Station Casinos, Inc., was started by Frank J. Fertitta Jr. in 1976 in Las Vegas, Nevada as a single gambling facility. The facility was known as The Casino and underwent various expansions over the years before changing its name to the Palace Station in 1983. Fertitta’s son, Frank J. Fertitta III, joined the company in 1984 as vice president and director. Station Casinos continued expanding throughout the 1990s and establishing additional gaming facilities in Missouri including riverboat and dockside gaming in St.

Ben Rosenfeld was born circa 1904 in Starokonstantinov, Volynia Gubernia, in the Russian Empire. Ben, born Boruch Rosenfeld, arrived at Ellis Island in July of 1913. He traveled with his older half-sister and brother immigrating separately from his father and other half-sister who had already landed in Philadelphia in 1912. Ben’s mother, Rivka, never did immigrate, and it is assumed she died during the interim between the two sailings of her family.

Dr. Donald Baepler was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in July of 1932. The family moved to Springfield, Illinois in 1936, where his father was president of Concordia Seminary. Donald decided at the age of seven that he wanted to pursue a Ph.D. in ornithology, not an unusual goal in his family. By the time he graduated high school, he knew that he wanted to attend Carlton College in Minnesota to study under Olin Sewall Pettingill. He followed world-famous ornithologist and artist George Sutton to Michigan and then to Oklahoma to complete his doctorate.