Background
Beldon Katleman was born on July 14, 1914 in Iowa.
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Beldon Katleman
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He graduated from the University of California, Los Los Angeles
Career
He was the owner of El Rancho Vegas, a casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he invented the buffet for guests. He was an investor in two other casinos, the Frontier Hotel and the Silver Slipper. From the late 1940s until it was destroyed by a fire in 1960, he owned and operated El Rancho Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In an effort to keep patrons in his casino, Katleman came up with the idea of the buffet in 1947.
With Guy McAfee and Jake Kozloff, Katleman acquired the Frontier Hotel from Bill Moore for United States$5.5 million in 1951. He succeeded Kozloff as its manager in 1955.
Katleman was an investor in the Silver Slipper, another casino in Las Vegas, alongside Jack Barenfeld, Norma Friedman, Irving Leff and T.W. Richardson. After leasing it to Howard Hughes since 1968, they sued Hughes over a year"s unpaid rents in 1974.
In April 1988, the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee Senate reviewed the "murky" settlement of taxes Katleman may have owed to the state of California in the 1960s.
Katleman died on September 28, 1988 in Los Angeles, California. He was buried at the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.
