clark as first president, closure approximately 1957. Later use of the address; no direct rename or identical-building continuity assumed.

  5. Pam Goertler: Coin Castle and La Bayou

    Casino Chip and Token News, Fall 2006, page 33 (PDF index 2), Pam Goertler with Brian Cashman. Rendered and read: Coin Castle 1970–1999; La Bayou name in 1999. Earlier club chronology elsewhere includes conflicting dates and is not adopted wholesale.

  6. KNPR: La Bayou closure, June 2016

    June 29, 2016 published programme text confirms La Bayou had closed after the Stevens purchase. This is not Northern Club’s closure date. Audio not heard.

  7. Golden Gate: expansion onto former La Bayou land

    Owner-issued September 5, 2017 completed-expansion release identifies former La Bayou land acquired in 2016. Supports later site context; not proof of the precise 1920 club footprint.

  8. Wikimedia Commons: explicitly later La Bayou site context

    Original photograph by time anchor, Flickr 5485864407, February 18, 2011. Commons Flickr upload review on May 24, 2012 confirmed CC BY 2.0. Original 4000×3000, 1495353 bytes; exact file, licence, history and pixels inspected. Conflicting compass directions in filename and summary are not adopted. Original motion softness retained.

1920 dates the original card room; 1931 dates its licence under the new legal framework. No exact opening day is established.

The archival guide describes a Depression-era closure of the Stocker operation without a year. Imported 1942 and other retrospective closing dates are not adopted as verified facts. Historic status is explicit while the closure date remains unknown.

UNLV identifies 15 East Fremont Street, while some historical photograph captions use 13 Fremont. The site marker is approximate, with original walls and footprint unresolved. No identical-building or uninterrupted-business continuity is asserted.

No rights-cleared original Northern Club photograph has been established. The dated La Bayou photograph is explicitly later site context; the overview illustration is based on a user-supplied Fremont Street postcard credited “Photo by Ullom”, whose exact date and rights are unverified.

This site through time

Shared or overlapping site with La Bayou

Northern Club and the later Coin Castle/La Bayou casino are associated with the historic 15 Fremont Street address. They operated in different periods, with Monte Carlo Club and other uses between them. This is a historical site association, not a claim that the businesses operated together, that La Bayou was a direct rename of Northern Club, or that the same building survived throughout. La Bayou closed in 2016; its site became part of Golden Gate’s 2017 expansion.

Historical source — UNLV Stocker Family Papers biographical note, pages 3–4: Northern Club at 15 E Fremont and undated Depression closure. NGCB March 3, 2015 locations report, PDF index 354: La Bayou at 15 E Fremont. UNLV Monte Carlo records describe the intervening 1945 club. The later Golden Gate expansion is independently documented by its September 5, 2017 release.

  • Some historical captions use 13 Fremont rather than 15. The association identifies the general historic address, not identical surveyed footprints.
  • Exact Northern Club closure and the intervening building sequence remain unresolved. No direct rename, continuous casino operation or simultaneous occupation is asserted.

Take the stories for a walk.

A way to explore Northern Club

Compare all tours including Northern Club

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Find the place.

Northern Club

The map marks an approximate site. It does not identify an entrance or a walking route.

View the site on a map

Follow the evidence.

Sources, image credits and the limits of what we know.

Historical sources8 documents and records

  1. UNLV: Stocker Family Papers

    Biographical note, pages 3–4 (PDF indices 2–3): family settled in Las Vegas in 1911; Northern Club opened in 1920 at 15 E Fremont; 1931 licence and railroad employment restriction. Depression closure is undated; hotel continued and ground floor was leased. The collection contains the 1931 licence.

  2. David Schwartz: Mayme Stocker and women in gaming

    June 3, 2014, Mayme Stocker section: railroad family, Harold as chief operator after a strike, Mayme and Joe H. Morgan securing the 1931 licence. The article’s simplified account of continuous operation through La Bayou conflicts with the archival closure account and is not adopted.

  3. Clark County: Mayme Stocker

    County cultural profile recognizes Stocker as the first woman to receive a casino gaming licence in 1931, and describes her 1920 Northern Club and family. Attribution retained; no broader claim of the first gambling licence ever issued in Nevada.

  4. UNLV: Monte Carlo Club records

    Historical note: incorporated in 1944, opened at 15 Fremont in 1945, Wilbur Clark as first president, closure approximately 1957. Later use of the address; no direct rename or identical-building continuity assumed.

  5. Pam Goertler: Coin Castle and La Bayou

    Casino Chip and Token News, Fall 2006, page 33 (PDF index 2), Pam Goertler with Brian Cashman. Rendered and read: Coin Castle 1970–1999; La Bayou name in 1999. Earlier club chronology elsewhere includes conflicting dates and is not adopted wholesale.

  6. KNPR: La Bayou closure, June 2016

    June 29, 2016 published programme text confirms La Bayou had closed after the Stevens purchase. This is not Northern Club’s closure date. Audio not heard.

  7. Golden Gate: expansion onto former La Bayou land

    Owner-issued September 5, 2017 completed-expansion release identifies former La Bayou land acquired in 2016. Supports later site context; not proof of the precise 1920 club footprint.

  8. Wikimedia Commons: explicitly later La Bayou site context

    Original photograph by time anchor, Flickr 5485864407, February 18, 2011. Commons Flickr upload review on May 24, 2012 confirmed CC BY 2.0. Original 4000×3000, 1495353 bytes; exact file, licence, history and pixels inspected. Conflicting compass directions in filename and summary are not adopted. Original motion softness retained.

What remains uncertain4 notes on context and interpretation
  • 1920 dates the original card room; 1931 dates its licence under the new legal framework. No exact opening day is established.
  • The archival guide describes a Depression-era closure of the Stocker operation without a year. Imported 1942 and other retrospective closing dates are not adopted as verified facts. Historic status is explicit while the closure date remains unknown.
  • UNLV identifies 15 East Fremont Street, while some historical photograph captions use 13 Fremont. The site marker is approximate, with original walls and footprint unresolved. No identical-building or uninterrupted-business continuity is asserted.
  • No rights-cleared original Northern Club photograph has been established. The dated La Bayou photograph is explicitly later site context; the overview illustration is based on a user-supplied Fremont Street postcard credited “Photo by Ullom”, whose exact date and rights are unverified.
Image credits3 images with source information

Editorial illustration based on a historic Fremont Street postcard, with Northern Club beneath the HOTEL sign right of center. Exact depicted date uncertain.

AI-generated editorial illustration; source postcard: Photo by Ullom

Source reference: USE LOCATOR only; original external source unknown. Piers-supplied postcard, caption Fremont Street Looking East, Las Vegas, Nevada; Photo by Ullom; catalog 74675. Exact original retained with prompt in northern-club-main-2026-10-20.

AI-generated editorial illustration from a user-supplied postcard. Architecture and incidental signs simplified; postcard border and caption removed. Not archival evidence.

Source postcard copyright and permissions are unverified; no public-domain or clearance assertion. User authorized illustration creation and publication. Full source creator identity and exact date remain unknown.

Image source ↗

Later site context: La Bayou at the associated Fremont Street address on February 18, 2011. This is not a photograph of Northern Club or its original building.

time anchor / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Source reference: Original photograph by time anchor, Flickr 5485864407, February 18, 2011. Commons Flickr upload review on May 24, 2012 confirmed CC BY 2.0. Original 4000×3000, 1495353 bytes; exact file, licence, history and pixels inspected. Conflicting compass directions in filename and summary are not adopted. Original motion softness retained.

Depicted date: 2011-02-18

License

Original Commons file retained without editorial alteration. Responsive overview and index presentation may crop the image; original motion softness is retained.

CC BY2.0Generic: retain attribution/source/license and indicate changes; no endorsement implied.

Image source ↗

AI illustration of Hotel Apache and Binion’s frontage, retaining the principal sign lettering from the supplied reference.

AI-generated illustration / Vegas Retold; adapted from user-supplied reference, original photographer unknown

Image source ↗
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