Sparks, Nevada, USA. The news, which occurred at dawn on Monday, was announced by the mayor of Sparks, Ed Lawson. John Ascuaga was Sparks’ largest employer for more than fifty years, owner of the largest local business, the massive John Ascuaga’s Nugget Casino and hotel complex, one of the largest in the Reno area. The Ascuagas, John brought his daughter Michonne and his son Stephen into the family business, sold the casino in 2013. Rose, John's wife,, also the daughter of Basques passed away last year.
We will publish a more complete chronicle later, but for now let's say that John Ascuaga was the son of Biscayan parents and was born in Notus, Idaho in 1925. He entered the world of Nevada casinos thanks to Dick Graves, whose company he managed and later purchased in 1960. Graves was married to another Basque-Idaho native, Flora Aguirre. That would be the beginning of the entire set of casinos, hotels, ranches and businesses that Ascuaga turned the company into.
That Sparks casino had already acquired prominence and a direct relationship with the Basque world in the United States in 1959, when Ascuaga was still working for Graves, and it became the venue for the first mass Basque festival meeting in the United States, bringing together Basques born or descendants of the seven provinces in a great public celebration of the Basque-American culture and reality for the first time.
John considered hímself Basque. He married Rose Ardans, born in Nevada, and daughter of parents from Behe Nafarroa, We remember well when he expanded and built the last tower of his casino, when the work reached its last phase, in 1996, he held a pre-opening party on the 29th floor, outside with a large Ikurriña presiding over the event. In memory of his father’s birth town, he named the main restaurant in that building Orozko, and decorated it with photos and landscapes of the Garazi area where his wife came from, installing a Monument to the Basque Shepherd outside, which is currently located at the University Of Nevada, Reno.
Gogoan Bego (GB) John Ascuaga.
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