Scherer Street named for colorful character with mob ties

Scherer Street is named for L.B. "Tutor" Scherer, a colorful character in Las Vegas' early history. The street is tucked between Buffalo Drive and Cimarron Road, just south of Westcliff Drive, and runs into Ansan Sister City Park.

Scherer was born in Kenosha, Wis., in 1879. It's unclear how he came to be known as Tutor, but it is known that he was part of the mob syndicate in Los Angeles before heading to Las Vegas. Nicknames were common in the syndicate.

The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner ran a piece written by John R. Babcock in 1989 that detailed the corrupt shadow government and hinted at Scherer's involvement with the syndicate. A portion of it reads, "Until 1931, Charles Crawford, backed by Guy McAfee, ex-L.A. cop-turned-gambler, was No. 1. When Crawford was killed, McAfee took over the syndicate that included slot machine king Bob Gans, political fixer Kent Parrot, Zeke Caress, Tutor Scherer, Farmer Page, Charles Cradick, Chuck Addison and Tony Cornero."

Michael Green, a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada, said the group was pushed out in the late 1930s and early '40s in a concerted effort by California Attorney General Earl Warren and Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Brown, but not before it hired a hotshot lawyer. He said the gambling figures ended up with a large settlement, and that was part, but not all, of the basis for Scherer's growth and importance in Las Vegas.

Scherer, along with Page, Addison and Bill Kurland, began operating the Pioneer Club in 1942. By then, Las Vegas' population had mushroomed from roughly 1,000 in 1910 to more than 8,400 in 1940, according to U.S. Census records.

These days, the downtown establishment is best known as home to Vegas Vic, the hand-waving, "Howdy, podner" neon cowboy who had to lose about a foot in height to make way for the Fremont Street Experience canopy.

Scherer later became president of the El Rancho Vegas, the ill-fated divorcee retreat at the southwest corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara Avenue. It burned to the ground in 1960. He had stakes in other casinos, including the Las Vegas Club, the Thunderbird and the Sahara.

Richard Bryan was in high school when Scherer was in his heyday. The former U.S. senator said he never met the man but recalled how Scherer had a huge wedding ---- so huge it had to be held outdoors ---- that was the talk of the town.

"His home was right on the corner of 10th (Street) and Charleston (Boulevard)," he said. "If you go to that intersection today, you'll see a 1950s-style house. It's not a Huntridge home; Huntridge had 300 homes in it ... it was not a tract home."

Scherer also made money by investing in real estate properties around town and did very well for himself. Green told how he "bought land way south of town along Bond Avenue, where no one would ever live, making it a lousy investment, or so they said. Bond Avenue's name has long since been changed to Tropicana."

His fabulous wealth made him a prominent figure in the social scene, where he was well-known as a ladies man.

"One young wife caught him in bed with another woman when he was at least in his 60s, maybe older, and shot him," Green said. "This led to a poem that ran in Hank Greenspun's column, though I don't know whether he wrote it: Mrs. Tutor Scherer/No Annie Oakley/she aimed for the groin and hit the knee."

The Modesto Bee on Nov. 26, 1952, reported how Scherer's 28-year-old wife, La Veeda, was suing her 72-year-old husband "for separate maintenance" in a divorce she had filed for the day before. It reported how they had been married July 30, 1951, after she'd shot him in the leg July 7 when she "accidentally discharged a revolver. No arrests were made. Scherer met his wife while she worked as a cocktail waitress in one of his clubs."

The use of a poem in Greenspun's column was a jab at Scherer, who fancied himself a poet. It was an obsession that came to him at age 63. He was prolific, writing short verses about everything from love and loss to the beauty of nature. He did not, however, write about casinos, Lady Luck or his syndicate ties.

Perhaps because of his stature as a gambling powerhouse, his work ---- few could bring themselves to call his creations "poems" ---- was published locally in Magazine Las Vegas. His contribution appeared opposite the magazine's more popular artistic contribution, that month's nearly nude showgirl.

An example of his work:

Her love is like an autumn leaf

The stem is frail, her dates are brief

She's a cloudy day, the sun's pale ray

So quick to fade, then pass away.

The weekly Fabulous Las Vegas also published some of his work, allowing him a full page on which numerous examples of his rhyming works appeared. Scherer's hobby led to him being appointed Nevada's poet laureate by Gov. Charles Russell in 1950.

Spurred by this title, Scherer self-published "Reminiscing in Rhyme," a book of his verses, six years later. Magazine Las Vegas publisher Tom Magowan said in the book's foreword: "His first poem was written on the challenge of a friend. The year was 1948 and the setting - beside the pool at El Rancho Vegas."

Scherer saw fit to write on a particular Las Vegas attraction that drew crowds to witness what no other American city could claim: detonations at the Nevada Test Site. Part of his "Atomic Dawn" reads: And then a giant mushroom rose/ Floating gracefully in repose.

Scherer died in 1957 within weeks of suffering a stroke and a heart attack.

Contact Summerlin/Summerlin South View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 387-2949.