Ralph Engelstad
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Ralph Engelstad (b. January 28, 1930 Thief River Falls, Minnesota - d. November 26, 2002 Las Vegas, Nevada) was the multi-millionaire owner of the Imperial Palace casino-hotels in Las Vegas and in Biloxi, Mississippi and the Klondike Hotel & Casino. He was also the donor for the construction of the Ralph Engelstad Arena for his alma mater, the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, North Dakota, whose teams are called the Fighting Sioux, and another arena bearing his name in Thief River Falls, Minnesota.
Engelstad was known as a self-made man, one of the very few independent casino-hotel owners in Las Vegas, and for philanthopic ventures.
Engelstad was also a somewhat controversial figure. He raised accusations of being sympathetic to Nazism owing to his collection of Nazi memorabilia stored in a private room within the casino-hotel, including a painting of himself dressed in a Nazi uniform (captioned "to Adolf from Ralphie"), a painting of Hitler with the reverse caption, and a collection of antique cars which contained vehicles alleged to have once belonged to German Nazi leaders. On April 20 in 1986 and 1988, he hosted birthday parties for Adolf Hitler at his casino in Las Vegas which featured bartenders in T-shirts reading "Adolf Hitler — European tour 1939-45". Because of this, in 1989, the Nevada Gaming Commission fined Engelstad $1.5 million "for actions that damaged the reputation and image of Nevada's gaming industry." Engelstad apologized publicly for the parties, but the row was not to be his last controversial move.[1]
Engelstad embroiled himself in the fight over the Fighting Sioux logo when he built a $100 million arena on the University of North Dakota campus for the Fighting Sioux hockey program. Midway in its construction, Engelstad threatened to withdraw his funding if the sports teams were renamed.[2] The logo was then placed in thousands of instances in the arena, making the prospect of removal a costly measure. Later, Engelstad placed the stadium under private (rather than University) management and stipulated that the Fighting Sioux motif be kept indefinitely. An Engelstad family trust continues to own the arena and rents it to the University.[3]
Engelstad died in 2002, after a lengthy battle with cancer.
