Herbie Hummer

The piano player Tom Cawley hired in the 1930s. Around 1939 Hummer assembled a six-piece band that worked the second-floor bandstand six nights a week, often until three or four in the morning. He stayed for nearly sixteen years. The single best primary-source quote we have on Little Reno is his: "Man, those were the days. You actually had to fight the crowds on the streets and sidewalks to get from Cawley's place to the Silver Congo down the way. The Rock Island Rocket would bring trainloads of folks down from Chicago and you couldn't find a motel or hotel room within miles of LaSalle. Cawley's was a well-known place. I once saw Jack Dempsey and Dizzy Dean there."