Post #747820 by Trader Tom on Sat, Jul 25, 2015 12:42 AM

I just picked up the book that TikiMaxton mentions above, Portland Confidential, by Phil Stanford, and thought I would share some of its details about the Portland Pago-Pago.

Here's the cover:

It only has one picture of the interior, on page 19, but here it is:

Stanford states on page 21 that in Portland's "booming vice economy" the "Top banana at the time was an intriguing fellow by the name of Al Winter. Winter owned the Pago Pago downtown at 525 Southwest Stark: bamboo furniture and Chinese cuisine. On the second floor was a full-service gambling joint called the Turf Club, which operated so openly that the results of the latest races were sometimes announced from its windows to crowds waiting on the sidewalks below."

Later on page 33-34, Stanford tells an anecdote about how the first silver dollar slot machine in Portland was delivered to the Pago-Pago and was filled to capacity in less than an hour by eager gamblers.

Lastly, on page 36, Stanford confirms that, "In 1950 Winter moved his base of operations to Las Vegas, where, with the help of a good deal of money from the Los Angeles mob, he and several others started the Sahara, the first big casino-hotel on the Strip. In 1951, the Pago Pago and the Turf Club closed for good."

There are some more pictures of ephemera from the Portland Pago-Pago in Sven Kirsten's thread on all things Pago-Pago here:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=32034&forum=2&start=0

So far, the only thing I've found was this matchbook, but I was very tickled to find it. Such a great history with this place!