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LVOL
OASIS DISCOVERED
The exact date is unknown, but Rafael Rivera became the first known non-Indian to set foot in the oasis-like Las Vegas Valley. The abundant artesian spring water discovered at Las Vegas shortened the Spanish Trail to Los Angeles, eased rigors for Spanish traders and hastened the rush west for California gold. Between 1830 and 1848, the name "Vegas," as shown on maps of that day, was changed to Las Vegas which means "The Meadows" in Spanish. Some 14 years after Rivera's discovery, John C. Fremont led an overland expedition west and camped at Las Vegas Springs on May 13, 1844. His name is remembered today in neon as well as museums and history books. The Fremont HotelCasino in Downtown Las Vegas bears his name as does Fremont Street -- the main thoroughfare through the heart of casino-lined Glitter Gulch.
MORMON INFLUENCE
Mormon settlers from Salt Lake City traveled to Las Vegas to protect the Los Angeles-Salt Lake City mail route and in 1855 began building a 150-square-foot fort of sun-dried bricks made of clay soil and grass, a substance known as adobe. The Mormons planted fruit trees, cultivated vegetables and mined lead for bullets at Potosi Mountain. Mormon pioneers abandoned the settlement in 1858, partly because of Indian raids. A portion of the "Mormon Fort" has withstood the ravages of time and is an historic site today near the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard North and Washington Avenue. Scientists began an archeological dig on the site in November 1992. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) currently make up about 12 percent of the Southern Nevada population and in December 1989 dedicated a Mormon Temple in Las Vegas. The temple spires are visible in the foothills of Sunrise Mountain to the east of the city.
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Las Vegas Hotels Find information on all Las Vegas area Hotel/Casinos
The railroad yards were located at the birthplace of a partially paved, dusty Fremont Street. Jackie Gaughan's Plaza Hotel, located at Main and Fremont streets in Downtown Las Vegas, today stands on the site of the original Union Pacific Railroad depot. Freight and passenger trains still use the depot site at the hotel as a terminal -- the only railroad station in the world located inside a hotelcasino. Advent of the railroad led to the founding of Las Vegas on May 15, 1905. The SanPedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, owned by Montana Senator Williams Andrews Clark, auctioned off 1,200 lots in a single day in an area which today is casino-lined Glitter Gulch.
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the Flamingo Hotel name has survived the 1940s era of Las Vegas Strip development. The final end of the Flamingo as Bugsy knew it was announced early in 1993 when Hilton Corp. revealed plans to construct a $104 million tower addition at the Strip resort -- the last of a six tower master plan. The addition opened in the spring of 1995. Architectural plans included razing the outmoded, motel-style buildings at the rear of the property, dooming the fortress-like "Bugsy Suite" and bullet proof office used by the gangster before his death in 1946. In December 1993, the last remnants of Bugsy Siegel and his residence were destroyed when the hotel bulldozed the Oregon Building that held the suite in which the gangster once lived.
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showroom favorite to this day. Backstage tours are a hot Las Vegas attraction. During the 50s and 60s, casino lounges also provided continuous entertainment from dusk to dawn at no charge to the customer except the cost of a drink. These lounges, which became major entertainment attractions in their own right, spawned the names of Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett, Shecky Greene, Alan King, Louis Prima and Keely Smith, the Mary Kaye Trio and many others.
NO HOLDS BARRED
In the initial years of the Las Vegas Strip, "no" was a big word -- no cover, no minimum, no state speed limit, no sales tax, no waiting period for marriages, no state income tax and no regulation of gambling as it is known today. In modern times about the only "no's" remaining are no state income tax and no waiting period to obtain a marriage license. No cover charge is still the rule in some casino lounges. The state legislature has imposed sales taxes and strict gambling regulation laws. The federal government has forced Nevada, as well as other states, to adopt highway speed limits. Nevada gambling styles, games and machines evolved to keep pace with more sophisticated, affluent players. Baccarat, known in France as chemin de fer, appeared in high-roller Strip casinos. Keno writers no longer used black indelible ink brushes to mark tickets. Mechanical slot machines, once affectionately termed "one- armed bandits," became antique collector items in the age of electronic gaming. Blackjack dealers no longer dealt single decks but switched to "shoes" that held multiple decks. Silver dollars, once the coin of the realm in Nevada, disappeared and were replaced in casinos with silver-dollar-size tokens. In the 60s, multiple coin slot machines debuted. Mechanical penny and nickel slot machines that took one coin at a time evolved into the popular computerized dollar slot machines capable of accepting multiple tokens simultaneously. High-roller slot players today can find machines that accept $500 tokens. The size of jackpots grew from a few hundred dollars to $10 million dollar progressive jackpots paid on a computerized statewide network of slot machines. In the 70s, video machines that substituted television screens for reels, were introduced. Computerized slot machines now feature poker, keno, blackjack, bingo and craps. Some slot machines accept credit-card style gambling. Casinos continue their evolution toward hightech wagering with every applicable breakthrough in modern technology.
DAWN OF MEGARESORTS
In 1976, when casino-style gaming was legalized in Atlantic City, N.J., it became apparent to Las Vegas casino owners that Nevada no longer could claim exclusive rights to gambling casinos. It perhaps hastened the beginning of another era for the Strip -- the megaresort. Hotel-casinos began the race to become full-blown destination resorts for travelers, vacationers, gamblers, conventioneers and all members of the family. Circus Circus Enterprises Inc., in October 1968 already had opened a circus-tent-shaped casino complete with midway games and rides for youngsters. A hotel was added in 1972. Owners of the resort have developed a $90 million water theme park called Grand Slam Canyon on five acres adjoining the Circus Circus Hotel-Casino. The entertainment park, a takeoff on the Grand Canyon, includes 140-foot mountains, a 90-foot Havasupai Falls, and a coursing river where the adventuresome can assault river rapids, plunge over a 50-foot waterfall, fly through the canyon and caverns in a double-loop, cork-screw roller coaster or lounge on beach- rimmed, lagoon-like pools. Grand Slam Canyon, which opened Aug. 23, 1993, is climate- controlled and enclosed by a vented pink space-frame dome. The 3,049-room Mirage Hotel-Casino opened in the fall of 1989 at a construction cost of $630 million. It features a white tiger habitat, a dolphin pool, an elaborate swimming pool and waterfall and a man-made volcano that belches fire and water. Mirage owner Steve Wynn, who also owns the Golden Nugget Hotel-Casino in Downtown Las Vegas, constructed the 2,900-room Treasure Island adjacent to The Mirage at a cost of $430 million. The hotel features Buccaneer Bay where a full scale pirate ship and British frigate engage in a battle of cannon fire. In the end, the pirates blast the British and the frigate slowly sinks beneath the churning waves. With Treasure Island, which opened Oct. 27, 1993, and the Mirage side by side on the Las Vegas Strip, Wynn has nearly 6,000 rooms on a 100-acre site. Additionally, Wynn purchased the 164-acre Dunes Hotel and Country Club on the Las Vegas Strip for $75 million in 1992. He spent $1 million renovating the country club on the golf course. In
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October 1993, the flamboyant casino owner staged a $1.5 million spectacular in which the north tower of the Dunes Hotel was imploded and the famous Dunes Hotel sign destroyed amid a shower of fireworks never before equaled west of the Mississippi. More than 200,000 people crowded onto the Strip to witness the spectacular. Wynn plans to build a resort named Beau Rivage on the Dunes site and has announced a deal with Gold Strike Resorts to construct a hotel/casino on another part of the property north of the Tropicana Avenue and the Las Vegas Strip intersection. The Excalibur, a 4,000-room colossus, opened June 19, 1990. The imaginative medieval "castle" was developed by Circus Circus Enterprises Inc. for between $260 and $290 million. Some floors are devoted solely to non-gambling entertainment for children and the young at heart. Court jesters perform in public areas. The showroom features jousting on horseback by knights of King Arthur's court. William Bennett, founder of Circus Circus Enterprises Inc., constructed the 2,526-room, pyramid-shaped Luxor a quarter mile south of the Excalibur. The Luxor, a modern marvel which cost $375 million dollars to build, is linked to the Excalibur by monorail. The Luxor features a full-scale reproduction of King Tut's Tomb. The world's most powerful beam of light shines from the top of the pyramid. It is visible to planes 250 miles away in Los Angeles. The atrium in the middle of the pyramid could hold nine Boeing 747s stacked one atop of another. The most ambitious resort project in the history of Las Vegas is located at the intersection of the Las Vegas Strip and Tropicana Avenue. It is the MGM Grand Hotel & Theme Park -- the largest resort hotel in the world and the dream of pioneer Las Vegas hotel developer and multimillionaire entrepreneur Kirk Kerkorian. The $1 billion, 112-acre resort hotel, casino and theme park highlights the MGM Hollywood image. With the 33-acre theme park as the center piece, the 5,005-room hotel boasts a 171,500-square-foot casino, 12 theme restaurants, a 1,700-seat production showroom, a 630-seat production theater, three swimming pools, five tennis courts, a child care center and a 215,000-square-foot, 15,200-seat special events arena for concerts, sporting events and exhibitions. The MGM Grand Hotel and Theme Park opened Dec. 18, 1993. In August 1994, MGM Grand Inc., and Primadonna Resorts Inc., revealed a joint venture to build a 1,500-room hotel/casino on 18- acres at Tropicana Avenue and the Las Vegas Strip. The $300 million resort, named New York, New York, will highlight the best the "Big Apple" has to offer. The property's skyline will feature replicas of such New York City landmarks as the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. The resort is scheduled to open sometime in 1996. The huge hotel conglomerate ITT Sheraton Corp. made it's first foray into Las Vegas and gaming in 1993 when it purchased the Desert Inn Hotel Casino from Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. Late in 1994, Sheraton announced a deal to purchase Caesars World Inc., the parent company of Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip for $1.7 billion. The deal was expected to be finalized sometime in 1995, pending approval from a host of state and federal regulatory agencies. When New Year 1994 dawned in Las Vegas, the dusty railroad town that started its race toward the 21st Century in 1905 boasted more than 86,000 hotel and motel rooms and had become home to 13 of the 20 largest resort hotels in the world. By the start of 1995, the city was awash with more than 88,500 rooms.
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Also planned is a Downtown parking building for 1,500 vehicles with an entertainment-style retail shopping plaza. The Fremont Street Experience will become a center for festivals, holiday celebrations and live entertainment when completed, according to planners. Fremont Street was officially closed to vehicle traffic Sept. 7, 1994. On Sept. 8, state and city officials, prominent Las Vegans and members of the Fremont Street Experience participated in a "cruise through history," in a line-up of classic cars from the Nevada Car Club Council that made the last vehicular ride down Fremont Street to celebrate the next step in the evolution of Glitter Gulch. The Public grand opening of the Fremont Street Experience was on December 14, 1995. The Fremont Street Experience features Viva Vision, the world's largest video screen which is 1,500 feet long, 90 feet wide and suspended 90 feet above the urban pedestrian mall. Viva Vision features nightly spectacular light and sounds shows with 12.5 million LED lights and a 550,000-watt sound system. Fremont Street Experience is a one-of-a-kind venue which includes free nightly concerts and entertainment on two stages. With direct pedestrian access to 10 casinos, more than 60 restaurants and specialty retail kiosks, Fremont Street Experience attracts over 17 million annual visitors. From the modest beginnings of Las Vegas, Fremont Street initially was in the forefront of the gambling industry. It became the city's first paved street in 1925, the first street to have a traffic light and it is the site of the first Downtown highrise -- the Fremont Hotel, built in 1956. The Apache Hotel on Fremont Street in 1932 was the first Las Vegas resort to have an elevator. The Horseshoe was the first casino to install carpet. And the first gaming license was issued to a Downtown Fremont Street gambling hall. Downtown Las Vegas already had 36 years of history by the time the El Rancho Vegas became the first hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip in 1941.
some of the above information provided by the Las Vegas News Bureau
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