Las Vegas, Nevada - Sin City, USA

Las Vegas, Nevada - Sin City, USA

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Las Vegas started its rise to world fame in 1941when hotelman Tommy Hull built the El Rancho Vegas Hotel-Casino across from the current Sahara Hotel on what would become known as the Las Vegas Strip. Hull also began the "entertainment" type of casino that would develop Las Vegas' reputation as a desert playland, when he booked singers, comedians, strippers, and dancers to entertain the hotel guests in the resort's small, intimate showroom.

Before long, other developers began building lavishly decorated resort hotels and incorporating gambling casinos. Some of the earliest hotels were the Last Frontier, the Thunderbird and Club Bingo, copying the successful star entertainment format for a number of years.

The El Rancho Hotel-Casino was the first on the Las Vegas

Strip in 1941, photo courtesy University of Las Vegas.

Several such early enterprises are widely reputed to have been backed by money from crime syndicates based in the eastern United States. Gangsters Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and Meyer Lansky are widely credited as the organizers and prime movers behind early development of Las Vegas. Tourism and entertainment took over as the largest employer in the valley.

By far the most celebrated of the early resorts was the Flamingo Hotel, built by mobster "Bugsy" Siegel, which opened on New Year's Eve in 1946. Modeled after resort hotels in Miami, the Flamingo stood out among the western ranch-styled theme casinos and hotels. Siegel called it a "carpet joint." Just six months after its opening, Siegel was murdered by an unknown gunman in his girlfriend's home in Beverly Hills, California.

The Flamingo Hotel is the only survivor of

Las Vegas' 1940s era building rush.

Photo by Amy Stark, April, 2005.

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

Today, the Flamingo Hotel is the only survivor of the 1940s era, as other resorts have long lost their identities through absorption by new owners, demolition, extensive renovations, and name changes. Though the Flamingo retains its original name after all these years, it has been entirely renovated in order to compete with the newer modern hotels on the Las Vegas Strip.

Resort building continued to accelerate in Las Vegas in the 1950s. The Desert Inn was opened in 1950, followed by the Sahara Hotel, atop the site of the old Club Bingo, in 1952. In the same year, the Sands Hotel opened. In 1955, the Riviera Hotel became the first high-rise hotel on the Strip.

Other resorts that opened during the building boom begun in the 1950s included the Royal Nevada , Dunes, Hacienda, Tropicana and Stardust hotels on the Strip and the Downtown Fremont Hotel-Casino. The Dunes was the first casino to showcase topless showgirls on the Las Vegas Strip in 1957.

During the 50s and 60s, casino lounges provided continuous entertainment from dusk to dawn spawning names such as Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett, Shecky Greene, Alan King, Louis Prima and Keely Smith, the Mary Kaye Trio and many others.

Copa Girls at the Sands Hotel, photo courtesy UNLV Library

By 1960, Las Vegas encompassed 25 square miles and had a population of almost 65,000. During the 1960s, large corporations began to build or buy casino and hotel properties to increase their profitability and began to make the transition into the legitimate business world.

In 1976, when casino-style gaming was legalized in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Las Vegas lost its exclusive claim to legalized gambling. Before long, hotel-casinos began the race to become full-blown destination resorts for travelers, vacationers, gamblers, conventioneers and all members of the family.

The Mirage was one of the first of many "Disney Land"

type hotels, photo by Amy Stark, April, 2005.

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

When The Mirage opened in 1989, featuring a white tiger habitat, a waterfall and man-made volcano, belching fire and water, it started a movement of people and construction away from downtown Las Vegas to the Las Vegas Strip. This resulted in a drop in tourism that the downtown area is still trying to recover from.

In 1993, Mirage owner Steve Wynn opened Treasure Island adjacent to the Mirage, featuring Buccaneer Bay where a full scale pirate ship and British frigate engage in a battle of cannon fire. More and more "Disneyland" type resorts sprouted up, including the Excalibur, the Luxor, and New York-New York.

With the Strip expansion in the 1990s, downtown Las Vegas began to suffer. The Fremont Street Experience was built in an effort to draw tourists downtown. While greatly slowing the decline, it did not stop the decline in tourism and revenue.

A concerted effort has been made by city fathers to diversify the Las Vegas economy from tourism by attracting light manufacturing, banking, and other commercial interests. The lack of any state, individual or corporate income tax, and very simple incorporation requirements, have fostered the success of this effort.

Las Vegas is sometimes called Sin City due to the popularity of legalized gambling, availability of alcoholic beverages any time of the day and night, various forms and degrees of adult entertainment, and legalized prostitution in nearby counties ( Nevada law prohibits prostitution in counties which have large populations). The nickname favored by local government and promoters of tourism is The Entertainment Capital of the World. The city's glamorous image has made it a popular setting for films and television programs.

As of the beginning of the decade the Las Vegas metropolitan area is the fastest growing population center in the United States, with more than one and a half million residents.

Kathy Weiser/Legends of America, © May, 2005

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The Luxor is a popular Las Vegas destination, photo

by Amy Stark, April, 2005.

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

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From the Rocky Mountain General Store

Gambling Vintage Photo Prints - Gambling was as popular during the days of the Old West as it is today. This collection provides a fascinating glimpse into the faces and games played more than a century ago.