Hawthorne's Gangster

The Story of Mike Gallo:



Mike Gallo was an interesting man in the early days of Hawthorne. He was born in February 25, 1885 Fossano, Provincia di Cuneo, Piemonte, Italy  as Michelo Gallo.  In the old country his family grew grapes and made wine. Mike and his brother Giuseppe moved to the United States with the hopes of making it big. They both started in California They did whatever they could to get started. Mike worked as a bartender for a while. He was always looking for ways to make a quick dollar and he was a good salesman. He moved in with a lady and they set up a scam She would find a mark and would invite him back to her room and he would bust in and beat him up and take his money. It mostly would not get reported because they were often married and should not have been there in the first place. Then the two would split the money. This worked for a while, until they got caught. He went back to his brother Giuseppe and they decided not to grow or make wine but buy a second-hand truck and drove from winery to winery stocking up a supply of barrels , on which they stenciled Gallo in red . They rented an office in Oakland and hung a sign that said the Gallo Wine Company in 1906. Giuseppe and Mike married sisters, who were from a successful wine making family (The Bianco Family).  Giuseppe married Asunta (Susie) Mike married the other daughter, Cecelia . Giuseppe and his wife had two sons named Ernest and Julio. ( Yep, that Ernest and Julio) and ten years later had another son named Joseph. Mike and his wife Cecelia  had twin boys, Mario and Edward, however Edward died in childhood of pneumonia. Some time later they had a daughter named Gloria.  At that time Mike had a  Bunco scam going which involved as much as 40 people, he got caught and he gave evidence and  it exposed lots of people including a few police officers that were on the payroll. Mike did five years in prison for this adventure. He considered it just part of doing business. Mike became one of the biggest bootleggers of his time. This was during prohibition. He paid numerous fines and paid off people and a small amount of jail time after he was released from prison. Mike was a flashy, storytelling back slapper and was known as a fixer.  Even when he went to his birth place in Italy, he make a big show of it by bringing gifts and food to people.  During this time his wife divorced him. He married a second wife named Irene and moved to Reno Nevada. Not long after that he bought the Nevada Club in Hawthorne which is where Joes Tavern is today. Mike had many friends and enemies. There are several documents in the Mineral County Museum with Mike Gallo’s name on them. Mostly he owed a lot of people money. Later he bought the Mineral Bar which is approximately where the El Capitan is today. In 1942 the Mineral Bar burned to the ground and several other buildings around it. Mike got busy right away and built the Gallo’s Inn which is where the El Capitan is today and facing F Street. It was a success. He decided to expand and bought more of the lots around it and built a hotel. In 1942 Mike was found guilty of and fined for receiving stolen building materials from the military base and violating rationing orders when he reconstructed his restaurant. Meantime he and his wife divorced. Gallo had built a tunnel between the hotel and the bar, café. In that tunnel his son Mario was stabbed. However, Mario did survive. Later he sold the Gallo’s Inn to the Ram Corporation. He married again, a lady named Vivian  and they moved to Minnesota. They opened another restaurant there named Gallo’s Inn. His wife Vivian was 30 years younger than him. She left him for another man. She changed her mind and tried to come back, and, in a quarrel, he stabbed  his wife in the back and  again returning to prison. He was released later and moved near his son in Las Vegas and he died at the age of 91. He is buried in Bunker Memorial Gardens in Las Vegas. It has been said that he was very proud of his nephews, however they supposedly disowned him from the family, they were very protective of the family name.


References:

Harold Fuller Audio transcripts for the Radio Goldfield

Mineral County Independent News

 Book Gallo Be Thy Name; Jerome Tuccille

Book Blood and Wine: Ellen Hawkes




 

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Cecil the Sea Serpent The Walker Lake Sea Serpent is an old Native American Legend handed down for generations before the arrival of white men. The story goes, someone walked up on the beach near the west side of Walker Lake and saw a large monster laying on the bank and he shot arrows into the animal but was not easy to kill. He claimed he wounded it and later to find that there were bones on the beach which he believed to be the monster. At another time some white men claimed to see the monster too and that they shot at it and it was at least 56 feet long. But no one seem to actually have the skeleton. Apparently, they left it there. The white men said it was too large and smelled bad. Maybe it was an unnamed species of reptile. In 1883 the Walker Lake Bulletin Newspaper printed an article August 1st of 1883 about people camping at the lake and waking up to two sea monsters fighting. Everyone described it differently. There was a university professor from Standford University named David Star Jordan thought that it could be an Ichthyosaur and wanted to capture it and study it and send it the Smithsonian. Many people believed that there was something in that lake. The Native Americans would not actually go out in boats or in the water because of it. In 1915 there was a disturbance in the water which sent waves crashing everywhere, many people believed it was the serpent, others said it was an earthquake. There was a hermit at the lake asked the county commissioners how much they would pay for the head of the reptile. When the highway was being built in the 1920’s there were many sightings from people passing by. It was thought that the serpent had a cave under the cliffs and he was mostly in that area. It was said by many people at one time there was an underground spring in the area of the cliffs and a body that disappeared in Walker Lake turned up in Pyramid Lake. There has been many sightings of it over the years but none in recent years. Many stories have been told over the years. The owner of the Capital Saloon, Charlie Kimball claimed to have to bones of the Sea Monster on display above his bar. At that time the sea serpent was also called Sara by the white people. The Walker Lake Sea Serpent was originally called Tawaga named from the Native Americans. In 1949 there was a cartoon created called Beany and Cecil. The cartoon looked a lot like how Cecil the float looks today. The Serpent was nicknamed Cecil and it stuck. Today he is referred to as Cecil the Sea Serpent. In 1964, to celebrate Nevada’s 100th birthday Cecil was constructed at the Hawthorne Ammunition Depot and floated on Walker Lake as part of the Armed Force Day Celebration. The Walker River Native American Tribe danced in full regalia and the serpent sailed around to a point at the lake with smoke coming out of his nostrils and throat with lights and fireworks in the background. Originally, it was supposed to be a one-time deal, but everyone protested and insisted that we do it again. In 1966 he went on the lake again, he caught on fire from a near fireworks display. And it was then decided that he should not be on the lake again and wheels were put on him after that. He appears every year in the local Armed Forces Day Parade as a float and he has appeared at other Nevada celebrations in parades as well. In 1990 Cecil was renovated which included redesigning of the trailers, restoring the mechanical devices that produce smoke from his nostrils and was repainted and was given a general facelift. Although, there has not been any recent sightings, today he is still very much a part of our culture here in Hawthorne Nevada. He recently has been moved to a storage facility at the airport to help preserve him. And currently, some of the Mineral County Museum’s Collections of Cecil is at the Nevada Museum of Art as part of the Deep Time Sea Dragons of Nevada Display.  Resources: The book Walker River Paiutes- Tribal History Harold Fullers Stories from Goldfield Radio The Times newspaper November 1978 three-part article from Denaya Pucket Files at the Mineral County Museum

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