The Curious Life of Nevada's LaVere Redfield: The Silver Dollar King

by Jack Harpster

Overview

LaVere Redfield was a prolific hoarder. When he died in 1974, his estate was estimated at more than $70 million. Executors found 680 bags of silver coins and 407,000 Morgan and Peace silver dollars in his Reno mansion. A local Reno legend, Redfield gambled regularly in Virginia Street casinos. He survived robbery and burglaries of his home, which contained false walls to store millions of silver dollars. Hating banks and paper money, as well as big government, Redfield opted to serve a prison term for income tax evasion rather than pay his debts from his ample fortune. Join author Jack Harpster for this first book-length study of this unconventional man behind the folklore and the myth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626197046
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	11/04/2014
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Jack Harpster grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and graduated from the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism. The Reno, Nevada resident was the executive director of advertising for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and worked at the Las Vegas Sun. His books include John Ogden, the Pilgrim (1609, 1682): A Man of More Than Ordinary Mark, a biography of his great-grandfather, an early colonial settler; and King of the Slots: William 'Si' Redd.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 7

Prologue 9

1 The New Zion 13

2 The Year of the Golden Harvest 18

3 A Financial Cyclone Cellar 25

4 Miners, Sheepmen, Cowboys and Bewildered Women 29

5 The Sierra Vista Castle 40

6 Becoming a Land Baron 49

7 Not a Snowball's Chance 59

8 The Big Wheel in Town 71

9 The Boudoir Burglary 85

10 Trouble Brewing for La Vere Redfield 103

11 Twenty-four Robbers at My Door 118

12 The Death of a Legend 129

13 The Redfield Hoard 148

14 The Redfield Legacy 159

Bibliography 167

About the Author 173