Wilbur and Toni Clark are best known for their involvement in the Desert Inn, one of the most influential casino resorts of the 1950s and 1960s.

Wilbur Clark was born on December, 27, 1908 in Keyesport, Illinois to Shirley and Lulu Clark. Because he always had an interest in games of chance he drifted West seeking to make a living in a field he enjoyed and believed held great opportunity for someone with his skills. Wilbur worked a series of gambling jobs, some legal, some not, in the 1930s, and worked as a bellman at a San Diego hotel.

Lena Gaglionese, whom Wilbur later named “Toni” (because she “looked more like a Toni than a Lena”) was born on April 4, 1915 to Angelene and Salvatore Gaglionese. After emigrating from Naples, Italy, they finally settled in Seattle, Washington where Toni grew up with three siblings. Because she “just didn’t like [high] school,” she left after three years. Then after a few more years at home, she left for San Diego in 1941 to visit friends. She took a room at the Barbara Worth Hotel where she met Wilbur. The two were soon married.

When Wilbur returned to Las Vegas in 1944 to buy the El Rancho Vegas, Toni accompanied him. They were married that same year. In 1945, they bought the Monte Carlo Club and bought property (in cash, as Toni proudly related) to begin building Wilbur’s dream resort in downtown Las Vegas. After selling the El Rancho Vegas in 1946, construction began on the Desert Inn in 1947.

After running out of money, Clark sold a controlling interest in the project to a syndicate led by Cleveland businessman—and former rumrunner—Moe Dalitz. Though, when the casino opened in 1950, it was styled “Wilbur Clark’s Desert Inn,” Clark in fact only had a 17.5% interest in it, and Dalitz actually ran the entire operation.

With Clark as its public face, the Desert Inn pioneered in the 1950s. The Tournament of Champions, an annual golf classic televised by NBC, brought favorable publicity to the growing resort, and the Desert Inn Golf Course, directly behind the casino, was a harbinger of later developments. During those years, Wilbur and Toni served as roving goodwill ambassadors for both the Desert Inn and Las Vegas, entertaining celebrities, politicians, and other eminent public figures.

Wilbur’s death in 1965 marked the end of an era—the following year, Howard Hughes would set up house on the upper floor of one of the hotel’s towers, and in 1967 he would buy the casino, the first of many.

Though Wilbur and Toni Clark did not have as much to do with the daily operation of the Desert Inn as was often assumed, they helped to publicize Las Vegas and served as genial hosts for ordinary guests and visiting eminences alike.

Biographical sketch courtesy of Dr. David G. Schwartz