True tales of the ‘Little Wal’ span generations

Ask a University of Nevada, Reno alumnus about the Little Waldorf Saloon, and the stories start flowing like amber ale from a broken bar tap.

The 100-year-old establishment, today located at 1661 N. Virginia St. in Reno, is welded into the histories of generations of Renoites and UNR graduates. It’s a place where memories were made, relationships were forged, and, in some cases, the trajectory of people’s lives took an unexpected turn.

The saloon has provided jobs that helped hundreds of students through UNR. It’s been – and remains — the place to celebrate Wolf Pack victories or watch national sports events. It’s the spot to eat, drink, dance or play pool. Mostly, it’s a place for people to meet, surrounded by the trappings of Nevada history that hang from the ceiling and hug every wall.

Everybody has stories; each anecdote spawns another. Here’s a look at some of the true tales of the Little Waldorf.

Romance among the booths

For years, Mary Lee Fulkerson was embarrassed to tell her two children that she and her husband, Chuck, met at the Little Waldorf Saloon in 1956.

“I hated to tell them we met in a bar,” she said. “I’d just say we met in college. I thought telling them we met in a bar sounded bad, but it wasn’t bad at all. Looking back, it was a time when I was truly happy. There was just such joy there, a time of togetherness and happiness. It’s not often that such things come together in your life.”

The “Little Wal” was in its original Virginia Street location then. The place had a door marked “Ladies’ Entrance,” but Fulkerson and her friends spurned that portal. They walked in the cigar counter door instead. “If you went to the university, that was the place to go,” she said. “I lived in Artemisia Hall (on campus), so we walked there. I wouldn’t say I ever got drunk, but I sure got happy. It’s not like we later had fun at bars or had fun drinking beer, only at the Little Wal.”

One night Fulkerson’s friend introduced her to a handsome man at a nearby table. “His name was Chuck and he was from Idaho,” she said. “It was just so romantic. He had this beautiful smile.”

In those days there was no music in the place, but patrons would sing college songs and drinking songs like “Chug-a-Lug.” “Chuck was a wonderful man,” she said. “We’d sing together. That was the beginning of a different life for me. Dating, having fun, going to college, not caring what your parents thought. We just had so much fun there at the Wall and that was the beginning of a long marriage.”

Memorable owners

Dean Smith, 85, a former Reno newspaperman and news executive, also was a bartender at the original Little Wal while going to school at the university. He started going to the place when he was 18, three years short of the legal drinking age. Smith became close friends with Lance and Rita Morton, the owners at the time.

“Lance and Rita were wonderful people,” said Smith. “They became almost like parents to me and we stayed very close until they died. They are among the most influential people in my life.”

“Lance Morton ran a good joint. When it got a little too rowdy, he’d just run everybody out and shut the damn thing down. He did that many times. Everybody respected it. He was just loved by everybody.” – Dean Smith, Little Waldorf bartender in the 1950s.

Lance Morton taught Smith the art of fly fishing, which became a life-long avocation. The Mortons were always happy to lend Smith – or any college student – a few bucks to get them by until payday. At the bar, Smith met influential people and saw them in their candid moments.

“One night a football player wanted to arm wrestle Mike O’Callaghan, who was the Nevada governor at the time, with the winner buying the beer,” Smith remembered. “The football player was an ox, but Iron Mike had lost a leg in Korea and so had great upper body strength. He put that kid’s arm down quick and the football player bought the beer.”

A name for posterity

Reno artist Joan Arrizabalaga, 80, who attended UNR from 1957 to 1961, also has fond memories of the Mortons and the saloon.

“Lance would tell stories of the gangsters who used to come to Reno in the 1930s,” Arrizabalaga recalled. “Like seeing Baby Face Nelson on Virginia Street… Lance and Rita were nice to everyone. There was an old guy we’d see in there who was an amazing painter (artist George Carter). Lance would let him come in and paint in the bar and pay for drinks with his paintings.”

Initials and names were etched on all the wooden tables and booths. “They were carved so heavily with names, years and years of them, you could barely set your drink on those tables,” Arrizabalaga said. “I always wanted my name on there, so I spent a night carving my name on the arm of one of those booths… My last name, Arrizabalaga, took me some time.”

Like many of the other original artifacts, the carved tables were lost. “I would kill for a even a chunk of one now,” she said. “Those carvings were a work of art.”

The place was so tiny, one glance took in the whole crowd. Even so, “a guy rode his motorcycle in there one night,” Arrizabalaga said. She met her future husband, Gene, there while he was a bartender. “That place was pretty great,” she said.

Gentlemen, start your mules

Chris Healy, former spokesman for the Nevada Department of Wildlife, worked as a swamper (clean-up person) at the Virginia Street location while he was a student at Bishop Manogue High School and was a bartender at the Fifth Street building while a student at the University of Nevada.

“It was a big part of my youth, even before I was 21,” Healy said. (His older brother Matt was a bartender at all three locations.) “As a swamper, I’d go in at 5 a.m. and clean out the place, then come home and shower up and go to school.”

When he turned 21 in March 1977, Healy tended bar on Fifth Street. “In the daytime, the customers were usually older guys who drank whiskey and water. Then in the evening the college kids came in for the beer. We were packed for (UNR) game days on Saturdays.”

Healy said the place attracted a cross-section of Reno’s population, including “a lot of guys who had a lot of power in the community, but they never acted too big for their britches. They were just patrons there.” One of his most vivid memories of the saloon involves mules.  

One Saturday in mid-November, hunters who were regular bar patrons met at the Little Wal before leaving for central Nevada. They had mules in a stock trailer. “The side door opens up and in comes a guy riding a mule,” Healy said. “They had mule races around the pool table. I yelled, ‘Hey, who is going to clean up this shit?’” The answer came swiftly: “’You are, you’re the swamper!’ I practically needed a snow shovel to clean up the mule droppings. That’s the kind of place it was, you never know what was going to happen,” he said.

The bartending gig changed Healy’s life. “That was a wonderful job for a college kid,” he said. “The tips were great and I got to meet a lot of people. I made friends with kids I used to compete against in high school and met people who later were able to help me out in my career as a journalist… I was a sportscaster for six years at Channel 2 and I used to say I was more famous as bartender at the Little Wal than I was being on the TV news every night.

“It was hard work, but a lot of fun and made for a lot of great memories. It was a legendary bar.”

Healy, who also is an umpire at baseball games, worked at the Little Waldorf full time until 1977 and tended bar there off and on until 1980. He once threw out a young woman who was underage, but years later married her.

“I’m always forever grateful to Lewi (Chatell) and all the patrons there. I still run into people I made friends with there and they are still very warm acquaintances when we see each other. The confidence I gained as a bartender and as an umpire helped me achieve what I achieved in my career. It was a good way to go through college. The place spawned romances, business relationships, life-long friendships.” — Chris Healy, who was a Little Wal bartender at the Fifth Street location in the 1970s.

It’s only a game

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Little Wal was a gathering place for softball teams. Harry Dangerfield, a former dealer at Harrah’s Reno, was a pitcher for The Legends, a team sponsored by the Little Waldorf. That squad had eccentric requirements for its players.

“I’d been playing softball for a few years, but when I got to be 40, I just felt that the games would be a lot more fun if it wasn’t so serious, if it wasn’t a life or death situation,” Dangerfield said. He gathered older players, mainly from among his coworkers at Harrah’s, to form The Legends.

The requirements: Players had to be 30 or older and weigh more than 200 pounds, a qualification that had to be confirmed with a weigh-in on a meat scale at the Little Wal. “We were in a day league because so many people worked the night shift. We used to bring beer into the dugouts and if a player slid into a base, they had to pay for a case of beer.”

The Legends faced teams with younger, fitter players, but the self-described “old farts” won a lot of games, Dangerfield said. “We had ringers, guys that played college ball or triple-A ball and some were really good. After the games, of course we went to the Little Wal.”