George Wingfield: The Man Who Ran Nevada

For a quarter century, the most powerful man in Nevada never sat in the governor's chair or the Senate. George Wingfield (1876–1959) was a cattle-drive hand turned faro dealer who came out of the Goldfield boom with a fortune of tens of millions, moved to Reno, and built a chain of twelve banks, a string of hotels, and a political network with a hand in the appointments that mattered, state and federal, through the 1920s. He declined a seat in the U.S. Senate when it was offered to him. He did not need it.

The empire came down in 1932, when the banks failed in the Depression, and he was bankrupt by 1935. He then did something almost no fallen financier manages: he built another fortune, this time in a gold mine near Winnemucca. The arc runs from a Tonopah card table to the governor's ear and back to the ground, and it tells Nevada's mining age in a single life.

From Cattle Drives to the Goldfield Boom

George Wingfield was born on August 16, 1876, in Arkansas, and raised on his father's ranches in Lakeview, Oregon. As a teenager he rode a cattle drive to Winnemucca, Nevada, and never went home. He played poker better than most men around him, opened a saloon in Golconda in 1899, and attracted the attention of Winnemucca's banker, George S. Nixon, sixteen years his senior. Nixon became his mentor. In 1901 Wingfield reached the brand-new camp at Tonopah and took a hand in the Tonopah Club with his partner John Hennessy. By the end of 1902 the two had cleared $200,000. That October, he and Nixon formed the partnership that would define both their careers: real estate, mining stock, and loans in every new camp the desert produced.

The best of those camps was Goldfield. Gold had turned up there in 1902, and by 1906 the town held roughly 20,000 people, briefly the largest city in Nevada. Wingfield moved there in 1905 and the partners bought into the district's richest leases, the Mohawk and the Florence, among them. The partners cleared $600,000 from a single property in 1904 alone.

Goldfield Consolidated and a Thirty-Million-Dollar Partnership

In November 1906 Nixon and Wingfield merged the district's richest mines into one concern, the Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company, with Bernard Baruch's money behind it. By then the partners were worth some $30 million between them. Nixon had gone to Washington as a U.S. Senator, and Wingfield, not yet thirty, was vice-president of the new company. The shares were engraved, signed, and traded in a handsome certificate that collectors still seek, the paper side of the boom.

The money brought trouble. When the Industrial Workers of the World organized the camp in 1906 and 1907, the mine owners shut the mines and put some 6,000 men out of work. Wingfield opposed the unions with the same determination he applied to everything else. Federal troops arrived in December 1907 at the governor's request and stayed until the following spring. Soon after it opened in 1908, he and the hotelman Casey McDannell bought the Goldfield Hotel, the four-story mahogany-and-gold-leaf building that is still the camp's best-known landmark; the full story is in our look at the Goldfield Hotel.

Reno: Twelve Banks, Two Hotels, One Machine

Wingfield moved to Reno in 1908 and lived there for the rest of his life. By 1909 the Nixon partnership had run its course; Nixon kept the banks, Wingfield the mines, and Nixon died in 1912. Wingfield turned Reno into his own base. In 1914 he founded the Reno Securities Company, which held the Golden Hotel and a portfolio of ranches and mines, and he acquired Nevada banks one after another until, by 1932, he held a controlling interest in twelve of them, known across the state as the Wingfield chain. Among them was the Reno National Bank.

The hotels were part of the same design. The Golden Hotel was his; so was the Riverside Hotel, which he rebuilt on the south bank of the Truckee after the old hotel burned in 1922. The six-story red-brick building opened on May 14, 1927, and became the best-known address of the Reno divorce trade. The politics came with the property. Wingfield cultivated friendships in both parties, served as Republican National Committeeman from 1920 to 1932, and held a say in state and federal appointments throughout the 1920s. He declined a Senate appointment in 1912. It was a bipartisan machine: one man, friends in both parties, and a say in who held office. In 1931 he worked with legislators to cut the divorce residency to six weeks and to legalize gambling, the two laws that built the Reno most visitors came to see.

1932, Bankruptcy, and the Getchell Comeback

In 1931, half a million dollars in state funds deposited in his bank disappeared. Wingfield repaid it from his own pocket. It was not enough. On November 1, 1932, Governor Fred Balzar declared a state bank holiday, a two-week moratorium that the governor extended again and again, and the Wingfield banks never reopened in their old form. Depositors proposed a merger of the chain; the plan required branch banking, which Nevada law did not permit. By December the Reno National Bank was in receivership. Large judgments followed against Wingfield as stockholder and director, and on November 30, 1935, he filed a personal bankruptcy petition. The man who had been the richest in Nevada was broke.

The recovery began that same year. Noble Getchell had bought a prospect in the Osgood Mountains, above Winnemucca, and needed money to develop it. Wingfield took the property to Baruch, who brought in Newmont Mining, and the Getchell Mine turned into a major producer of gold and, during World War II, tungsten. By the war's end much of the fortune was back. In 1955 he sold the Riverside, and on Christmas Day, 1959, he died in Reno. He was inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame in 1992. Wingfield Park, on the Truckee in downtown Reno, stands on land he gave the city.

At a Glance: George Wingfield

• George Wingfield was born August 16, 1876, in Arkansas, raised in Lakeview, Oregon, and died in Reno on December 25, 1959.
• With the Winnemucca banker George S. Nixon he made his fortune in Tonopah and Goldfield, forming the Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company in November 1906.
• He moved to Reno in 1908, founded the Reno Securities Company in 1914, and held a controlling interest in twelve Nevada banks by 1932.
• He owned the Golden Hotel and built the Riverside Hotel, which opened May 14, 1927. He sold the Golden in 1946 and the Riverside in 1955.
• He was Republican National Committeeman from 1920 to 1932 and held great influence over appointments in the 1920s. He declined a U.S. Senate appointment in 1912.
• His banks failed after the bank holiday of November 1, 1932. He filed for personal bankruptcy on November 30, 1935.
• He rebuilt his fortune through the Getchell Mine near Winnemucca and was inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame in 1992.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was George Wingfield?

A Nevada mining magnate, banker, and political power broker (1876–1959). He made his first fortune in Goldfield, built a banking and hotel empire in Reno, and was the dominant figure in Nevada affairs from about 1909 to the mid-1930s.

How did Wingfield make his money?

Through Goldfield. With George S. Nixon he bought into the district's richest mines and merged them in 1906 into Goldfield Consolidated, then moved the profits into Nevada banks, hotels, ranches, and real estate.

What happened to Wingfield's banks?

They failed in the Depression. A state bank holiday closed them on November 1, 1932, the Reno National Bank went into receivership that December, and Wingfield himself filed for bankruptcy on November 30, 1935.

Are Goldfield and Reno items from his era collectible?

Yes. Goldfield Consolidated stock certificates bearing his signature, bank paper from Wingfield institutions, and hotel and camp memorabilia from Goldfield and Reno are all sought by collectors of Nevada history. Signed, dated, and well-preserved examples hold their value best.

Conclusion

Wingfield's life reads like a Nevada parable: a boom, a fortune, a bank holiday, a bankruptcy, and a second strike in the same dry hills. What he left behind is more durable than the money. The Riverside still stands beside the Truckee, the Goldfield Hotel still stands in the desert, and the paper from his companies sits in drawers and frames across the state.

We return to Nevada's boom-and-bust history often at The Eclection, from the Comstock to the Reno hotels. To bring a piece of that era home, explore our curated collection at The Eclection.

Resources & Further Reading

For deeper study, these are reliable, non-commercial starting points:

• Online Nevada Encyclopedia — articles on Nevada history, people, and places.
• Nevada Historical Society — the state museum and research library for Nevada history.
• Reno Historical — a community archive of Reno's historic places, photographs, and stories.

Hero photograph: George Wingfield in 1910, shortly after his move to Reno. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, via Reno Historical. Published before 1929 and in the public domain.