Last chance for Joe

Another part of the old Sparks Nugget seems destined for the trash heap.

“Last Chance Joe,” a 36-foot-tall statue in front of the Nugget, has been in place for more than half a century. The new owners—Global Gaming and Hospitality LLC of Rhode Island—have decided to get rid of it. A May 12 meeting of the Sparks City Council was devoted mostly to discussion of how it might be saved and moved to another location. Most options were pretty expensive, in the $60,000 range, and drew protests from some councilmembers

The character of Last Chance Joe, a bearded old West figure wearing a red bandana and packing a pistol on each hip, was created by Roscoe “Duke” Reading of Boise on a commission from Nugget founder Dick Graves in 1952, when Graves was still operating in Idaho. One of his enterprises was the Last Chance Cafe in Garden City, Idaho.

Graves told a University of Nevada, Reno interviewer in 1978, “So, I sort of commissioned Duke to come up with some kind of a character, some kind of a design that we could use, and he created Last Chance Joe, which we used so extensively and of course is still being used. … We eventually had rubber dolls made that were about 12, 14-inches-high and sold tens of thousands of these dolls. It was a good character—sold for one dollar.”

There were also Joe coins, postcards, salt and pepper shakers, and bobble heads, and the figure was used on casino chips and in advertising.

Graves had the Sparks figure built by R.H. Grosh Scenic Studios in Los Angeles (which also created some Disneyland figures) and installed it Sparks in 1958. He also hired a Virginia City resident who portrayed a similar character named Badwater Bill to take on the role of Joe in parades and similar promotions over the years.