The Casino 'Gold Rush' in Las Vegas

From its start as only a watering stop along the Old Spanish Trail, Las Vegas has never stopped changing its public face. The government project to build Hoover Dam gave rise to the theaters and first casinos which the state of Nevada quickly protected by legalizing gambling at the local level. Today’s Las Vegas is the latest iteration of the city which was founded in 1905, and offers visitors luxury accommodations, dining and gaming. For those more inclined to do their gaming online from locations of their own choosing, the latest technologies give players worldwide the best in game options including an endless array of online slots to select from.

The casino ‘gold rush’ in Las Vegas began in 1931, after President Herbert Hoover signed the bill to fund construction of Boulder Dam, later renamed Hoover Dam by President Truman. Construction on the dam drew workers from all across the country, and the number of area residents increased to 25,000 and more. The Federal government created housing for these workers, naming the development Boulder City. All these hardworking individuals required some form of entertainment, and the local business owners along with known Mafia crime bosses in the area came together to offer them showgirl theaters and casinos to visit. 

This is the same year the Nevada state legislature voted to legalize gambling to protect this growing gambling industry in Las Vegas. There was already an established illegal gambling industry working in the shadows of the city, but legalization opened the door for visible expansion. In 1931, the first gambling license was issued to the Northern Club, quickly followed by the Las Vegas Club and Hotel Apache. All were located on the paved strip called Fremont Street.
 
Completion of the dam in 1935 and the arrival a few years later of Southern Nevada Power utility company, turned on the glittering lights of Las Vegas and opened the door as a tourist attraction still visited today.

In 1941, what is now Nellis Air Force Base brought many soldiers to the Army Gunnery School for training and the neighboring city of Henderson was established. This militarization of Las Vegas also led in 1942 to the the U.S. Army forcing Las Vegas to ban legal prostitution, putting the local red light district permanently out of business.

The increase in tourists visiting the area gave rise to new casinos offering luxury accommodations, food buffets and gambling, being built in the center of Las Vegas on and around the Strip. Las Vegas Boulevard became home to a number of wedding chapels along with auto courts and motels. The city’s residential houses, single family homes and apartment blocks were pushed away from city center, springing up behind the glitzy casinos and resorts.

The casinos were built in the low rise western architectural style of this period, keeping the roof lines low. Most were a single story, with a few two story designs added in the mix.

Clark Inn Motel
Regency Hotel
Chief Hotel
El Rancho Las Vegas
Last Frontier
Flamingo Hotel
Thunderbird
El Cortez Hotel and Casino
Arizona Club
Eldorado Club Downtown (renamed Binion’s Horseshoe Casino)
Hotel Last Frontier (renamed Silver Slipper)
Huntridge Theater
Desert Inn
Aladdin
Sahara Hotel and Casino
Sands Hotel and Casino
Pioneer Club
New Frontier
Royal Nevada
Showboat
The Riviera (Strip’s first high-rise, 1955)
The Dunes
Stardust
Fremont
Tropicana

Visitors to Las Vegas had reached over 8 million people yearly by 1954, spending $200 million at the casinos. There were a variety of attractions beyond gambling, with Hollywood stars of screen and stage like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis Jr., Liberace, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Elvis Presley, Siegfried and Roy, Abbott and Costello, Jimmy Durante, Pat Cooper, Shirley MacLaine, Marlene Dietrich, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Robert Merrill, Red Skelton, Carol Channing and others, each performing in intimate settings for the audience. The number of residents calling Las Vegas home had risen to over 45,000 by the 1950s.

Starting in 1970, Las Vegas and the surround Clark County saw a steady increase in residents, with the city reaching a population of 552,000 and the county nearly 1.8 million by 2006. It was during this time period that author Hunter S. Thompson published “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, which recounted his 1971 visit to the city, making it infamous in its own time.

In the 1980s, the advertised image of Las Vegas changed. Gone was the early images favored by the Mafia bosses and the ‘Rat Pack’ of Hollywood in favor of a more wholesome, highly commercial and family-oriented style place. Large corporations took over ownership of the hotels, casinos and nightclubs. The media named this new time period the Megaresort era. The first new megaresort was The Mirage, a Steve Wynn project built in 1989 using Wall Street money. This led to a transformation of the Las Vegas Strip, as new luxurious and opulent resorts were built to replace older landmark hotels and other structures which were razed to the ground to make way for the new. Some of the early names were retained, but new names also entered the mix.

1990: Rio and Excalibur
1993: MGM Grand, Treasure Island, and Luxor,
1996: Stratosphere Tower and Monte Carlo
1997: New York-New York
1998: Bellagio
1999: Mandalay Bay, Venetian, and Paris
2000: Planet Hollywood (formerly Aladdin)
2001: Palms
2005: Wynn
2007: Palazzo
2008: Encore
2009: CityCenter (chain of hotels including Mandarin Oriental/Waldorf-Astoria, Vdara, Aria and shopping Crystals)
2010: The Cosmopolitan
2014: The Linq

The Las Vegas of today is very different in appearance from its start-up days, but at the core, it remains a gambling and gaming city. Modern technology has paved the way to different games and machines for playing slots, while online play is another easy way to access all the different slot games just waiting for a player to set the reels spinning. 

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Las_Vegas

https://youtu.be/PSMDPzd11ek