Photos: Courtesy Visit Reno
Better known by its colloquial nickname, the divorce capital, than by its official one, "The Biggest Little City in the World", Northern Nevada's Reno has only recently become a real vacation destination, almost just by virtue of proximity to the gorgeously alpine Lake Tahoe region.
Then again, counting the masses who flocked to the city for its aptly named "Sin Solutions" between the roaring 1920's and the white-bread '50s makes Reno seem like an eternal tourist hotspot. Now, with a new eponymous driving tour of her "Sin Solutions", Reno's capitalizing on her "Sin Solutions" again.
Thriving on the concurrent industries that remained after local mining went bust, Reno signed booze, gambling and prostitution in law, lucrative "Sin Solutions" that kept the city afloat ever since.
The real happily-ever-after of Reno's finances, however, slashing residency requirements -- to three months in 1927, then six weeks in 1931 -- which threw open unprecedented access in the U.S. to divorce (and encouraged six weeks of vacation-like dissipation in legal gambling, alcohol and brothels).
Since it was couples divorcing and remarrying so rapidly, often in the same afternoon, it wasn't just the boys who lit up the casinos and cocktails either!
The new driving tour, which launches this October, hits every major "Sin Solution" in the city -- brothels, the high-traffic divorce/marriage courthouse, and the swinging hotels and clubs. But the best has to be the Gambling Museum, replete with exhibit of antique gambling machines, cheating apparatus and gambler's weapons!
Now, what kind of "Sin Solutions" we can come up with for this recession?
