Mystery Friday Foto #3 Solved: The Alco Black Beast at Harrah’s Automobile Collection in 1975
Did you identify this photo of the Black Beast?
Mystery Foto questions:
Identify:
- The location
Harrah's Automobile Collection, Reno, Nevada
- Year
Published in the Harrah-scope, September 1975
- Owner of the Black Beast at the time
Bill Harrah
- Kudos questions: What were the positions of the two people in the Mystery Foto?
Master technicians Boyd Ames (left) and John Titchenal of the Harrah' Automobile Collection's upholstery department.
Comments (2)
Congrats to Steve Lucas and Meredith Jaffe who identified the Harrah's Automobile Collection and the then owner of the Alco Black Beast Bill Harrah.
Kudos to the Mystery Foto champ Steve Lucas who identified the two Harrah's master technicians.
Enjoy,
Howard Kroplick and Greg O.
Close-Up
Note: Sign on the building has been unblurred.
Harrah-Scope, September 1975
Book "Harrah's Automobile Collection" by Dean Batchelor, 1984
Comments
The photo was taken outside the entrance to Harrah’s Automobile Collection in Reno, Nevada. The owner was Bill Harrah. The two men are Boyd Ames (left) and John Titchenal (right) who were master upholstery technicians for Harrah’s. Since the Black Beast was in that collection from 1975 to 1988, the date must be within that range. It looks like the two men were showing off their work so I’ll guess the date to be early on in Harrah’s ownership, maybe 1975 or 1976.
My guess is that the picture was taken when William Harrah owned the Black Beast. May have been taken at the Imperial Palace in LasVegas. The men would be the lucky mechanics.
I was at the Harrah Auto Museum in Sparks just outside Reno where Harrah Casino still there and where I had lunch before going to the museum afterward a few months before Bill Harrah had pass on,1977? I did look up on Google Search Map, in recent time, I scroll through the area of Reno, A lot of change in the area, spotted that new museum that house’s some of the Harrah’s collections. Meredith been there. I then spotted the old museum complex, close gated building and some redevelopment adjoining the property. As for the Black Beast being in the exhibit, the collection so was unbelievable HUGE that I had sit at some’s of the benches, I’ve might have seen it? The complex had a restoration shop where the Black Beast was restored?
I might add the restoration shop had most likely installed the electric starter, electric fuel pump, and hydraulic disk brakes on the back axle that had failed recently while Howard was driving the car around the Village of Roslyn.